Greg Benz Photography

BenQ MOBIUZ EX321UX: 1000 nits for $1000?

There are a few brands photographers routinely mention as their favorites, and BenQ is definitely one of them. For those of you who’ve started to explore the benefits of HDR display technology for photography, they have a very interesting option: a 1,000-nit mini-LED display priced just over $1,000. It’s marketed as a gaming monitor, so is it a good option for HDR photographers?

The BenQ MOBIUZ EX321UX offers:

• DisplayHDR 1000 certification (for outstanding HDR headroom)
• 1000 nits peak mini-LED with 1,152 zones (2x the Pro Display XDR).
• 700 nits typical (can sustain accuracy in bright content)
• 99% P3, 99% Adobe RGB thanks to quantum dot film (wide gamut with excellent coverage of both HDR and print color)
• 32-inch size with 4K resolution
• 144Hz refresh rate with 1ms response time (for smooth zooming, panning, scrolling)
• HDMI 2.1 and DisplayPort 2.1 (to support full use of high resolution and fast refresh rates for HDR content)
• 65W power delivery and four USB 3.2 downstream ports (one USB-C and three USB-A) to enable single-cable use for typical laptop use

[Disclosure: This post contains affiliate links. I rarely endorse other products and only do when I think you would thoroughly enjoy them. By purchasing through these links, you are helping to support the creation of my tutorials at no cost to you.]

 

How is the hardware quality?

The monitor feels well built and looks reasonably attractive (it doesn’t have the sort of obnoxious colored lights you see on some gaming monitors). I’d personally prefer that the stand and back of monitor were black (instead of white), but it looks good. The included stand offers nice height, tilt, and swivel adjustments (there is no option to rotate 90 degrees to portrait orientation). In addition to the normal buttons on the monitor for configuration, there is a remote control which makes the minimally required setup even faster and easier (though it’s not something I expect most people will use, after initial setup).

There is zero fan noise with this display, a concern some have raised with some other HDR monitors.

There are no speakers in this display (headphone jack and eARC are supported outputs). I applaud BenQ for not adding speakers if they aren’t going to be excellent (just checking a box to say you have speakers is wasteful for both the consumer and manufacturer). Most monitors have terrible audio and I’d rather the manufacturing only put time and money towards things which will create a great experience.

 

Image Quality & Color Accuracy

This is a bright screen which offers great HDR support in a range of ambient lighting conditions. Under MacOS, you’ll have up to 3.6 stops of HDR headroom based on the brightness slider setting you choose. Under Windows, you’ll have 1.4 – 3.9 stops depending on how you set the “SDR Content Brightness” slider in display / HDR settings. Due to black limits, I would say that this display supports 3.0-3.3 stops of headroom (100-120 nits SDR white in a room with controlled lighting works well with this display). Even if you have a bright room requiring 250 nits SDR white (which isn’t ideal), you’ll still have 2 stops of headroom.

While BenQ’s spec says 1,000 nits peak, it’s EDID reports 1,234 nits and I measured 1,575 for a 50% window.

The default settings are geared towards gaming and should be avoided if you want an accurate display. Once color mode is set to “Display HDR” as recommended below, default color accuracy is imperfect, but very good for photography. I’m surprised to see this from a gaming monitor with no calibration / profiling. Many photographers will be happy with the results. Visually, most images on this display look very close to the ProDisplay XDR. It would be even accurate if we could do ICC profiling in HDR mode, but there is no standard yet and you cannot calibrate in the hardware here like the ASUS ProArt monitors. You can of course profile for SDR work such as editing prints, so the implication here is just a matter of HDR accuracy and ease of use if you decide to switch modes when you wish to use an SDR profile.

The most significant errors were that gray values were too dark in the SDR range. Red and green were oversaturated (but offsetting so that yellow was fine). When viewing the same content side by side with the Pro Display XDR, color is not visually perfect but holds up well. I measured an average deltaE 2000 of 2.7 for gray tracking and 3.6 for color. Max delta E was 9.1 at a CalMAN input of 40 (ie target of 33 nits but measured result was 7 nits).

Gamut coverage is excellent with 99.4% P3 and 87% Rec2020.

My test setup:

• Monitor updated to V5 (via BenQ’s firmware utility, monitor arrived with V3).
• CalMAN using C6 colorimeter and G1 generator.
• Note that I used the “BenQ SW242Q” profile for the colorimeter as the closest match as I do not have a spectro to profile the colorimeter or a preset which exactly matches this panel. I retested with the ASUS PA32UGC and P!32UCX profile recommended by the CalMAN experts at Portrait Displays. So, my CalMAN results should be interpreted with the caveat that this is a potential source of minor measurement error. That said, all three profiles returned similar results and the numeric test results are consistent with visual assessment against other displays I trust.
• Separate visual comparison of multiple images on high quality HDR displays including: ProDisplay XDR, M4 MacBook Pro, and Lenovo Yoga Aura (Windows).

