Connectivity

Connectivity is an aspect where FreeSync offers much more than G-Sync because G-Sync monitors are limited to DisplayPort and HDMI input. With that in mind, it comes as no surprise that the Eizo Foris FS2735 offers a DisplayPort 1.2a, a DVI-D port, and two HDMI 1.4 ports. Stick to DisplayPort if you plan to use FreeSync at the native 1440p resolution and 144 Hz refresh rate. Other video inputs can be used to connect gaming consoles, media players, and other devices that aren't going to be used for high-resolution, high-refresh-rate FreeSync gaming. A pair of 3.5-mm audio ports which can be used to plug in a headset have also been included. Finally, we have a USB 3.0 upstream port. It needs to be connected to the PC for two reasons - to be able to utilize both USB 3.0 ports on the left side of the screenband and make the monitor identifiable to the Windows version of Eizo's G-Ignition software. More on the desktop and mobile version of the G-Ignition app in the software section of this review.


On the left side of the monitor are two USB 3.0 ports. They're implemented in a way that will make it hard for you to plug in thick USB memory sticks. On the upside, if you use these ports for your peripherals, their connectors won't be sticking out from the side of the screen - actually, they won't be visible at all. That's something I always find extremely distracting, so it's nice to see that Eizo thought about a detail like that. Although there's a different way of looking at it: hardcore gamers aren't likely to plug their peripherals into anything other than the motherboard itself because they don't want to introduce any additional lag to the USB chain. The only devices users like that would want to plug into USB ports located on the monitor are USB memory sticks and external hard-drives. If that's the case for you, you aren't likely to find Eizo's implementation of the side USB ports very intuitive as it effectively makes it very hard to plug anything in without looking. In short, when you want to plug a USB device into any of the two side ports, you'll have to turn the entire screen to its right side or lean behind it.

Just in case you're interested in the time it takes the monitor to switch from an input to the other, as well as to display a picture after you press the power button on your PC case, here are the measurements of those parameters:

Power Consumption

The power supply is built into the monitor, which had connecting it to a power outlet by using a standard IEC power cable (supplied) suffice. I used a power meter to determine the power consumption of the monitor at various brightness levels, as well as in Sleep mode. Sleep mode activates as soon as the PC goes to sleep, assuming you set the Power Save option in the OSD to "On". It can be found in the Preferences submenu. If you keep it off, the monitor won't go to sleep, which has it consume 34 watts of power even when your PC is turned off. My power consumption measurements are summed up in the chart below, taken after resetting the monitor to its factory defaults by using the "User1" picture profile with the Auto EcoView function turned off.



These numbers are pretty much what you'd expect from a gaming-grade monitor. Of note is that the actual brightness is not even close to being linear in relation to the percentages chosen via the OSD. The range starting at 0% and going all the way up to 70% only covers 120 nits of brightness. The remaining 30% of the total range cover another 250 nits. What that means is that at the higher percentages, small increments result in significant changes in the screen's actual brightness. Interesting is that you get 250 nits of brightness at 90%, which is a percentile value many users instinctively opt for without knowing what exact brightness value it corresponds to. In short, these power measurements tell us that you shouldn't set the brightness of this monitor to less than 70% as the picture simply becomes too dark and the vividness of colors is completely lost.

As for the aforementioned Auto EcoView function, it uses a built-in EcoView Sensor to actively measure the level of ambient light to then automatically adjust the picture's brightness accordingly. To reiterate Eizo, the idea is to achieve a feeling of viewing a sheet of paper under typical lighting conditions, viewing comfort-wise. I like to keep my work environment fairly dim - my Spyder5ELITE+ calibrator interprets the room's light level as "Moderately Low" - and the Auto EcoView sensor kept the screen brightness at 110 nits, which I found too dark for my daily routine, which normally consist of a fine mix of Office, Chrome, Photoshop, Lightroom, and gaming. I can see the EcoView sensor being useful in offices where the amount of ambient light can significantly vary during the day and where many users will prefer a dimmer picture, resulting in less eye strain as well as lower overall power consumption as a direct result of the lower backlight brightness. For home use and gaming, you should set the Auto EcoView to "Off" and manually adjust the brightness to a preferred level. Other two possible settings are "Standard" and "High", which in my case resulted in identical brightness levels. In theory, setting it to High should make the sensor even more sensitive and further reduce the brightness. Why that didn't happen in my case is down to my environment already being quite dim and the sensor already adjusting the brightness to as low as it was willing to go. That it won't automatically go below 110 nits is good because that would simply be too dark even for office use.