A399U: Affordable 4k Gaming Monitor | Tek Syndicate

Level1Techs
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This 4k is at present a really great value. It is a 39.5 inch 4k behemoth! It can do 4k / 60hz over HDMI and DisplayPort 1.2! It even does 4:4:4 Chroma, though I’d recommend you’d use DisplayPort for that.


Unboxing this, the first thing you want to do is set the OSD to English. It’ll be in Korean but you just arrow over and set this option and then life is a lot easier. The next thing you want to do is turn “Vivid” off. This makes things really pop in movies but if you’re using this as a monitor, you don’t want this. It has a couple of color modes as well, though ours came on the reasonably sane default of sRGB.


It has two HDMI ports (one 1.2, one 2.0), One DL DVI and one DisplayPort 1.2. Also, analog audio in. It has built-in 10-watt speakers which you are probably going to use.


You really do want to use this display with DisplayPort 1.2 because HDMI can be a bit squirrely if you get a dodgy cable or the HDMI on your computer doesn’t really support everything, but it does support 4k/60hz via HDMI. It’s tough to support 4:4:4 chroma w/hdcp and 4k/60hz on HDMI – displayport solves it cleanly.


Test Pattern: http://cdn.avsforum.com/b/b4/b4a44044_vbattach208609.png


After we tested the Samsung U28D590D, one of the first real, affordable 4k displays – we thought that might be a good comparison monitor for this one. Be sure to check out our full Samsung U28D590D review, but overall the opinion there was not great. And here we have this monitor and it absolutely destroys the Samsung U28D590D in every way imaginable. I was blown away.


In testing, This A399 39.5” display has a faster response time – check out our other video titled Monitor Latency Shootout – than the U28D590D. The A399 is nearly 30 milliseconds faster on the response time. That’s mind blowing since TN panels are rated at being some of the fastest panels around. We did a quick gaming test in GTA5. I could not detect any input lag. I was using an R9 290X with DisplayPort 1.20 and it was buttery smooth at the native 4k resolution with other settings around medium so I could get a high frame rate.


The brightness is around 350 mcd/m squared and it is noticeably brighter in the center than around the edges when looking at a pure white screen. Unlike the TN panel, the color shift is negligible. That’s because the panel is, I think, a Super MVA, Normally Black, Transmissive Panel type. To my eye it looks as good as IPS panels from around 2010, but the blacks are deep and rich. The pixel arrangement is RGB vertical stripe.


The viewing angles are 176 horizontal and vertical though the slight color shift is more pronounced when looking at the TV from above than side to side. While playing GTA5 I found the optimum distance from the display was about 18 inches or so. At that distance, windows does not need display scaling. If you follow our channel, you probably know that we love 27” monitors that are 2560x1440. Those are about 107 pixels per inch. This monitor is almost the same pixel density – a little higher – at 113 pixels per inch. That means you can use windows without the god awful display scaling which still doesn’t work right in windows 10 anyway. At comfortable viewing distances, the text was still large perfectly readable – it looks about the same as it does on a 27” 1440p monitor.. it’s just that this monitor is 39.5 inches and almost a million more pixels than # pixels in two 27” displays!


What are the downsides? Well, there are two and one of them may be a big deal to you. This panel type seems more on the side of “TV” than “Computer Monitor” in terms of the way it’s engineered. The biggest black mark against it, in addition to the slightly inconsistent screen brightness distribution, is this shadowing around the edges of the display. Windows 10 does this kind of shading around window edges. It’s a bit offputting at first, but I found that I got used to it after 5 minutes and then it wasn’t a big deal. I don’t notice it in gaming at all. I was also able to lessen the shadowing by loosening some of the screws on the edges of the display a half turn.


The other annoying thing is the power cord is built in, and non-removable. When you buy from the link below a free adapter is included to adapt the cord to the plug type of your region, but the non-removable cord is silly. For me, these two things are not really a big deal. Color accuracy, viewing angle, response time and price win the argument for me.


The pricepoint reall makes or breaks this monitor. And it is priced super aggressively, in my opinion, for the feature set and real-world appeal. Especially when you contrast the features here with other 4k monitors like the Samsung U28D590D. Monitors this good this inexpensive will drive the prices with the big name players way down.


Look, even with the shadowing, hands down if it’s a choice between the Samsung U28D590D and this monitor I would go for this monitor every time.



It does have a 200mm x 200mm VESA mount


Ready To Buy? Click here: AMH A399U 4K UHD Monitor on Ebay



This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://teksyndicate.com/videos/a399u-affordable-4k-gaming-monitor
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Is there a central location where these "korean" monitors are discussed? I'm in the market for two new monitors but 39" is a tad large for two.

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I wish this monitor was much more smaller. a 39.5 inch monitor is way too massive for a Desktop Monitor. i already have a 42 inch Vizio TV and that is massive to me already.