My primary concern with image quality is the dark SDR values in HDR mode. This can make shadow/midtone detail harder to see clearly and could bias you towards editing with shadows brighter than they should be. The foreground trees in this HDR photo shown here are more detailed and separated from the mid-ground trees when viewed on the Pro Display XDR than the BenQ. It’s a challenging scene on any display. For editing, this would potentially cause you to add a little more contrast (and that wouldn’t be a problem here in my opinion). However, you might find dark detail doesn’t pop quite as well on this display. It’s not a deal breaker for a monitor in this price range, but something I’d like to see BenQ address via firmware update. Even better would be an ability to create a custom ICC profile in HDR mode, but that’s outside BenQ’s control and not something we’ll have in the near future.

If you need greater accuracy , you can create an ICC profile in SDR mode for print-related work and switching between SDR mode (using the profile) and HDR mode (without a custom profile). That isn’t ideal, but isn’t that hard to manage and is a valid option to improve accuracy as much as possible. Windows will remember separate profile choices for SDR vs HDR mode, and MacOS users can use a 3rd-party tool called BetterDisplay to help toggle between profiled SDR and the factory profile in HDR mode (enable the “auto switch color profile for SDR and HDR modes” option and set the appropriate profile / factory setting for each mode through MacOS ColorSync Utility).

 

Local dimming performance and black performance is important to consider for any mini-LED display. There is notable blooming against solid dark to mid backgrounds. For example, you may notice a glow around the cursor or text in Photoshop. Outside of solid backgrounds, you are unlikely to notice it and it’s probably not a concern for most users. But if you go looking for it, you’ll eventually see it in something like the solid dark background of Photoshop and it’s just something to be aware of if you find little details like that distract you. For a good demonstration, view this test image full screen in a dark room: “dark shadow detail” test #4. There is also a very minor issue where small areas of very bright neutrals will shift towards being a cooler white.

If you wish, you may completely avoid blooming by disabling local dimming as noted below in section on setting up the display. Doing so will reduce accuracy and peak nits, so local dimming is best left on while editing photographs – but at least you have the option.

The other deficiency here is shadow performance. This monitor does not offer true blacks. A completely black screen reveals that the backlight is never disabled. As a result, it is unable to match the black performance of the Pro Display XDR (which has half as many dimming zones and provides an example of how comparing zone counts can be misleading for black performance). The latest mini-LED from ASUS is much better yet, and ASUS’s OLED is outstanding for dark shadow detail (as is the case for nearly an OLED). However, this level of deep shadow detail is far less useful for HDR photography than most people assume. You can only appreciate it with dark content in a dark room — and very few people in your audience will have such performance at this time. It’s an exciting goal for photography but is currently more relevant for HDR movies, which are more often consumed on an OLED in a dark room.

Halos are another concern with any mini-LED and here they are visible in high contrast edges where bright content is directly next to midtones (but actually much less of an issue for bright content near deep shadows). There is also a clear color bias in test patterns, but this doesn’t show in real use. There was one very odd but repeatable anomaly. Right around 40 as an input in CalMAN, the local dimming would show a significant color shift towards blue around the edges of the target window. This seems like a bug which could be resolved with a firmware update (I tested with firmware v5).

Local dimming also impacts peak brightness quite a bit. When you run test patches, a 1% or 2% window will be much darker than 10% and the peak is actually achieved with a 50% window. At the default brightness (100, max), a 50% window measures 1,575 nits and a 1% window is 880. While a 1 stop difference sounds large, you wouldn’t view half the screen at peak and the actual impact with real content will be well managed.

Despite having 2x the zone count, this monitor fails to achieve the minimal halos of the Pro Display XDR. This is another example where zone count alone does not predict halo performance. There are many other critical factors which influence the actual image (such as firmware and precision of backlight dimming). The worst case is bright content next to bright midtones, but it’s much less of an issue with darker content and I don’t see it with sunsets behind mountains or buildings.

The EX321UX offers HDR support up to the maximum 144Hz refresh rate for 4K resolution. However, due to limitations when scaling for lower “resolution” on my M4 Max MacBook Pro / MacOS, the peak refresh rate for HDR support may drop down to 60Hz. This is not a limitation of the monitor, just a practical limit of my computer when simulating resolutions other than the native 4K offered by this display (ie this would affect any monitor with my computer). For more details, see how HDR, refresh rate, and “resolution” interact.

