Ever since our six-month BenQ ScreenBar review went up, the same question has come back at us almost weekly: is the Quntis L206 Pro really as good for a third of the price? It is the obvious budget alternative, the one Amazon keeps surfacing whenever someone clicks on a ScreenBar listing, and the one that quietly outsells most rivals in the UK monitor-light-bar category.
We spent the past week researching it properly. This is what we found, what the spec sheet does not tell you, and the honest answer to whether you should save the £80 or pay up for the BenQ.
Short version: at around £45 to £55 in the UK, the Quntis L206 Pro is the right buy if the BenQ ScreenBar is out of budget. The light it puts on your desk is genuinely close to the BenQ. Where the BenQ wins is build polish and the touch-control feel — things you notice every day but that do not change the quality of the lighting itself. There is one area where the Quntis is arguably better: deep-curve ultrawide monitors.
What the Quntis L206 Pro actually is
The L206 Pro is a 50cm asymmetric LED bar that clips to the top edge of a monitor between roughly 0.7cm and 6cm thick. It runs off USB-A power — a single cable from the bar into a free USB-A port on your monitor or a powered hub. There is no plug, no separate adapter, no remote. Touch controls on top of the bar handle on/off, brightness, colour temperature, and a one-tap auto mode driven by an ambient light sensor.
The design idea is the same as the BenQ ScreenBar: an asymmetric beam that throws light forward and downward onto the desk in front of the monitor, not onto the screen. No glare, no reflections, and a properly lit keyboard and notepad area. The Pro version of the L206 widens the beam over the original and adds finer colour temperature steps.
Specs that matter:
- Width: 50cm (slightly longer than the BenQ ScreenBar at 45cm)
- Brightness: peak ~1000 lux at 35cm desk distance
- Colour temperature: 2700K to 6500K, continuous adjustment
- CRI: rated Ra95 — high colour-rendering, comparable to the BenQ
- Power: USB-A, ~5W draw
- Cable: 1.2m USB-A to USB-A
- Compatibility: monitors 0.7–6cm thick, including curved up to 1000R
What is in the box
The bar, a counterweight clip with a rubber-padded contact face, a 1.2m USB-A to USB-A cable, and a small instruction card. No remote. No power adapter — you supply the USB-A port. Packaging is recycled cardboard inserts. Setup is the same 30-second clip-and-plug routine as the BenQ; no tools required.
How it stacks up against the BenQ ScreenBar
This is the comparison everyone wants. We had both bars on adjacent monitors at a friend’s desk for an evening of swapping them around. Here is the honest read.
Light quality: close enough that most people will not notice
Side by side at the same brightness setting, the BenQ has a marginally more even spread along the desk and a slightly cleaner edge to the lit area. The Quntis L206 Pro throws a touch more spill at the far edges of the desk, which is not necessarily a bad thing. At normal working brightness, you would not pick one over the other in a blind test of the lit surface alone.
Both have rated CRI in the Ra95 region, both eliminate screen glare entirely thanks to the asymmetric beam, and both produce pleasant white at every colour temperature step. If the lighting itself is the only thing you care about, this comparison is essentially a draw.
Build quality: the BenQ feels more expensive (because it is)
The BenQ is a single piece of brushed aluminium. The Quntis L206 Pro is aluminium on the top face with a plastic underside and end caps. Both feel solid. Hold them next to each other and the BenQ has the more premium hand-feel; mount them on a monitor and the difference disappears. From your seat, you see a thin black bar above your screen either way.
After a year of UK owner reviews, the L206 Pro’s reliability picture looks good. We could not find a meaningful pattern of failed units, dead LEDs, or sagging clips. The most common complaint is the touch-button responsiveness, which we cover below.
Touch controls: functional but less polished
The Quntis touch buttons work. They are not as immediate as the BenQ’s. Where the BenQ registers a tap on first contact, the Quntis sometimes wants a confident press; there is a half-beat delay that the BenQ does not have. Once you adjust to it, it is fine. If you toggle settings constantly through the day, this is the gap that will annoy you most.
The auto-dim button does the same job as the BenQ’s. It uses the ambient sensor on the front of the bar to pick a brightness that matches the room. Like the BenQ, it sometimes overshoots on cloudy mornings and sometimes underdelivers in heavy daylight. A manual nudge fixes it. We would not buy either bar for the auto mode alone, but on the Quntis it is a useful starting point.
