BenQ GL2580HM

What is the BenQ GL2580HM?

The GL2580HM is a fairly typical entry-level monitor. It measures 24.5-inches from corner to corner, it has a 1080p resolution, and it uses the less desirable TN type of LCD, as opposed to IPS. However, this the reason it costs just £140.

Moreover, unlike many a cheap monitor, with the GL2580HM you get a sleek, “frameless” bezel. It also offers a decent connectivity, plus speakers are included too. If you’re in the market for a budget screen, it’s certainly worth considering.

BenQ GL2580HM – Design and build

The standout feature of the GL2580HM – considering its price – is its narrow bezel. The top and sides of the screen merge with the frame behind, leaving just a slight 1.5mm physical bezel. This significantly ups this monitor’s desk appeal, over a conventionally framed display.

The choice of all-black for the rest of the display works well too. An Apple 5K display this isn’t, but this BenQ is no dumpy, cheap-looking panel either.

However, while the stand and frame may be stylish, they’re not particularly feature-packed. Most notably, the stand offers only a slight back and forth tilt adjustment, with no height or swivel adjustment at all. Instead, those who want a display that they can move around more easily will have to take advantage of the 100 x 100mm VESA mount on the rear.

The BenQ GL2580HM also doesn’t offer anything in the way of extras. There’s no USB hub, no headphone stand and no gaming features – but it’s as you’d expect for the price.
There are a couple of niceties, though. The power supply here is internal, so you’re not lumbered with an annoying power brick.

Connectivity is also decent with one DVI, one HDMI and one VGA port. For anyone with a reasonably modern computer, an extra HDMI or a DisplayPort would have been more useful than the DVI and VGA, but they’ll be handy for backwards compatibility.

On this HM version of the GL2580 you get speakers and an audio input, enabling you to pipe music to the screen when using DVI or VGA. Meanwhile, the GL2580H version drops the speakers and audio input and is around £10 cheaper. Both models include a headphone jack.

For the gamers out there, the GL2580HM doesn’t have too much to shout about. Its TN panel means pixel response time is just 2ms, but the monitor is only rated to refresh at up to 60Hz. However, I was able to get the monitor running at 75Hz by creating a custom resolution in AMD’s drivers, so you can eek out a few extra FPS.

Notably, though, you don’t get FreeSync. This is a feature that can make games look better by reducing image tearing and stutter, and it’s relatively common even on cheap displays.

BenQ GL2580HM – OSD and setup

The GL2580HM has five buttons on the underside of its frame that are used to control its onscreen display (OSD). These aren’t quite as intuitive as the joystick on the LG 23MP68VQ-P, but are still easy enough to use. Crucially, the buttons are nice and large, so are easy to feel your way around. Also, the layout of the menus means it always feels reasonably natural as to which button you should press next.

You get a comprehensive set of options for setting up the display. All the basics such as brightness and contrast are present, plus you get colour temperature, saturation and gamma settings. These options are often lacking in cheaper displays. Their inclusion here means it’s easy to dial in just the right colour balance.

As for gaming, there’s only a single option available to tweak: Advanced Motion Acceleration, or AMA. This is just another term for overdrive, which is where a higher voltage is applied to each pixel to make it transition faster. It can slightly reduce some of the blurriness associated with LCD screens, although here it seemed to make very little difference.

BenQ GL2580HM – Image Quality

For a basic TN LCD monitor, this display is astonishingly good. Unlike so many such monitors, the poor viewing angles of the TN technology don’t result in an image that constantly feels like it’s shifting and changing as you move your head by even the slightest amount.

Tilt the screen up and down and you get the tell-tale lightening and darkening of the image, but in normal use it’s hardly noticeable.

What’s more, it appears to produce surprisingly rich colours, there’s plenty of contrast, and the colour balance looks spot on. There’s no red, green or blue tinge to it, and the gradient of colour from light to dark feels right.

Viewing angles: From below the display looks darker; from above it’s lighter

I fired up my colorimeter and tested the monitor’s colour performance – and, sure enough, it proved rather impressive.

BenQ GL2580HM – Non-calibrated image quality metrics

• Max Brightness: 265 nits
• Contrast: 712:1
• Gamma: 1.99
• Colour temperature: 6915K
• Delta E average: 0.14
• sRGB coverage: 92.2%
• DCI-P3 coverage: 71.4%

Its colour temperature of 6915K is close enough to the ideal of 6500K that most users would never feel the need to adjust the colour balance. Its colour space coverage is also decent, managing 92.2% of the sRGB colour space. Its Delta E score of 0.14 is excellent. In other words, this monitor is quite capable of producing nearly all the standard computer sRGB colour space and it can pick out all the fine differences between those colours too.

Meanwhile, a gamma score of 1.99 is a little way off the ideal of 2.2, but switching to the next option down in the OSD’s gamma setting soon sorted this out.

Maximum brightness is a little low at just 265 nits, but this is more of an academic consideration: most of the time, we recommend using a monitor at a much lower brightness.

The only slight letdown is contrast, which is just 712:1. We generally like to see closer to 1000:1, even on basic TN displays. However, it still looks decent, and I only really consider 600:1 and lower to be truly detrimental to image quality.

BenQ GL2580HM – Calibrated image quality metrics

• Contrast: 782:1
• Gamma: 2.21
• Colour temperature: 6463K
• Delta E average: 0.13
• sRGB coverage: 91.9%
• DCI-P3 coverage: 71.4%

All told, aside from changing the gamma setting, this display is ready to roll right out of the box. However, if you do have a colorimeter and can calibrate the display then it can do even better.

Tweaking the colour balance from 100 x 100 x 100 (RGB) to 99 x 100 x 96 pulled the colour temperature to 6460K – just 40K short of the ideal 6500K figure. This also improved contrast to 779:1 and Delta E to 0.13.

Trying the 75Hz refresh rate and Premium AMD setting didn’t revolutionise this display’s gaming performance. However, if gaming is a key concern then this display will do better than similarly priced displays that have IPS LCD panels, or those that are limited to just 60Hz.

Why buy the BenQ GL2580HM?

There’s much to like about this display. It has an attractive design plus it includes a number of practical features, such as its internal power supply, decent selection of connectivity and included speakers. It also offers surprisingly good image quality for a basic TN LCD panel, and generally it feels a step up from the very cheapest 1080p monitors.

Add to this the fact that it can run at 75Hz and it has just a 2ms response time, and it can even offer a slightly better gaming experience than some.

However, it’s also a touch close to the price of other monitors that include more desirable IPS LCD panels, such as the LG 23MP68VQ-P. They also tend to be slightly smaller 23-inch screens, but since they offer the same resolution, they’re much of a muchness.

All told, the BenQ GL2580HM isn’t a display that overly excites – but it isn’t one that will do you wrong either.

Verdict

For a budget 1080p monitor, the BenQ GL2580HM has plenty going for it – even if it doesn’t truly excel at any one thing.

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