Overall, image quality is very good. Peak brightness is great and color accuracy is surprisingly good for a gaming monitor. I would like to see better default EOTF tracking in the SDR range of HDR mode, and hopefully a firmware update may be able to provide that. You may likely see local dimming halos for some text or bright objects against solid backgrounds in the user interface, but are unlikely to notice in photos. All the other concerns raised are relatively minor and hard to spot in a real photo. Unless you go looking for trouble with test patterns, you’re unlikely to find these concerns in most images. Most photographers seeking a more budget-friendly HDR monitor will likely be ok with these limitations, but there is (unsurprisingly) a clear benefit when you compare this monitor directly to displays costing 2-5x.

 

What could be better?

BenQ has done a nice job with this monitor. It offers great HDR, simple setup, and surprisingly good accuracy for a gaming monitor at this price point.

As noted above, I’d primarily like to see better gray tracking in shadow and midtone values. It’s acceptable in this price range, but is a visible error which could likely be improved with firmware. The other concerns raised would be ideal to address, but realistically the performance is pretty good for a gaming-oriented monitor at this price point before we have an HDR profiling standard. The bar for performance keeps increasing and I’d like to see better local dimming / black performance performance in future models.  It’s ok today, but I expect that’s one aspect of the display which won’t age well. A few years from now, we’ll hopefully have HDR profiling to get great accuracy, but I’m not sure the local dimming will improve here as consumer expectations rise with ever more options for great mini-LED or brighter OLED.

It would be ideal to be able to see the firmware version shown in the monitor menus so to confirm if the display is current without needing to install software on the computer.

The brightness slider in HDR modes should have a much higher minimum value. Most of the range is too dark to be useful, and SDR brightness is best controlled in the operating system. This slider should only be used to help manage tradeoffs between achieving maximum brightness vs limiting brightness in order to prioritize consistency / accuracy. Ideally, the name of this control might be changed to help clarify that it should not be used to control general brightness (perhaps call it “peak brightness”).

 

How to setup the BenQ MOBIUZ EX321UX for HDR photography:

Set up the monitor as follows:

• Change color mode to Display HDR.
• Optional: set brightness to 74-90 if you prefer accuracy over peak brightness / contrast.
  • At the default brightness (100), peak nits measured 1,335 for a nice punchy result. However, HDR values tracked a slightly brighter than they should have and SDR was a bit too dark.
  • Reducing brightness helped prevent the HDR overshoot, but did not improve SDR results.
  • Reducing brightness to 90 showed improved HDR tracking, which continuing to outperform the rated 1,000 nits peak
  • I found brightness of 74 resulted in a 1,000 nits peak and showed the most accurate HDR tracking.
  • I recommend 90 to get more accurate EOTF tracking while retaining a nice bright display.
  • You should only adjust this setting down from 100 to achieve better accuracy. If you simply want to dim the display for everyday use, the brightness slider in MacOS or “SDR content brightness” slider in Windows are the best option. That will dim the SDR reference white, without limiting the peak HDR values. (Note that this control would be problematic if you set it too low: reducing brightness down to the minimum of 1 limits the monitor’s HDR peak to only 58 nits)
• Leave all other monitor settings at defaults:
  • AMA (Advanced Motion Acceleration, aka overdrive) set to 1
  • “local dimming” on (this is what allows darker shadows for HDR on a mini-LED, peak nits will be reduced if this is off)
• Optional: If you wish to disable local dimming:
  • Set local dimming to “off” in the “Display HDR” sub-menu.
  • Set brightness to 100 (even with this max, the peak brightness measures 710 nits)
  • Note that this will limit accuracy of gray tracking (deltaE dropped to 7.3). However, it has the minor benefit of avoiding color shifts in small areas of very bright whites.
  • The darkest shadows (minimum black) will be lifted, and peak brightness limited. The result is that most of the EOTF will be darker than target values, shadows are light but retain detail, and color is not significantly degraded.
  • This lower contrast image is less accurate for editing, but still looks nice for HDR (with a bit less punch / contrast). This is a useful option if the local dimming halos bother you.
  • The best solution is to use the different custom mode options (alpha, bravo, etc). Set one of these modes with dimming on + brightness 74-90 and the other mode for dimming off + brightness 100. You can quickly switch by moving the control switch on the display left/right, or using the remote control.

Under Windows, set your “SDR content brightness” slider (under System / Display / HDR) between 7 (for ~80 nits SDR white) and 30 (~200 nits SDR white). Use a value which would make the display comfortable for long periods of time doing productivity tasks like editing a Word document or browsing the web.

On MacOS, the brightness slider does not show units, but adjusting so that you have 2.6 – 3.5 stops of HDR headroom (see test #1) would put you in the same range.

 

Conclusions: Is this the right HDR monitor for you?

