Which Monitor Should I Buy?

Hardware
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I’ve been looking for a monitor for far too long. Here is a list of my priorities.

  • 2160p, USB-C input with PD (~100 W)/Thunderbolt 4, IPS/OLED (Good color reproduction).
  • 80% of the time I’ll be doing productivity work.
  • 20% of the time I’ll be gaming, I would really appreciate a variable refresh rate panel.
  • High refresh rate & KVM isn’t a priority but I’d love that too but not at the cost of the other alternatives.

I’ve been loving the idea of getting a Dell Ultrasharp U3223QE, it ticks most of the boxes and includes a KVM. It would be a done deal but I had a look online and the ‘IPS Black’ technology they claim gives their panel deeper blacks isn’t as good as they say.

If there’s nothing else that complies with my tall order, that’s alright, the U3223QE isn’t bad at all. I’ve gotten tired of waiting for OLED, then waiting for QD-OLED.

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Maybe you might wanna checkout some monitor reviews from Hardware unboxed.
They do pretty good monitor reviews.

Well one of the area’s that ips panels in general aren’t really that great at are deep blacks.
If deep blacks are really important to you, then a VA panel is probably a better choice.
But yeah VA panel technology also has it’s own drawbacks of course.

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Pretty much all the IPS displays around can do that, but you’re gonna need a calibration tool to get the most out of the panel, all the time.
Don’t forget to take into consideration scaling you might need for comfortable viewing. For me 32" 2160p with 125% scaling in Windows was good. But fractional scaling makes Windows act weird.

16:9 2160p is, in my experience, good for a vertical window in 1:3 of the monitor vertically and two horizontal windows stacked on the other side. Or just straight up 4 windows, one per corner.

Any panel that supports over 60Hz has VRR of some kind. G-Sync kinda works with non certified panels, but it can act weird so keep that in mind.

As far as I know the Gigabyte M32U and the MSI MPG321UR-QD have both those features, but lack Thunderbolt or PD over USB-C. As far as I know there’s no gaming panel that does Thunderbolt + KVM + high refresh rate.
A Thunderbolt KVM is not a thing in monitors.

Don’t forget to check if the monitor is equipped with full bandwith HDMI 2.1. Else no HDMI device will work at 2160p and high refresh rate.
Also stay away from the Gigabyte M32U for this reason and because all the productivity features work like garbage.

May I suggest the LG 38WN95C? This is gonna surely run without scaling due to the size and has Thunderbolt + high refresh rate. Good colours out of the box without messing with firmwares (like most gaming monitors) but lower than average contrast rateo unfortunately.

Has been reported that QD-OLED uses a less than ideal subpixel arrangement that makes thin lines fringe quite a lot. So for your productivity use would not be ideal.

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Thanks for the replies, I’ve been going through the Hardware Unboxed catalogue, they’re up there with rtings as far as detail.

Yeah, I should have added some more specifics. I do colour work from photo editing but not professionally enough to have a calibration device. I prefer 16:9 but most of that is because of the screen real-estate, I’m going for as many pixels as possible, usually running windows at 100%.

5,529,600 vs 8,294,400 in relation to the pixel count of 21:9 vs 16:9 UHD.

The MSI MPG321UR-QD that was mentioned looks like a pretty good alternative.

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Sure, 2160p is absolutely the resolution to go for especially at 32". If you can still use 100% scaling and you’re not afraid to get a sudo-Apple experience there’s also the HUAWEI MateView display. It’s 3840x2560 in resolution.

I’ve been looking at it too for a while and looks like a good monitor. Not the best for the price but very respectable. Not many displays have that mix of features.

If you want to go all out on the photo editing and productivity side there are lots of good displays, like the Asus ProArt ones, that cost half but are calibrated out of the box and designed for color work.

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Thanks. It’s wild that I can get these panel specs on a laptop display but not a monitor.

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Hey just gonna cap this off with my conclusion, because I’ve got a compulsion for completion.

There’s no one monitor that’s got all the features I’m looking for so I decided to get two, one for work and the other for gaming etc. The two being the Dell U3223QE (Not to be confused with the P3223QE)& Alienware 34 QD-OLED AW3423DW.

Honorable Mentions:
LG 38WN95C
Gigabyte M32U
HUAWEI MateView
MSI MPG321UR-QD

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