If you want the ultimate in motion clarity this could be the product for you.
Over the past year we’ve seen a lot of new high refresh rate monitor releases.
While the materials aren’t particularly luxurious, they are adequate for the intended audience.
Last time we looked at a540Hz monitorthere were a few interesting quirks, but these have largely been resolved.
HDR functionality is not at all included, and there’s no hardware to support it anyway.
The high and premium modes are quite similar.
The high mode improves performance to 3.02ms with negligible overshoot and a cumulative deviation of 231.
However we do hit 50% refresh compliance for 480Hz gaming which is still quite fast.
Anything below 300Hz though and performance falls away, especially for overshoot.
At high refresh rates like 540Hz the impact of this artefact is negligible.
When the top part is being scanned out and refreshed, the backlight will strobe at the top.
When the middle scans out, the middle strobes.
And so on throughout the display.
This has a noticeable benefit for motion clarity.
There are a few other advantages in favor of the BenQ model.
So for example, the 540Hz XL2586X with DyAc 2 looks better than the 360Hz QD-OLED 271QRX.
So best versus best, premium esports LCDs are still ahead of OLED.
However there are lots of restrictions to gaming using backlight strobing.
360Hz QD-OLED gets very close in motion, and I’d have 480Hz ahead.
Power consumption is decent, though the new model does consume slightly more power than its predecessor.
Generally though these monitors aren’t designed for efficiency and more efficient products are available, typically IPS LCDs.
You’ll also see oversaturation due to the wider than sRGB color gamut.
The standard mode gets the closest, but even then it retains a poor gamma.
Minimum brightness of 40 nits is acceptable.
Speaking of viewing angles, the XL2586X is atrocious in this area.
I also wasn’t overly impressed with uniformity, which is mediocre at least with my unit.
I’m thinking about decent color calibration, wide viewing angles, USB hub, those sorts of things.
There are a few borderline results though.
Also, while 60Hz strobing is supported, it looks awful and I wouldn’t recommend using it.
Outside of this it was nice to see low input lag and LCD benefits like no burn in risk.
Who Is It For?
The BenQ Zowie XL2586X is an interesting monitor to look at purely from a technical perspective.
We almost see the XL2586X as a tool rather than as a consumer product.
We almost see the XL2586X as a tool rather than as a consumer product.
This will be exactly what you’re after.
For most gamers this is not a product that you should consider though.
On top of all this, the price is a major roadblock.
We don’t even think the price makes sense compared to other strobe-focused LCD gaming monitors.
That’s the absolute most we would consider paying and even then it feels like it’s a lot.