The BenQ MOBIUZ EX321UX (also sold by Amazon) offers excellent value with its balance of DisplayHDR 1000 performance at a price point around $1,100. If you don’t obsess over color accuracy, this is a monitor I can highly recommend for great HDR capability on a moderate budget. Accuracy is very usable in “Display HDR” mode, SDR mode can be profiled as desired to improve accuracy for print-related work, and the HDR results may improve further (with either BenQ firmware updates or if/when a standard for ICC profiling in HDR mode arrives).

This is a great option to consider for HDR photography if you:

• need great HDR capability in a 32-inch 4K monitor and don’t need the highest levels of color accuracy in HDR mode.
• want the best performance you can currently get with a budget around $1,100 (without using a 42″ TV).
• prefer BenQ.

While it does not offer hardware calibration like ASUS ProArt, you can still profile SDR mode for your print work and there is an HDR working group at the ICC, but it may be a while before you can use profiling to improve HDR accuracy. Given the dark values in the SDR range, it would be ideal to switch to an SDR mode with a custom ICC profile for critical print work and otherwise use HDR (with no profile, as this would clip HDR values to SDR). So the bottom line is that this is a very good monitor, but you’ll want to consider switching between SDR and HDR modes if you want the most accurate display for print-related work (at least until BenQ offers a firmware update or we have ICC profiling for HDR). That’s a relatively minor hassle once you set things up correctly to switch in MacOS / Windows, though something you can already avoid with more expensive alternatives to this display.

 

The ideal HDR monitor for you depends on your working environment and budget. Here are my recommendations:

• If you have a larger budget:
  • If you work in an environment with controlled lighting and have a ~$1,700 budget: ASUS PA32UCDM is an excellent choice (budget $200-$300 more if you need to purchase a colorimeter).
  • If you work in a bright environment or want a full 4 stops of HDR and have a ~$3k budget: ASUS PA32UCXR mini-LED is ideal (see my review).
  • If you use MacOS and money is no object ($6k new) or you can find it used (~$3k), the Pro Display XDR is ideal for its simple setup, 6k resolution, customer support, and absolute silence (no fans).
• If you’re comfortable calibrating a TV, you can get excellent HDR color accuracy at a good price point by using a 42″ TV as a monitor:
  • The LG C4 is an excellent option for ~$900 (while inventory lasts).
  • The LG C5 is the current model for ~$1300 (no compelling HDR benefit over the C4).
  • CalMAN for Home is ~$450 for the software plus C6 colorimeter and appears to support auto-cal and internal pattern generators on these TVs.
• If you have a more limited budget, there are many good alternatives:
  • The Gigabyte AORUS FO32U2 appears very promising as a 4K, 1000-nits OLED monitor for $800 (I have not had the chance to test it, and it does not support HDR calibration).
  • If available in your country, the Xiaomi G Pro 27U recently launched a 1,600 nits 4K mini-LED gaming monitor for ~$550 (I have not tested it, but did review the older 2K version).
  • If you have a very tight budget (~$350), the Xioami G Pro 27i offers a 1000-nit, 27″, 2K resolution mini-LED with moderate color accuracy (see my review).
  • An external monitor is just one option. All of the 14-16″ M1 and later MacBook Pros include an outstanding 1600 nits mini-LED. See my review of the M4 MacBook Pro. Highly recommended!
• See my full list of recommended HDR monitors for much more detail on the key specs to consider and other great options.

Project Indigo – the best camera app for smart phones

Apple Safari now supports HDR photography!

Apple just wrapped up their 2025 Worldwide Developer Conference (WWDC), and it was a very big year for photography and HDR display. Apple has been quietly adding substantial support for HDR hardware and software for years. The 2024 updates added HDR photography support for gain maps, the Photos app, Keynote, better support for 3rd-party HDR monitors and more. This year continues that trend with some very significant HDR updates.

Here’s a quick preview of what’s coming in the fall updates for photographers (everything will now be v26 – MacOS, iOS, iPadOS, etc).

 

Safari is adding support for HDR photography

Safari now supports HDR photos! This means more stunning and lifelike photos for the majority of iPhones, iPads, and Apple computers.

At 17% of global web traffic, Safari support closes most of the existing gap in HDR browser support. Combined with the other browser which already support HDR photos (Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, and Vivaldi), this accounts for over 90% of all web traffic (per statcounter.com).

The impact for existing HDR hardware is even more significant. Apple laptops and monitors have offered HDR hardware since 2018 and having support in the default browser on MacOS is a big deal. But even more import is the impact this has for mobile devices. The browser engine which powers Safari is called “WebKit” and that’s the key in the v26 updates because WebKit is the basis of all browsing on iPhones and iPads. So while we’ve been able to use Chrome on MacOS for HDR support for a long time now, the iOS and iPadOS versions of Chrome have lacked HDR photo support because they use WebKit under the hood. This means all browsing on an iPhone or iPad will support HDR (even the mobile version of FireFox, which is now the only notable browser lacking HDR photo support under MacOS).

