BenQ has been making Mac-friendly monitors for years, and their new MA270S is the creme de la creme of their lineup. It’s a 27-inch 5K monitor, but with a feature that most monitors don’t offer: a glossy finish.
All Apple displays ship with a glossy finish by default, but for one reason or another, matte finishes have dominated the outdoor monitor market – and BenQ is bucking the trend. This makes the MA270S very much at home with a Mac.
I tested the MA270U last year, their budget-friendly Mac offering. It’s still a 27-inch panel, though it clocks in at 4K instead of 5K. It comes with a matte finish by default, although they make an alternative with a glossy finish for those who prefer it. BenQ offers excellent colors, so you don’t have to worry about it feeling inferior compared to your MacBook screen.
Overview
The new MA270S follows many of the same design philosophies as the MA270U that I tried. It has the same small bezels, the same small silver stand (with a silicone pad on the base to rest your MacBook without scratching it), and plenty of ports.
You can use the MA270S with a single USB-C cable, power your MacBook and manage all your devices connected to the monitor. The display offers four USB-C ports, two USB-A ports, and two additional HDMI ports for other devices.
BenQ also offers an app called Display Pilot 2, which lets you control the display and monitor brightness from your Mac’s keyboard, without having to fiddle with the monitor controls. It also offers KVM, which allows you to easily use a keyboard and mouse with your Mac and Windows PC.
The built-in stand swivels, moves, pivots, and has height adjustment. The display panel, on the other hand, offers 99% P3 color, offers HDR400 support, goes up to 70Hz (although that’s nothing to write home about), and has built-in speakers.
Finish it
Honestly, the only real compromise compared to the Studio display is two-fold:
That said, the MA270S comes in at just $999, compared to the $1599 price tag of Apple’s Studio Display — while offering the same 27-inch 5K panel with a glossy finish. The savings are huge, and at the end of the day, the MA270S will be one of the few 5K options on the market with a glossy finish – so if you’re after that, it’s kind of a no-brainer. It’s been my daily driver for weeks, and I’m certainly happy with it.
You can buy the MA270S on the BenQ website or on Amazon (out of stock at the time of writing). Or, if you’re looking for one of the cheaper (albeit 4K) glossy monitors, you can check out the MA270UP or MA320UP, with 27-inch and 32-inch display sizes, respectively. Both of these are available on Amazon.
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