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go big or go home lol. Plus also 1 4k no scaling > way more pixel count than even 2x27s :)

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it turned out to be less insane than I expected, to use as a main display. But I would use it in a stacked config instead of side-to-side.

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Please keep us posted. I'd jump on one of these if only it had Freesync or Gsync because I really don't like the 21:9 aspect ratio of current 34'' screens.
Thanks a lot for the review.

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Come on Income tax return...how does a 24 inch in portrait size up beside it?

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599,pretty nifty price if you have a nice job.

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Seems like a steal for $600. Sure it would be better if it had a 10 bit panel but that's the compromise you make because of it's size. I'd still like to see a side by side of this display and the HP Z32x. Thanks for your review though. It added a possibly in what I may purchase in the near future. :)

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I'm curious if the A399U uses the same panel as the LG 40ub8000. Anyone know?

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Im an older guy now and use a 42" TV as a display at 1080p. I love it to bits. No squinting !

This 4K 39" display does look very appealing for an upgrade. I hope more displays come out at 4K rather than the now moronic phone displays at 5-6 inches. Usable displays at 36+ inches that your grandmother and me can read stuff on are the future.

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I almost jumped on this about 2 weeks ago but couldn't find any reviews on it. Seems like a steal of a deal if you get a good one.

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Does it support Free Sync?

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4K, check.
40", check.
4:4:4 Chroma, check.

Hello new work monitor!

I've been eyeing the Philips BDM4065UC, but I think I'm going to go with this one. Wonderful discovery.

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Hey, Wendell. You mentioned ghetto rigging free sync support into monitors before. If this monitor had free sync, it would be the perfect fit for me (and a lot of other people, I would imagine). How practical would it be to add free sync support after the fact here? We never did get a video about that.

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Pretty cool, I am looking into 4k and what a mess, I mean with the various connectors, and then the 4:4:4... Interested in that monitor but bit concerned as it says there could be dead pixels or backlight bleed, my xstar had some backlight bleed and at that price...

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We have had difficulty getting freesync to work even on fressync monitors lol.
I need an r9 285 .
Its hard to know if my 290x is lying or not.

Samsung reps told us in person the u28d590d supports freesync. Doesn't seem to be true either.

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Also adding to what wendell said, freesynch doesn't play with crossfire yet, soo (your going to struggle to drive it).... It is not quiet there yet, I suspect that it will take a while for the technology to get there.. Sort of like this 4k, with HDMI there was no intereface standard that could drive it properly, then we got HDMI2.0, turns out that doesn't work well with HDCP and colour reproduction, now we have HDCP monitors which stile don't do 4:4:4...

Its the early adoption fiasco, like HD DVDs, it takes time for things to be standardizeed. They covered this in latests PCPER podcast, josh speculated that perhaps they couldn't get all the things amd wanted into their latest scalers without spending too much time and money working on them. So we have an implementation which doesn't work that great from the graphics card end, right to the monitor....

And I think we will see the sub 4k scalers get there before 4k..

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I've got a couple of the new 2015 American market 4k tv's here. The new Vizio M series in 43 inch, which is not great. And the new Samsung JU6700 curved in 48 inch which is fantastic.

Vizio has hdmi handshake issues and SLI 4k issues galore with my gtx 970 and hdmi 2.0 and only does 4:4:4 chroma at 30hz. Even then the text quality on these pixels is just not very good. Will be returning this tv. Even tried 1080p GTA V at 120hz and it just, didn't work! kept hdmi handshaking every 20 seconds. Was also hard to ever get the color to look decent compared to my 27 inch 1440p IPS Auria's which are the 'korean' LG panels you guys talk about.

The Samsung is awesome so far. Great looking pixels even though they step up to around 90 ppi at this 48 inch size. Color is fantastic without any tweaking and a couple of steps got me to 4:4:4 chroma in PC mode. Chroma test looks better on this display than almost any I've seen. It's only hdmi 2.0 still which hasn't given me issues. Not sure about hdcp? I wish Samsung would just put DisplayPorts on these!!! My SLI flashing issues the vizio was giving me cleared up on this Samsung so that's nice. Was worried I would have to mess with the video cards to try to get 4k gaming working on the Vizio.

They also have a 40 inch version of this Samsung in curved and non-curved (JU6500 series) which would match the ppi of the 1440p's perfectly but I like the displays physically matching size with the 27's turned to portrait on the left and right so that's what I went with and I'm used to the massive 48 already. The curve is a dream so far as I did notice the flat vizio washed out towards the corners.

Anyway, I think the 40 inch non-curved JU6500 version of this is around $830 all the way up to the $1150 I paid for the 48 with curve so prices are reasonable IMO. This is what you should compare the A399u to at this point as they are all types of VA panel I believe. Would be more apples to apples than the last years TN monitor. Also, check out HardForum for an extensive thread on the new Samsungs if interested.

Thanks for the review of these 4k's from Korea market!

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I... Dang thats more affordable than a 3440x1440 monitor.