Let’s put that in perspective using some estimated sales volumes. This update unlocks HDR browsing for all the following hardware already in use:

• iPhone 11 and beyond: thats six years time roughly 225 million iPhones per year for ~1.3 billion phones.
• High end iPads like the M4 Pro (this is relatively small, ~10 million units)
• Apple computers since 2018. That’s roughly 100 million devices, of which 8% use Safari to give us ~8 million people with new HDR browsing support.

These are rough estimates based on web sources and ChatGPT, but it would be fair to say that the total impact here is likely more than 1 billion devices which will soon be upgraded to support HDR photos in the browser.

This is a major inflection point for the adoption of HDR, and should help spur significant growth in 2026. Anyone can already share HDR photos with a large audience on Instagram (see how). You can easily share HDR JPG gain maps on your website (use the “full” size option in the WordPress media library). And I have a list of developer resources for those looking to add support via open source libraries or your own custom tools.

As a note for developers, Safari is also adding support for the new CSS “dynamic-range-limit” property to help manage pages with mixed SDR and HDR content (such as feeds, grids, and portfolios). You may specify “no-limit” to allow full HDR, “standard” to show all images within the SDR range, or “constrained” to allow modest HDR (ie some, but not as bright as “no-limit”).

 

Multi-tasking in iPadOS 26

The M4 iPad Pro has the best HDR display for a consumer computing device I’ve probably ever seen. It’s “tandem stack” OLED XDR display offers 4 stops of HDR, 1000 nits full screen, perfect blacks, and outstanding color accuracy. You can even use it as an HDR monitor for your Mac! However, it’s software been somewhat limiting for serious work compared to laptops or Surface Pro tablets (which run full Windows). iPadOS 26 makes the iPad a much more practical device for serious work, which should appeal to photographers who wish to travel light.

iPadOS 26 makes several changes to improve productivity workflows, including:

• Support for showing multiple application windows and even overlap them, just like MacOS. This makes it much easier to work across multiple applications at the same time.
• An improved Files app to more easily manage content on the iPad.
• A menu bar for the familiar and powerful options we’ve come to expect from computers.
• The Preview app, for better PDF support (including drawing, annotating, and signing).
• A better cursor, for more precise work with a trackpad or mouse.

So while these aren’t updates aimed at photography, this makes the iPad (which has an outstanding display and camera) a much more powerful and practical tool for photographers.

Here’s a great overview of the updates:

 

A simplified camera app

The iOS / iPadOS camera app has always been pretty simple. That’s either a strength (easy to use) or a weakness (lack of control) depending on your level of skill and goals. I suspect many photographers will view this as a negative. Options such as portrait mode are now more hidden and take more effort to switch.

Personally, I think there are some good ideas in here. Most people don’t think about photos and videos nearly as deeply as photographers and just want it to offer something pretty good with minimal effort or expertise. My main concern is that showing only 2 modes does not seem simpler. It takes longer to navigate, and users who don’t need other modes will probably encounter the anyway by accidentally over-scrolling.

If you don’t care for the redesign, there are many great alternative apps. And that’s really the beauty of using the great camera hardware built into an iPhone or iPad, there are many options to pick the interface and features you like. I recommend taking a look at Pro Camera or Halide (Mark III coming fairly soon with promises of big updates for HDR), which are both great 3rd-party apps.

The primary limitation with 3rd-party apps is that you cannot launch them from the lock screen camera icon. I would love to see Apple let you assign it to your favorite app. If you have a newer phone with a “camera control” button, you can do that and it is just as fast. Just go to iOS Settings / Camera / Camera Control and select your preferred camera app under the “launch camera” dropdown. One tip: there is a momentary pause when you click it because the phone is trying to use FaceID to unlock the phone. If you look at the screen as fast as possible, you’ll open your camera app more quickly from a locked screen.

 

End of life for old Intel-based Macs is now more clear

If you don’t already have an Apple Silicon MacBook Pro,  the M1 and later 14-16″ laptops are truly stunning. Outstanding HDR displays, performance, and battery life make any of them an enormous upgrade over the previous generation of Intel-based processors. But if you’re eager to keep the computer you have for as long as possible, Apple just offered more clarity on when you can expect to start seeing software issues with those old computers.

Apple announced that MacOS v26.x (“Tahoe”) will be the last update for Intel-based machines, no MacOS 27 for you. There may be ongoing security updates for a while, so they should be viable for about 2 more years.

On the flip side, Apple also announced that Rosetta 2 will remain through MacOS 27 (ie good until fall of 2027). So we have about 2 more years before old software stops working on new computers. If you’re still using Rosetta2 for some program, I would contact the vendor and let them know you’d like to see it updated to run natively on Apple Silicon. Not only will that keep working into the future, but the program should run twice as fast. Though candidly, it’s been almost five years and most software which hasn’t been updated for Apple Silicon already is probably a sign that it’s abandoned and you should start considering alternatives. I can’t think of any widely used photography apps which still require Rosetta, but please comment below if you know of any.

