Zowie 27" 144Hz XL2730 Refurbished Monitor

Since I always come to the discussion area looking for previous drop participants reviews, I thought I would leave one here. To start, mine arrived in a generic cardboard box (i.e. original packaging not included) but it was packaged well and I had no issues "out of the (not original) box". + 144 Hz refresh rate and 1 ms GtG + Recessed headphone rest is well constructed and not overly flimsy + USB Hub + On the fly switcher also improves menu navigation so everyone will find it useful even without setting custom profiles - TN Panel and looks like it - Cable management is not bad, but not good - Older port selection (no TB3) I am a Software Engineer by day so I have grown accustomed to quality oriented panels rather than performance oriented ones so it was a bit jarring when I first plugged this thing in. The difference between this TN panel and the built-in panel on my Macbook Pro and Razer Blade QHD is fairly obvious. You can tune it but a TN panel is going to ultimately look more washed out and have worse contrast compared to a typical IPS. This is most noticeable with darker colors where light bleed makes blacks appear lighter. But this is a performance oriented monitor and 144 Hz, 1ms GtG @ 1440p is hard to find. Moreover, the headphone rest's construction was pleasantly surprising. It is positioned well (above the two side oriented USB ports so your headphones can hang over/around extruding USB cables or receivers) and feels solid. If I could change one thing, I would add USB ports to the back of the panel so plugging in a semi-permanent keyboard and mouse doesn't leave the USB cabling hanging off the left side of the monitor. And as a stretch goal/on a newer model I would like to see some sort of TB3 support. All in all a compelling piece of performance hardware. Would buy again. I would also be interested in monitoring BenQ (aka Zowie) for future models for my noted design tweaks and perhaps an OLED (?!) panel in the future.

Thanks, that was fast!

Shipment update. Some of these units based on when I placed them in our system look to have shipped yesterday. The ones that didn't meet the cutoff will ship today. Allow 3-5 business days to receive your monitors. Some of the Fed-Ex tracking information is available and I will send everything to Massdrop soon. Feel free to contact me at shane@benq.com with your full name and I can provide tracking individually.