We review products independently, but we may earn affiliate commissions from buying links on this page. Terms of use. The BenQ EX3203R ($599) offers good value in a large-screen entertainment monitor geared primarily to gaming. Its 31.5-inch screen provides ample space and resolution for gaming and video watching alike, and the image is bright, with accurate colors. It doesn't approach the sheer number of gaming-centric features found in Editors' Choice gaming displays like the MSI Optix MPG341CQR and the Asus ROG Strix XG32VQ, but it does well with what it has. A Stealth Gaming Panel The EX3203R's 31.5-inch, 10-bit vertical alignment (VA) panel has a native resolution of 2,560 by 1,440 pixels (QHD), with a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio. Its pixel density of 93 pixels per inch (ppi) is fine for a gaming or general entertainment monitor, though it's not ideal for tasks such as editing photos. (All else being equal, the greater the pixel density, the sharper the image should be.) The screen is sharply curved, rated for 1800R curvature. This means that if you could place enough EX3203R monitors side by side to form a complete circle, it would have a radius of 1,800mm, or 1.8 meters. Curved screens offer the user a more immersive experience than flat screens. We have only seen two or three monitors, all gaming models, with a curvature greater than 1800R, the maximum being 1500R. For a largely gaming-centered monitor, the EX3203R's looks are understated. The panel is housed in a matte gray-black cabinet with nearly invisible bezels on the sides and top, making it a good choice for a multi-monitor array. When affixed to its stand, it measures 21.1 by 28.1 by 8.6 inches (HWD) and weighs 17.8 pounds. In back of the monitor, where the cabinet attaches to the stand, are holes for a VESA mount (not included) in case you instead opt to affix it to a wall or arm. The stand, with a silver-colored, V-shaped base, provides height and tilt control, but it does not swivel or pivot. A Good Port Selection The stand's shaft has a large hole in it to let you snake cables to the panel. The port mix comprises two HDMI 2.0 inputs, one DisplayPort input, a USB Type-C port, two USB 3 ports, and an audio-out jack for connecting to headphones or powered speakers. (The EX3203R lacks built-in speakers.) The USB-C port supports data transfer and video input, as well as power transfer of up to 10 watts, which is enough to charge a phone or tablet quickly, but not a laptop. I connected my Dell XPS 13 to the monitor via USB-C, with the laptop turned on and displaying a photo, with Battery Saver fully enabled, and it slowly but steadily lost charge. A laptop in use therefore should be plugged into a power supply when connected via USB-C. That said, the EX3203R charged my XPS 13 when I shut it down, at roughly 10 percent per hour. All of the ports are downward-facing at the back of the cabinet, an unwieldy configuration, particularly as you can't pivot the panel to portrait configuration to access them. I had to set the monitor on our test bench with the screen facing upward to connect cables. The onscreen display (OSD) is accessible through a set of buttons on the bottom of the EX3203R. Although navigating with them is not as convenient as with a mini-joystick controller, such as the ones found on many recent gaming monitors, the menu system is pretty straightforward. Finding your desired option from within the menu settings may be more of a challenge. The OSD has five main menu choices. The generically named Display menu lets you choose picture-in-picture (PIP) mode (which displays one video source on the screen with the second one in an inset window) or picture-by-picture (PBP, which allows you to display video from two different sources side by side), and select your input source or sources. The Picture menu lets you control brightness, contrast, sharpness, and the like. The Picture Advanced menu lets you choose among 11 picture modes: Standard, HDR, Cinema HDR, Photo, sRGB, three gaming modes, two Custom modes, and M-book (a mode for the MacBook). Also from here, you can access a Low Blue Light mode and several other settings. Also accessible in the OSD is an Audio menu, from which can control the volume or mute the sound when you're using headphones. Last is the System menu, where you control FreeSync, USB-C configuration, OSD settings (such as language), and similar parameters. BenQ covers the EX3203R with a three-year warranty on parts, labor, and the backlight. The monitor ships with a power adapter, an HDMI 2.0 cable, and a USB-C cable, as well as one for DisplayPort-to-mini-DisplayPort. (A DisplayPort-to-DisplayPort cable would have