 

What’s missing from the v26 updates?

I’m skipping over some minor details like new developer APIs to add an HDR color picker to apps, so even my tailored list for photographers is incomplete. There’s a lot in the v26 lineup. There are also a few things I’ve been hoping to see, but have not so far. WWDC only covers the highlights and there are often many great features which are simply not mentioned in the keynote, detailed sessions, or even in the first developer betas. And many interesting features always come after the initial major updates every fall in the various “dot” releases.

I have not yet seen an indication that the following updates and fixes are in the v26 updates:

• Support to share HDR images over AirPlay to show them via AppleTV? Most people have big screen TVs and this would be a very powerful way to show gorgeous images.
• Support for HDR photos in the TvOS Photos app? AirPlay would likely get more use, but this would be a great way to passively update the content on the TV as well as support automatic slideshows on the TV’s screensaver.
• Fix for the iMessage bug where HDR photos are not transmitted as HDR? Support was announced last year, but hasn’t worked so far.
• Fix for sending AVIF images via iMessage? This is a great format to save space and share HDR, but so far I’ve only seen them show as unusable thumbnails when texted.
• Fix for syncing HDR images via iCloud?

If you’re aware of other key updates which you think would be of great interest to photographers, please comment below.

The remaining HDR gaps in the Apple ecosystem are getting smaller and smaller. The overall support is tremendous and it’s great to see year after year improvements and expansion of capability. This year’s Safari support is greatly welcome and will be very high impact.

Yoga Aura – the best HDR PC laptop?

The MacBook Pro has had an outstanding HDR display for nearly five years. There is simply no PC laptop on the market which matches its performance for HDR photography, but some new options from Lenovo are finally getting close. In this review, we’ll look at how well it meets the needs of photographers and how it compares to the MacBook Pro.

The 2025 Lenovo 2-in-1 Aura Edition offers:

• A DisplayHDR True Black 1000 certified OLED monitor (Lenovo is the only company to achieve this thus far)
  • Up to 1,100 nits peak
  • 14″ or 16″ size
  • Delta e < 1 for great accuracy out of the box
  • Touch screen with a completely flexible hinge lets you use it like a tablet (similar to Surface Pro) or fold it into a tent shape to show movies with a very narrow footprint.
• Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 256V or 258V CPU
• up to 32GB RAM
• up to 1TB SSD
• WiFi 7
• BlueTooth 5.4

 

 

HDR display

Display HDR True Black 1000 offers a stunning level of support for HDR photography, and Lenovo is the first company to be certified for this level of performance. I saw the Lenovo 2 in 1 Aura Edition Laptop a couple weeks ago at a conference and was immediately impressed. I ordered one immediately to replace my 600 nits OLED PC laptop. Put simply, this is a stunning upgrade and a truly gorgeous display unlike any other PC laptop I have ever seen (at least with an Intel chip, the SnapDragon version of this laptop caught my attention last year – but Adobe does not support Photoshop plugins under the ARM version of Windows).

The Yoga Aura realistically offers up to 3.5 stops of HDR headroom, very good color accuracy, and a great HDR experience. This is the first HDR PC laptop I can recommend without hesitation, this is a great OLED monitor. If you have a strong preference for Windows and want HDR support in the laptop display itself, this is a very unique and compelling product.

There are options to upgrade the display to a higher (4K) resolution, DO NOT choose the upgraded display. The base resolution is already excellent and the premiums display is actually a downgrade as it offers less HDR capability.

To use the Aura for HDR, it is important that you make a couple of changes in Windows System Settings / Display:

• Enable HDR mode. This is required for HDR support.
• In the options available by clicking > next to the HDR toggle, slide the “HDR content brightness” to the far right (100). This ensures HDR highlights won’t clip when viewing content (this is a confusing control and I would prefer to see Windows improved to eliminate it).
• See my HDR setup and troubleshooting guide if you have external monitors or other questions.

 

How does it compare to the XDR display in the M4 MacBook Pro (MBP)?

