BenQ GW2490TC 23.8" Eye-Care Home Office Review

The BenQ GW2490TC is a comfort-first home office monitor with a secret weapon: a 144Hz refresh rate. Its excellent ergonomic stand and eye-care tech make long workdays easier, while the smooth motion is a treat for both scrolling and casual gaming. At around $150-$200, it's a great value for anyone who values adjustability and fluidity over ultra-sharp resolution or pro-grade color. Highly recommended for productivity-focused users.

The BenQ GW2490TC is a monitor that knows its lane. It's not trying to be the flashiest 4K gaming beast or the most color-accurate creative tool. Instead, it's laser-focused on being a comfortable, reliable workhorse for your home office. With a 23.8-inch 1080p IPS panel, a surprisingly high 144Hz refresh rate, and a full suite of ergonomic adjustments, it's built for the long haul.

If you spend eight hours a day staring at spreadsheets, writing reports, or hopping between browser tabs, this is the kind of screen you want. BenQ's whole 'Eye-Care' pitch isn't just marketing fluff here. The combination of a flicker-free backlight, low blue light modes, and that smooth 144Hz refresh is designed to reduce eye strain. It's a monitor that cares more about your comfort than showing off.

What makes it interesting is the mix of a work-first design with a feature you'd expect on a gaming monitor. That 144Hz refresh rate is a standout for an office display. It makes everything from scrolling web pages to moving your cursor feel incredibly fluid, which is a subtle but noticeable quality-of-life upgrade for any task.

Let's talk about that 144Hz refresh rate. In our testing, it puts the GW2490TC in the 65th percentile for performance among monitors. That's a solid, above-average score, and it's almost entirely thanks to that high refresh rate. For office work, it means buttery-smooth scrolling and cursor movement. If you dabble in casual gaming, FreeSync support and the 5ms response time mean you can actually enjoy that fluidity in games without bad screen tearing. It's a nice bonus that makes the monitor feel more responsive across the board.

Where the numbers are less impressive is in pure display quality. The 250-nit brightness and 99% sRGB color gamut land it in the lower third of the pack for display and color metrics. That means it's not the brightest screen, and its colors are accurate enough for general use but won't satisfy a professional photo or video editor. The contrast ratio is about average. In a well-lit room, 250 nits is just enough, but you won't have much headroom to fight glare from a bright window.

Priced between $150 and $206 depending on the retailer, the GW2490TC sits in a very competitive part of the market. You're paying a slight premium for the BenQ brand and its specific ergonomic and eye-care features. For that money, you get a monitor that's exceptionally well-built for comfort and daily productivity, with the nice-to-have bonus of a high refresh rate.

When you look across vendors, you can find cheaper 24-inch 1080p monitors, but they often skimp on the stand, offering only tilt adjustment. You can also find monitors with better color or higher resolution near this price, but they might lack the USB-C port or the 144Hz smoothness. The value here is in the complete, comfort-focused package. If your priority is a screen that won't hurt your neck or your eyes after hours of use, this price makes sense.

Compared to a basic office monitor like a Dell SE2422H, the BenQ wins hands down on adjustability and smoothness. The Dell might save you $30, but you're stuck with a fixed-height stand and a 75Hz panel. For daily comfort, the BenQ is worth the upgrade.

Looking at a step-up option like the ASUS ProArt PA248QV, things get interesting. The ASUS costs a bit more but offers superior color accuracy (100% sRGB and Rec. 709), a 1080p-plus resolution (1920x1200), and a built-in hood. It's a better tool for creative tasks, but it's only a 60Hz panel and its ergonomics are similar. The BenQ fights back with its 144Hz fluidity and slightly lower price, making it the better choice for mixed office and casual use where color precision isn't critical.

Against the gaming-focused monitors in its price range, like some from AOC or ViewSonic, the BenQ often trades raw speed (some gaming monitors have 1ms response) for better build quality, a more professional look, and that emphasis on eye comfort. It's a less flashy but more refined daily driver.

Hardcore competitive gamers should skip this. While the 144Hz and FreeSync are great, the 5ms response time isn't the fastest, and you can find monitors with 1ms speeds and more aggressive gaming features at a similar price. Also, creative professionals who need color accuracy for print or video work will find this monitor underwhelming. Its color performance is just average.

If your home office is flooded with natural light, the 250-nit brightness might be a deal-breaker. You'll want a monitor that hits at least 300-350 nits to combat glare effectively. In that case, look for a monitor that scores higher in the 'display' percentile. Finally, if you just want the biggest, sharpest screen for your money and don't care about ergonomics, you can find 27-inch 1440p monitors around this price that offer more screen real estate, albeit often with worse stands.

Buy the BenQ GW2490TC if you want a dedicated home office monitor that prioritizes your physical comfort above all else. The excellent ergonomic stand, eye-care features, and surprisingly fluid 144Hz refresh rate create a fantastic environment for long work sessions, coding, or general productivity. The USB-C port is a welcome modern touch. It's also a great secondary monitor for a gaming setup where you want a smooth screen for Discord, wikis, or streaming.

Look elsewhere if you need high brightness for a sunny room, require wide color gamuts for photo editing, or are purely a competitive gamer seeking the absolute fastest response times. For those users, a brighter IPS panel, an OLED, or a dedicated high-refresh gaming monitor would be a better investment. The GW2490TC is a specialist in comfort, not a jack-of-all-trades.