been more broadly useful than the latter.) Bright, With Accurate Color I did our luminance, color, and contrast testing using a Klein K10-A colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G signal generator, an X-Rite i1Basic Pro 2 color profiler, and Portrait Displays CalMAN 5 software. BenQ rates the EX3203R's luminance (the brightness per unit area) at 400 nits (candelas per meter squared) and its contrast ratio at 3,000:1, which is standard for a VA panel. (It is certified as DisplayHDR 400, the lowest rung on VESA's HDR standard, which mostly means that it can demonstrate a luminance of 400 nits.) I measured the EX3203R at 419 lumens in Cinema HDR mode and 408 lumens in standard-definition (SDR) sRGB color mode. The difference between its HDR and SDR brightness proved relatively small. That said, this is one of the few monitors whose HDR and SDR brightness both exceeded 400 nits in my testing. BenQ claims that the EX3203R covers 90 percent of the DCI-P3 color space, and this was borne out in our testing (see the chart above)—we measured it at 89.9 percent. The area bounded by the triangle represents the limits of the DCI-P3 color space, and as expected, most of the points are a little bit within the triangle, and fairly evenly spaced. DCI-P3 is a color standard developed primarily for cinema video by Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI), a joint venture among the leading movie studios. Starting in 2015, Apple has phased in DCI-P3 as its primary color space for its iMacs and MacBooks. I also viewed selections from our suite of test video clips, as well as a series of standard photos. With the photos, there was good color saturation and contrast, but they were not as sharp as they were on some other comparable monitors. Video looked very good, with a bright image and realistic-looking colors. When I ran a few HDR clips, I saw modest improvement in brightness and contrast versus the same clips run in SDR, which already looked bright, with good color and contrast. Who Needs Bells and Whistles? Although it lacks many of the frills found on some gaming monitors (such as LED ambient lighting, a mini-joystick controller, and a large range of gaming-specific picture modes), the EX3203R has several important gaming features. It employs AMD FreeSync 2 adaptive sync technology which, although we generally prefer G-Sync for its wider applicability, has advantages in handling HDR content over the original FreeSync. See How We Test Monitors Also, it supports refresh rates of up to 144Hz. (To access the 144Hz setting, you must use a DisplayPort connection—over HDMI, the panel maxes out at 120Hz—and enable FreeSync 2 at the "normal" setting from the OSD.) Its gray-to-gray pixel response is rated at 4 milliseconds (ms). In testing with an HDFury 4K Diva, the EX3203R showed very low input lag, turning in a score of 2.3ms at a 60Hz refresh rate. As our testbed runs an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2080 graphics card, I did not have a chance to try the EX3203 with FreeSync 2 enabled, but it did well in running games and/or canned benchmark runs from Final Fantasy XV, Shadow of the Tomb Raider, and Far Cry 5 with a minimum of artifacts. The Final Fantasy benchmark looked seamless and smoother than with several other recent monitors on which I'd run it. An Understated Yet Capable Panel Although it doesn't sport an imposing set of gaming features, the BenQ EX3203R offers a bright image and accurate colors while providing a few key perks like a high refresh rate, FreeSync 2, an enveloping curvature, and low input lag. The MSI Optix MPG341CQR, our most recent Editors' Choice gaming monitor with a comparable screen size (it's slightly larger and wider), packs in a bunch more goodies, including ambient and informational LEDs, an ergonomic stand, several sideward-facing ports, a mouse bungee, and a mini joystick controller. That's not to mention Gaming OSD 2.0 (a program that lets you control gaming-centric menus using your mouse and keyboard), a 144Hz refresh rate, FreeSync 2, and an even better input-lag score (1.4ms) than the BenQ. Another Editors' Choice winner of like size, the Asus ROG Strix XG32VQ, provides a similar wealth of features to the MSI Optix while matching the EX3203R's screen specifications. That said, BenQ's EX3203R is a capable yet understated alternative for more casual gamers who value performance and frugality but don't need a monitor that revolves entirely around gaming and shouts it to the world. Bottom Line: The BenQ EX3203R is a 32-inch entertainment monitor with a bright image, accurate colors, and some good gaming features.

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