• The Aura offers perfect blacks (as it uses an OLED display).
  • This is nice for watching movies in a dark room, but the benefit is fairly modest for photography.
  • There is a very clear difference under extreme conditions (deep shadow detail when viewing in a dark room), but this isn’t applicable for most real edits.
  • The highly reflective glossy display on the Aura further limits your ability to appreciate the deep blacks unless the room is very dark.
•  The MacBook Pro (which uses a mini-LED display) offers up to 1600 nits peak vs 1200 for the Aura.
  • In practical terms, this means you’ll see about an extra 0.5 stops of HDR headroom.
  • This is very nice to have, but the Aura does very well.
• MBP offers more accurate display for very bright HDR content, as it almost always avoids the need to use ABL (automatic brightness limiter):
  • Full screen: MBP offers 1000 nits vs 600 nits for the Aura.
  • 50% window: Aura supports 975 nits
  • Realistically, either can handle a wide range of HDR content under controlled lighting. Where the MBP pulls ahead is when using the display in bright ambient light, which isn’t ideal for editing even if the MBP offers a more accurate display in that scenario.
• MBP can be more easily used for productivity in bright ambient light
  • The optional nano-texture coating on the MBP significantly reduces reflections for a much more readable display in bright surroundings. If you turn off the display outside, you’ll see a matte black screen with zero reflections.
  • If you similarly turn off the Aura display outside, it’s like looking in a mirror. The reflections are very notable.
  • MBP offers up to 1000 nits SDR (600 via manual controls, 1000 when variable brightness at max and bright ambient light)
  • Aura offers 450 nits SDR
• MBP is easier to use for HDR thanks to MacOS
  • The MBP supports HDR with default settings. There is nothing you need to do, everything just works and looks amazing by default – whether you wish to edit for HDR, print, or do productivity work.
  • To use HDR in the Aura, you must enable HDR mode in Windows System Settings / Display. You must further go into the HDR sub-section and move the “HDR content brightness” to the right (100) in order to avoid some highlight clipping which you will otherwise see under the default settings.

Overall, this gives the MBP a modest but clear edge over the Aura under controlled lighting. Many photographers probably wouldn’t notice the difference if you didn’t put them side by side in that scenario. But in bright ambient or outdoor conditions, the MBP has a substantial advantage over the Aura. The optional ($150) nano-texture coating is a game changer if you travel with the laptop or otherwise use in bright conditions.

 

Performance for Photography

The Aura offers a few configurations based on display size, with the 16″ offering the highest performance options. The current lineup choices are:

• 14″ with Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 256V with 16GB RAM (do not buy this)
• 14″ with upgraded Intel® Core™ Ultra 7 258V Processor and 32GB RAM (for $80, everyone should get this upgrade)
• 16″ with Intel® Core™ Ultra 9 185H 32GB RAM (the GPU may be upgraded for $200, which is probably not high impact unless you do video as well)

The 14″ comes with a 512GB hard drive and an optional 1TB upgrade (whereas only the 1TB is offered on the 16″). The upgraded processor and hard drive are a no brainer on the 14″, and the upgraded GPU on the 16″ probably isn’t worth it for more users. So you’re probably looking at $1550 for the 14″ or $1700 for a 16″ with a CPU upgrade from 8 to 12 cores to support better multi-tasking. This makes the 16″ the best choice if you do not care about weight. However, the 14″ is 3 lbs vs 5 for the 16″, so it isn’t a trivial difference.

The 14″ scores a very respectable 65.0 weighted score in my G-Bench tests. That’s slightly slower than the 57 in an M1 Max and about half the speed of the 34 in an M4 Max. However, those are the highest level CPU upgrades offered by Apple in laptops which cost roughly $8,000. I do not have performance data for Apple’s entry-level M3 or M4, but I would expect the least capable MBP outperform the Aura – but at a level where the Aura is still competitive.

Black Magic Disk Speed shows 3400 MB/s write and 3800 MB/s read speeds. This isn’t nearly as fast as the M4 MBP (8700 and 5300), but is still incredibly fast. Very few people would notice the difference, this is a very fast internal drive. And if you need external storage, the TB4 ports will support very high speeds.

 

Battery life and fans

I’ve been quite impressed with the battery life on this laptop. I had expected it would lag significantly behind the MBP because it has an Intel rather than ARM processor. Not only did I find that not to be the case, but it actually outperformed the MBP in my (limited) testing. I charged both to 100%, set the display to roughly the same brightness, and then had them play the same YouTube HDR video for a couple hours and a run a series of the same tests in Photoshop. At the end of my tests, the MBP was down to 22% while the Lenovo was 34%. While hardly scientific and your results will vary based on usage, I believe the results at least indicate the battery life on the Aura is generally pretty good. As a photographer, I’ve never seen battery performance on the MBP come close to the all day stats you see for simple tasks like watching video or web browsing, and you’ll similarly find the Aura does well but is going to need an outlet to make it through a full day.

I was rather surprised at the Aura outlasting the MBP for a couple of reasons. The Intel processor was one concern (vs the efficiency of ARM), and the other was heat given my experience with the fans. Unfortunately, the fans run quite often on the Aura on moderate loads. They aren’t terrible, but it stands out in comparison to the MBP, where you almost never hear the fans in normal use. When running my G-Bench test, I measured 22 dB ambient noise most of the time (which is to say zero noise, that’s just the ambient for the room). The fans briefly hit 27 dB, giving an average reading of 23 dB for the entire test. On the other hand, the Yoga was at 38-41 dB most of the time, for an overall average of 37 dB. You are going to hear this laptop in quiet environments.

