Not without its quirks, but it looks to be the best non-OLED HDR monitor in this form factor!
It's not often that I write detailed reviews, but considering that (at the time of writing) there are only 3 other reviews - looks like this is the time to write one. Let me also preface this review by saying that I am upgrading from the original Acer Predator X34, a monitor that I had for almost a decade, and all my impressions will be comparing it to that monitor. I have also been specifically looking for a non-OLED upgrade, since burn-in is definitely still not a solved problem for very long-term ownership. I have been daily driving this monitor for a few days now, and I think I've figured out most of its quirks by now and dialed it to where I want it. Not everything about it is as "no-compromise" as the original X34 was at the time, though I feel like that can be said about just about any modern monitor, since there are now so many options out there for every niche use case. With that said, I think this monitor comes about as close to a do-it-all workhorse as you can get in a 34" ultrawide form factor these days. Before we get to the good and bad, here's how I ended up setting my monitor through the OSD, because you will probably need to make a few adjustments too to get it looking its best. * For SDR - Standard mode with sRGB color space, brightness at 75, Adaptive Dimming off (don't worry, it will turn itself back on in HDR automatically, but in regular SDR desktop use it just looks bad with all the blooming), Super Sharpness off (don't know why it was on by default, it's just ugly). * For HDR - HDR mode (duh), and it pretty much takes care of the rest. However, DO NOT stay in this mode for SDR content, even with Windows HDR turned off - it forces HDR color space in this mode (which I think is BT.2020, but I may be wrong), which makes everything oversaturated in SDR. Now for pros and cons. Let me get the bad out of the way first, because most of these are relatively minor. * Coming from an amazing IPS panel to a VA has definitely been... an adjustment. I knew beforehand that the viewing angles wouldn't be on par with an IPS just by the nature of the technology, but it was still jarring at first. This won't be an issue to anyone already used to VAs, and the picture quality when viewing straight-on is actually very good (more on that later). * Another inherent flaw of VA panels is VRR flicker. At first I was so taken aback by it that I thought there was something wrong with my panel, but apparently it's just a VA thing. The good news is that in actual games (assuming your framerate is at least remotely stable) it's hardly noticeable - I thought I would end up turning VRR off altogether, and I haven't tested enough games yet to confidently say that I won't do that later, but so far during gameplay it wasn't nearly as pervasive and distracting as, say, during loading screens where framerate fluctuates wildly. On a related note - this monitor does get recognized as G-Sync compatible, but you do have to manually enable that in the NVIDIA App. * You can't get it to automatically switch from Standard mode with sRGB color space to HDR mode with HDR color space, you have to do that manually. And you will want to do that, since as I said earlier - HDR mode doesn't use the calibrated sRGB color space for an SDR signal, and trying to change it just throws you back to the Standard mode. Thankfully it's just a couple of clicks in the OSD to switch profiles, but it's still mildly annoying. * Some product pictures are flat out wrong - there are no USB ports in the back at all, just display inputs (and Type-C for DP Alt input). It doesn't actually advertise having them in the product description though, so I can't really call it false advertising. Just something to be aware of. Some things that are neither here nor there. * The built-in speakers are... fine? They're very prominent in the design and get the job done if you want to play something in the room, and are definitely better than the ones in the original X34, but let's be real - with this caliber of monitors you're probably already either using good headphones or proper standalone speakers. If we're talking cost-saving measures - I'd much rather this monitor had USB connectivity with KVM functionality and cheaped out on speakers that the other way around. * The stand looks to be quite robust, but I put mine directly on a VESA arm so I can't say too much about it. Also, this monitor is surprisingly light compared to the absolute unit that was the original X34, so handling it should be easy. * 1500R curve is right at the edge of what I'd consider comfortable for prolonged use. The original X34 was 1800R which I quite liked, but this one isn't bad either. I don't tend to sit too close to the screen, so anything beyond 1500R I find more distracting than helpful. Now let's finally get to the good parts, because there's a lot to love about this display! * Getting back to this being a VA panel - since it's not an OLED, you don't have to worry about burn-in at all. Throw all the static content you want on it at max brightness and it couldn't care less. It's also extremely accurate (in standard sRGB mode) and comes with a factory calibration report. Text clarity is also not an issue. Ghosting and smearing aren't nearly as big of an issue as I thought they'd be after reading people complain about VA panels in general. * And speaking of brightness, this thing gets *bright*! Even in SDR I had to set the brightness to 75, because otherwise even the white web pages get just uncomfortably bright to look at. But if you really want to, beyond setting the brightness to 100 you can also toggle Max Brightness on to get a truly eye-searing level of brightness. Can't say I'd recommend doing something this ridiculous, obviously, but the option is there. * This brings me nicely to the main selling feature of this display - its Mini LED DisplayHDR 1000 capability. My perception may be a bit skewed coming from an SDR monitor, but DEAR GOD this is an eye-opening experience! The blooming of individual dimming zones is basically nonexistent in actual HDR-enabled games and content, and the brightness of the highlights and OLED-level blacks is just something that can't be described and needs to be experienced. I know I certainly was skeptical of the hype before playing some HDR content on this monitor for the first time. * 200Hz refresh rate might not be all that impressive these days, but it certainly was for me coming from a 100Hz display. Conclusion time. This is certainly not a be-all-end-all monitor that the original X34 positioned itself as at the time, mostly because there are more options now that fulfill different roles - OLEDs have much better contrast and responsiveness due to the nature of self-emissive pixels but come with a trade-off of text clarity and inevitable eventual burn-in, IPSs are still kings of viewing angles and general easiness on the eyes but come with a trade-off of the notorious "IPS glow" that can be reduced on high-end panels but never eliminated, TNs... well, they've been delegated to the low-end bargain bin for a while, so those don't count. This monitor feels like a solid middle ground between all those options, and the things it does well - it does REALLY well. Plus as an aside - I don't think we'll be getting another truly no-compromise monitor until either MicroLED technology matures enough to become feasible to use in consumer displays (probably won't happen for at least another decade), or OLEDs become resilient enough to the point where the panel would outlast the rest of display components without the need to actively think about static content on screen (also probably many years away). Oh, and have I mentioned that it's currently $480 on what looks to be a somewhat permanent discount? At that price, the value this monitor brings is nigh unbeatable, since it undercuts even the cheapest comparable QD-OLED (the Alienware one) by a significant margin. So unless you do literally nothing but gaming and content consumption on your monitor, getting this one over the Alienware is basically a no-brainer. Read more