Ben Q ScreenBar

TL:DR
A well thought out stylish product, that does what it says on the tin but for an expensive price.

Like the world+dog, I’ve been spending all my time sat at my home desk. Instead of commuting between that and a desk at the office. All those little niggles with my current setup have been magnified over the last few months. One of the most annoying was lighting. Three 27 inch monitors put out a fair amount of light even with the brightness down low. Not the most pleasant situation especially when it gets dark outside. Finding room for a desk light is also tricky with those three monitors taking up the back side of the desk.

Enter the ScreenBar from Ben Q. This has been out for a couple of years but only just popped up on my radar.

First impressions of the packaging are, this is a well made premium product. Having the instructions on the back side of the sleeve is handy.

When you open things up the components are well presented

Build quality is excellent. Feeling stable and solid on top of my monitor. Installation involves putting the light bar into the counterweight mount and plugging in the supplied USB cable to a spare port. With only four buttons. On/off, automatic brightness, colour temperature and brightness. The bar is straightforward to use. Once you have the lighting to your liking, those setting will be remembered. With little need to touch the control again. As light, the ScreenBar manages to illuminate my 160cm wide desk. You have a few degrees of tilt to avoid direct light on your screen. In a few days of use I have experience less eye strain but

Not everything is positive. The ScreenBar is expensive at £89. At £30 or even £45, this would be a very strong product. At £89, I gave it a few days thought and read a number of reviews, before making an order. Other top of monitor light are available at that price range. Even being USB powered. you have no way of controlling the light from you computer. This would be handy with the control on the top of the ScreenBar being nearly out of reach and allowing integration with something like the Stream Deck.

Ben Q actually have three versions in the range. The ScreenBar and the ScreenBar Plus which moves the controls to a dial you place on your desk for £119. The final version is the ScreenBar Lite for laptops at £89. For me the other two version don’t really make sense. I’m not sure I want to throw the Lite in my Laptop bag at that price. The Plus, given how little I’ve used the controls after the initial setup does not seem a great choice.

At the end of the day. I don’t regret buying a ScreenBar but is not something I would recommend as a must have purchase.

• Category: PC, Technology