I initially thought the fans themselves would draw quite a bit of power and be a concern, but these cooling systems seem quite different. The Aura case does not conduct much heat and it relies heavily on the fans to remove heat. The MBP’s case actually is much warmer to the touch and appears to be a significant source of passive cooling that helps minimize fans. This means the Aura is more comfortable sitting directly on your lap, but the hotter exterior of the MBP isn’t a serious concern.

 

Other features (ports, speakers, etc)

The Aura is a well rounded machine which generally compares very well with the MBP in other areas:

• The Aura offers a touch screen and highly flexible display hinge.
  • You can directly tap, type, and swipe on the screen like a Surface Pro tablet. You can purchase a stylus to help use it as a tablet, which I find very interesting and intend to get in the near future.
  • When folded like a tablet, the keys are disabled. You can just use a stylus or your fingers and don’t need to worry about accidental key presses – even though the keys will be exposed on the bottom.
  • You can also fold it into a tented shape to use for showing movies while taking less horizontal space or to make it easier to use as a tablet without a keyboard under your hands.
  • These capabilities are probably not critically important to most photographers, but they are unique to the Aura and will certainly appeal to some users.
• Connectivity:
  • MBP offers 3 Thunderbolt 4 ports (TB5 with the Pro or Max MBP). Lenovo offers 2 Thunderbolt 4 ports,  1 very high speed USB-C (USB4) port, and a USB-A.
  • MBP offers an integrated SD card reader and HDMI port. The Aura lacks these, but you can support these via cheap dongles.
  • Both offer a standard 3.5mm headphone jack.
  • Both offer fingerprint readers (to set up the Aura go to Windows settings / accounts / sign-in options / fingerprint recognition). The Aura can also use its camera to log in via face detection.
  • Both offer great wireless connectivity, with the Aura being slightly better for the future (WiFi 7 and BlueTooth 5.4 vs WiFe 6e and BlueTooth 5.4).
• The speakers on the Aura are excellent and I find compare well with audio experience the MBP.
• Both have attractive designs that look and feel like high quality computers. However, fingerprints are rather obvious on the Yoga (but you rarely see them on the MBP).
• The 14″ Aura is half a pound lighter than the MBP, while the 16″ Aura is slightly heavier than the corresponding MBP.
• The keyboard and trackpad are great on both (I personally find the extra keys on the right side of the Aura keyboard a bit awkward, but it’s probably just a matter of getting used to it so that I don’t alter performance or white balance by accident when trying to click the backspace or enter keys).

 

Conclusions:

The Aura is an excellent laptop for HDR and the first PC laptop which has truly impressed me for HDR. The display is incredible, and I was very happy with performance and battery life for a more friendly laptop. The fan noise is unfortunate, but not a deal breaker. The biggest limitation are the limitations for upgrading to premium options which might appeal to those with larger budgets.

If you need or strongly prefer a Windows laptop for HDR photography, it’s a great option. If you are open to MacOS and have a moderate budget, the MBP is a better option for most photographers given overall performance, premium options (especially the anti-glare screen), lack of fan noise, and the simpler HDR experience offered under MacOS vs Windows.

If you are open to either operating system, this is probably a good way to consider your options:

• If you are seeking a budget 14″ display, the entry-level MBP is much closer in price and offers excellent value.
  • Both are great options here, but the 14″ Aura is still lower cost and lower weight.
  • If you’re willing to spend a little more, the nano-texture display on the MBP makes it a clearly better laptop for working in brighter environments.
• If you are seeking a budget-oriented 16″ laptop for HDR, the 16″ Aura clearly offers the best price and value. The Aura is $1,000 less than the cheapest 16″ MBP with 1TB SSD.
• If you have a budget for $2000-5000, MBP offers a wide range of upgrades which put it in a completely different class of computer than the top-tier Aura. You may select the following upgrades:
  • nano-texture display (highly recommended)
  • Much more powerful CPUs / GPUs
  • Up to 8TB SSD (larger is nice, but this is the one option you can add externally and save money)
  • Up to 128GB RAM (48-64GB recommended)
  • (see my M4 MBP review for details on these options)

The Lenovo 2-in-1 Aura Edition is a very exciting development as it helps bring excellent HDR support to a wider audience. It will be very interesting to see when other PC laptop manufacturers offer similarly premium HDR displays, if higher spec options are offered to compete with the most premium MBPs, and how support for SnapDragon / WinARM evolves over the coming years.

 

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