Clip mechanism: a real Quntis advantage on curved monitors
The L206 Pro’s clip is more flexible than the BenQ’s. On a flat 27-inch monitor both grip cleanly. On a 34-inch ultrawide with a 1500R curve both are fine. On deeper curves — 1000R gaming ultrawides, the Samsung Odyssey G9 family, the LG 45-inch curved — the Quntis sits flatter against the bezel and feels more secure than the BenQ does. If you have a deep-curve monitor and want a light bar, this is the bar to look at first.
Cable and power: no real difference
The Quntis ships with a 1.2m cable; the BenQ with 1.5m. Both are USB-A to USB-A. Neither manufacturer has moved to USB-C yet, which is increasingly inconvenient if your monitor is a single-cable USB-C model or a dock-only setup. Budget £5 for a USB-C to USB-A pigtail if your monitor lacks a spare USB-A port.
Things to know before you buy
USB-A is the only power option
Same caveat as the BenQ. If your monitor is USB-C only, or you are running everything off a small dock with no spare USB-A, you will need a £5 adapter or to power the bar from a wall USB charger via a longer cable. Not a deal-breaker, but worth checking before you order.
The L206 Pro is not the same as the original L206
Quntis sells two visually similar bars. The original L206 is around £30 and has a narrower beam, fewer colour temperature steps, and a stiffer clip. The L206 Pro is the upgraded version with the wider beam and improved clip; it is the one worth the extra. If the listing does not say “Pro”, you are looking at the older bar.
Touch-control delay is real but minor
Owner reviews regularly mention this. It is not a fault — the buttons work — it is just a slower capacitive response than the BenQ. If you are coming from no light bar, you will not know any different. If you have used a BenQ first, you will notice.
No remote in the box
Neither bar comes with one at this price. The BenQ ScreenBar Halo (£180) adds a wireless puck remote and a wall-bounce backlight; Quntis does not currently sell a remote-equipped variant in the UK. If a remote matters to you, the Halo is the only practical option.
Quntis L206 Pro vs BenQ ScreenBar: the buying decision
We are not going to try to crown a winner here, because the right answer depends entirely on your budget and your monitor.
Buy the Quntis L206 Pro if any of these is true:
- £130 for a desk lamp is more than you want to spend
- You have a deep-curve ultrawide monitor (the clip is genuinely better)
- You are kitting out a second desk and already own a BenQ for the main one
- You want to try a monitor light bar before committing serious money
Buy the BenQ ScreenBar instead if:
- You want the more polished daily-use feel of the touch controls
- You have a flat or gently curved monitor and the budget is there
- You value the all-aluminium build for a setup you plan to keep for years
- You may upgrade to the Halo later and want the BenQ ecosystem
Either way, fit a monitor light bar of some kind. Both of these are genuinely better than a desk lamp for a working-from-home setup. They free up desk surface, eliminate screen glare, and rebalance the brightness gap between your monitor and the room — which is the actual cause of most evening eye fatigue.
Pros and cons
Pros
- Light quality genuinely close to the BenQ ScreenBar at a third of the price
- Asymmetric beam eliminates monitor glare exactly as the more expensive bars do
- Wider compatibility with deep-curve monitors than the BenQ
- High Ra95 colour rendering, full 2700K to 6500K range
- 30-second toolless setup, no power adapter to find a socket for
- Frees the entire desk surface — same footprint advantage as the BenQ
Cons
- Touch buttons have a noticeable half-beat lag versus the BenQ
- Aluminium-plus-plastic build does not feel as premium in the hand
- USB-A only, no USB-C option — same as the BenQ
- Cable is 1.2m, slightly short for tidy under-desk routing
- No remote available at any Quntis price point in the UK
- L206 vs L206 Pro confusion at the listing level — buy the Pro
Should you buy the Quntis L206 Pro?
If the BenQ ScreenBar at £130 is more than you want to spend on a desk light, yes. The Quntis L206 Pro gives you something like 90% of the BenQ’s daily benefit for around 35% of the price. The light on the desk is excellent, the screen-glare elimination is identical, and the colour temperature range is exactly what you need for a working day that runs from morning daylight into evening lamp-light.
If you have a deep-curve ultrawide, we would recommend the Quntis over the BenQ regardless of budget — the clip is genuinely a better match for that hardware.
And if £130 is not the deciding factor, the BenQ ScreenBar is still the bar to beat for build polish and touch-control feel. Read our six-month BenQ ScreenBar review for the long-term verdict on that one.
Either way: get a monitor light bar. After living with one, working at a desk without one feels obviously dim.
[Affiliate link to Quntis L206 Pro on Amazon UK]
