Grey Contrast with BenQ XL2730Z

Despite modifying all the display settings (brightness, contrast, sharpness, gamma, color temperature etc.) of my BenQ XL2730Z, I can't seem to get an acceptable contrast, especially with grey colors. Here's a photo of my Macbook display from Google Maps:

And here's the same photo on the BenQ display:

As you can see, on the Macbook display, the roads appear fine (the contrast between the white of the roads and the grey of the non-roads is acceptable). However, on the BenQ display, it's like there's no contrast at all.

This happens in several other web applications (including Gmail) rendering the LCD display almost unusable.

faridghar

Posted 2016-10-29T09:08:49.707

Reputation: 157

It's the display profile that's wrong. You could try a manual setup from system prefs > displays > color > calibrate... but these are usually less than satisfactory. The only real way to do it is with a hardware colorimeter. – Tetsujin – 2016-10-29T09:47:10.083

how is it that the default/out-of-the-box profile for such an expensive gaming monitor is so bad? I tried using the OSX calibration wizard but as you said, the results were even worse than the photos above. – faridghar – 2016-10-29T15:39:09.770

what's interesting is that when I enable f.lux and wait until night time, which is when f.lux kicks in, things get significantly better! – faridghar – 2016-10-29T15:39:59.450

You didn't mention f.lux... which will change the display profile itself. Best way to not have to fight f.lux at all is to not have it. btw, out of the box profiles can be a bit generic; a colorimeter is the only real way to get it right, trying to do it manually is very hit & miss, human eyes are just too forgiving. – Tetsujin – 2016-10-29T15:43:33.597

All the tests I did were with f.lux completely disabled. BenQ support just sent me a video where they navigate to Menu > Display > HDMI RGB PC range and switch its value to "RGB(0-255)". The thing is, on my monitor, this setting is greyed out and I cannot selected it. The only difference between my setup and BenQ support's setup is that I'm using a Macbook whereas they're using a Windows laptop. Could that be why? – faridghar – 2016-10-31T18:30:00.320

afaik, disabling f.lux doesn't put the proper profiles back. I'd check to make absolutely sure if it did or not. & sorry, I've no clue how the BenQ works, never owned one. – Tetsujin – 2016-10-31T18:55:21.020

Answers

It turns out there's a setting in the monitor Menu > Display > HDMI RGB PC Range. You need to set this to "RGB(0 ~255)". If you have a Mac connected to the monitor, there's a chance that this setting will be greyed out and you won't be able to select it. If that's the case, follow the instructions here to enable the setting.

faridghar

Posted 2016-10-29T09:08:49.707

Reputation: 157

Instead of Display, on my BENQ monitor I needed to go to Picture Advanced, thus: Menu > Display > Picture Advanced > HDMI RGB ... in case that helps anyone. – party-ring – 2019-10-14T14:56:52.600

I solved this on my Benq monitor, purchased in 2018.

Look for a setting called "Picture Advanced." Under this, choose "HDMI RGB PC Range," then choose "RGB (0~255)".

The grey in my watermark (ex. DRAFT watermark in MS Word) showed up after this.

Jeffrey Ng

Posted 2016-10-29T09:08:49.707

Reputation: 9

This answer is quite similar to the accepted answer of @faridghar above. – zx485 – 2019-03-05T23:17:01.110

agreed, this answer is a subset of my answer above. – faridghar – 2019-08-26T06:09:10.967

-2

and it could just be the display is getting old. My Samsung did a similar thing late in life. I forget what type screen that was, but newer displays don't seem to get old that way. If you can't reset to default and get a decent screen with tweaks in contrast and brightness, it may be time to visit smile.amazon.com

ruggb

Posted 2016-10-29T09:08:49.707

Reputation: 160

I just bought the display 3 weeks ago – faridghar – 2016-10-31T18:24:55.717