BenQ PD2706QN QHD monitor review
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I’ve been reviewing monitors for a long time and think we may officially be in the era of standard or near-standard 4K monitors, given their current popularity. It’s hard to find monitors that aren’t 4K these days; However, this also means that companies have been chasing the 4K badge for some time now, and in that race some have lost their focus on color accuracy.
For professional users who don’t care if their red looks like the perfect red or their blacks are a perfect black, or their magenta is the perfect shade, this may not be a big deal, but for those working in the creative space, especially in design, where colors are your world, precision and factory calibration are huge.
BenQ offers this display with 95% DCI-P3 range coverage, factory-calibrated Delta E ≤ 2, certifications from the biggest names, a Nano Matte panel, an integrated USB-C hub and still only QHD resolution. We must therefore ask ourselves the question: is this sufficient in 2026?
BenQ PD2706QN: Price and availability
The BenQ PD2706QN costs around $400, available at many online retailers – but at the time of review, it’s marked down to $280 at Amazon.com.
In the UK it is also widely available, priced at £300 from Amazon.co.uk.
For this price, it’s a solid monitor. BenQ also offers higher-end PD displays with higher resolution for a few hundred dollars more, but if you don’t need 4K, the PD2706QN may be the better choice.
BenQ PD2706QN: design and manufacturing quality
BenQ has always excelled in build quality, striking a great balance between price and craftsmanship on every monitor I’ve tested. The PD2706QN has a functional stand that gets the job done, although I miss their Ergo line. Since BenQ now sells dedicated monitor arms, I’ll forgive this and consider using one on multiple displays.
Return to individual display. It has great colors, but we talked about that. What I want to cover here is the Nano Matte display, physical build, desktop usability, and a few other design-specific points.
For starters, BenQ’s Nano Matte display is absolutely phenomenal. The screen remains high precision, blocks light beautifully and reduces glare, even when direct light hits the screen. Even when light hits the panel directly, color accuracy remains sharp and precise, making it easy to make your projects look as perfect as possible, whether you’re editing during the day or at night.
The physical construction of this sign is clean and professional without being boring or dated. It has relatively slim bezels and a matte black finish on the case, giving it a professional and sleek look. It’s the kind of monitor you don’t feel the need to hide behind a wall, and can display on your desk without it being too noisy.
The stand is also pretty good. I haven’t been a fan of basic monitor stands for a while now, but this one gets the job done. It’s nothing fancy, and I’d still prefer ergonomic arms, but if you really want that feeling, you can place your monitor on a monitor arm like I usually do.
Some monitors look high-end, like the famous Apple monitors and other professional-level monitors, and some look cheap, like, well, I won’t name them here. The BenQ PD2706QN is a good compromise. It can blend in if needed, but it can also fit into a high-end office. Although there’s a good chance this level display will be used on more budget-conscious setups.
BenQ PD2706QN: In use
The BenQ PD2706QN has been a great display for my team and I over the past three months. A member of my team or I used it almost daily during that time, and put it through its paces and then some. This monitor has been primarily used for creative work including Photoshop, Illustrator, web design, video editing in DaVinci Resolve, and more. This has been great for ensuring color consistency across all projects. Even switching from the connected 16-inch MacBook Pro display to this one, we noticed almost no color differences, and if there were, they were negligible and didn’t slow us down at all when switching from mobile to docked work on this monitor.
Since BenQ emphasizes skin tone accuracy and shadow detail, we tested it extensively not only in theory but also in real-world use. We work a lot with photos of people in our projects, so we edited them as we normally would with the PD2706QN and found that this panel reproduced a wide range of skin tones exceptionally well.
We also used this screen as a reference monitor for a podcast recording, plugging the camera directly into the HDMI port to make sure we were in frame, focused correctly, and had the right settings. Since BenQ included standard display inputs on this monitor, we easily switched between camera monitoring and editing: connecting our MacBook via USB-C, charging while connected, and switching between devices with the simple on-screen controls.
An upgrade over previous models, this unit offers a 100Hz refresh rate, making video playback and editing exceptionally smooth. It’s not 120Hz, yes, but in our editing experience we haven’t noticed any massive loss in productivity or usability. I will say that for our 4K edits, we were cross-checking some photos on the MacBook Pro’s screen to confirm they looked good, but we were always happy with the 4K output, even if we couldn’t fully appreciate it on that screen.
Moving on, I used this monitor for website design and coding. While it’s not a dedicated programming monitor like the BenQ RD280UG (review coming soon, currently in progress), it does an excellent job displaying deep blacks in a terminal and even in a blank web design window.
For everyday productivity and professional tasks, this monitor shines. It’s smooth, it looks great, there’s no glare due to the gorgeous Nano Matte coating, and the 100Hz refresh rate reduces eye strain, helping us use the panel all day with less fatigue than we’d experience with other monitors. In our testing, we had users on this panel for, admittedly, 6 or even 9 hours a day+ quite frequently, without excessive fatigue, discomfort, or desire to move to another monitor.
BenQ PD2706QN: final verdict
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The BenQ PD2706QN occupies a smart position in the monitor market. It offers factory-calibrated color accuracy that matches that of displays costing hundreds of dollars, while remaining practical for designers who don’t need 4K resolution for their daily work.
After three months of real-world testing on photo editing, design, and video projects, this monitor has proven itself to be a reliable tool. If you value accurate, consistent color over pixel density and want professional results without a professional price tag, the PD2706QN delivers exactly what it promises.
For more options, we tested the best professional instructors and the best monitors for video editing.
