It always surprises me when any particular brand that I associate with a certain type of product turns out to also produce other devices. In the case of BenQ, it’s less of a surprise as the company has been spreading out their reach into all aspects of consumer items and PC components, not the least of which are the LCD series slowly being filled out as a complete product line.

The latest LCD to come out from BenQ is the G900HD, a 16:9 squat-looking beauty that coincidentally matches up well with my existing work monitor – a 15” jobbie that is in a 4:3 aspect ration. The G900 looks very wide in comparison, and rightly so, its somewhat unconventional  18.5” size, combined with the aforementioned 16:9 aspect ratio, makes for a monitor that seemingly flaunts its widescreen influence even as you open its box and take a first look at it.

                                             Plain-looking at first, the BenQ G900HD's subtle curves soon show up.

As first looks go, this one gives a surprisingly nice view – the G900 isn’t styled as severely as say, a Dell or an HP LCD, but it isn’t as plain and dowdy as a Chimei or a Mag. To whit, it has a stylized, protruding and textured lower “bar” which holds the button controls and the power, and gives the LCD a broad “base”, further emphasizing its width. A relatively thin bezel sets off the G900, but the stand that supports the whole thing is somewhat of a letdown as it’s very plain and un-styled.

                                              A textured lower bar gives a good foundation for the slim bezel.

No matter, the BenQ G900HD exceeded my expectations for a brand with not a very long prior experience with producing LCD monitors, and other thoughtful design touches make up for the utilitarian stand, such as a thin profile all around that’s only interrupted by the centrally-mounted body, straked cooling vents along the top, and a thoughtfully placed cable holder, not to mention the unorthodox but nice yellow-against-red dimpled power button.

                                             OSD controls and power button. Note the nearly washed-out text indicators for the OSD buttons.

Technical specs reveal a company that’s willing to stray from convention – the G900 is a 2-lamp design (referring to the backlighting for LCDs) as opposed to the more standard 4-Lamp models of the competition. BenQ is still able to achieve a nominal 300 nits brightness rating while only consuming 30 W of power, according to BenQ. A 10000:1 DCR (dynamic contrast ratio) is also employed, all for the purpose of adhering to an environmentally responsible promise by BenQ, and still deliver the performance buyers look for.

                                             Dual connectivity.

Further emphasizing this is BenQ’s Senseye+Photo Image Technology – five pre-set display modes that can be adjusted according to requirement and situation. Additional specifications include the ability to output either through a DVI or VGA connector, a 1366 x 768 resolution, a large-ish 0.3 pixel pitch and a fast 5ms response time HDCP compliance comes standard.

                                            Cable holder is perfect for data and power cables.

In practice, the 2-lamp deficit cannot be noticed at all; brightness at maximum is nearly blinding – same as when dynamic contrast is used. Displaying scenic pictures with blue and earth shades revealed somewhat softer blues than normal, although the earth tones look more pronounced than our reference CRT monitor. Adjustment of the color controls should be able to sort these niggles out. Text output is nominal, text reproduction seems a bit jaggier than my old 15” Mag, on the other hand, super small text of size 8 (and below) looked better on the BenQ than any other LCD we had on hand.

                                             The dimpled power button adds a nice touch.

Some small niggles marred my experience with the G900 – the OSD controls mounted on the bottom of the panel are marked by raised lettering on the textured bottom of the G900, but the lettering is lost against the background design, necessitating a little fumbling around for the correct buttons to press during adjustment.

The wide pixel pitch is also a bit worrisome, although I cannot say that I noticed any difference in normal text reading and picture viewing on the G900 – movie viewing seemed a bit fuzzier, but is well within the tolerance levels of most buyers. Finally, the native resolution of 1366 x 758 is a bit unorthodox especially for a dedicated PC LCD monitor, a few games or applications may have a hard time adapting to this – though this is a small enough worry as most new applications will be able to adapt to most resolutions on offer. Overall, the BenQ G900HD is a surprisingly good entry from a company more well known for their optical drives and projectors, and a wonderful statement of their environmental consciousness.