hello good people i'm Eber with Hardware Canucks and something just showed
up on my doorstep it's a big box in fact it is my very first curved gaming
monitor and I'm actually really excited about it because I haven't experienced
curved gaming in a really really long time I do remember seeing a few monitors
that show floors like CES and Computex but looks like you know that's looks
like I'm not gonna go anywhere anytime soon but before I even touch that box I
gotta take care of something very important now that we're living in this
you know crazy situation worldwide and that is disinfecting the box
I really wish to find messin and Lysol a while back but yes it's too late in fact
these things are very rare to find well at least where I live so let me wipe
this down god I can't believe I'm doing this right now but better to be safe
than sorry you know have you ever realized that this is something that you
end up doing in 2020 wiping down boxes like okay that is very gross this is the
AOC CU34G2X 34 inch curved gaming monitor of course there said
alphabet-soup that I'll never remember but let's unbox this thing and set this
up
three weeks later alright so I need to be transparent here for a sec I've never
really been a fan of curbed ultra-wide monitors because as a creator I value
vertical real estate or taller monitors that give you more vertical screen real
estate and of course something that's more color accurate because that's what
that's what matters as a creator when I'm producing videos or when I'm editing
videos for you guys so I've never really even thought about switching or at least
making or trying to switch to an ultra-wide monitor but here I am I spend
a good amount of time with the curbed gamee monitor from AOC to see what the
experience is like but I also want to set the stage for you guys as to what
I've been using for the past couple of years and that's this the BenQ PD 3200
you this has been my primary display since I've reviewed it more than two
years ago it was a dream monitor for me because it's 4k and the display spans
across 32 inches it's a true 10 bit panel that's factory calibrated with
excellent color accuracy and I have no plans to replace this monitor just yet
but as I slowly started thinking about it I realized that for people who are
upgrading from a 24 inch 1080p display or a 27-inch 1440p display the upgrade
to a 34 inch ultrawide monitor kind of makes sense because there's a good use
case scenario for getting that extra horizontal screen real estate now I've
spent like I said earlier a good amount of time playing around with this thing
so let me walk you through my experience using this okay so this AOC CU34G2X
is one of the best-selling curt gaming monitors on the market right now
according to Amazon it also goes to show how far the larger format kurd monitor
market has come in terms of pricing and screen quality why well you're getting a
34 inch display with a 21 by 9 aspect ratio that's curved with a resolution of
34 40 by 1440 it's also a VA panel with a refresh rate of 144 Hertz and a 1
millisecond claimed response time it's also free sync premium certified so it's
great for AMD users who one LFC or low framerate compensation also it's Jason
compatible DisplayPort adapte Singh protocol then
there's a Elsie's new three-year debt pixel warranty that also covers
accidental damage in the first year and the price for all of this four hundred
and fifty dollars now unfortunately at the time of according this video a lot
of the retailers are marking up their prices order if jacked up the prices on
this monitor which is kind of unfortunate but if you
can find it for $400 that is awesome now just to quickly go
over the physical aspects of this monitor I'm actually really surprised by
the build quality that you're getting for the price the stand is nice and
rigid I mean this really did surprise me by a huge margin this monitor also is
Vesak compatible so if you're looking into mounting this on a third party
monitor arm you can certainly do so the IO is also very respectable you're
getting two DisplayPort 1.4 two HDMI and a couple more USB 3 ports which is nice
and finally there are a lot of color profiles built into the OSD that you can
play around with I prefer setting it to the standard mode as it was the most
pleasing to my eyes I'm gonna kick things off with my gaming experience
using this monitor because given that it has a gaming brand on it it naturally
makes sense that it is targeted towards the gaming market and I gotta say I
absolutely loved it the 144 Hertz refresh rate along with that one
millisecond response time it was absolutely amazing and I think the first
thing that comes to my mind is that wider field of view because it can help
expand horizontal awareness in FPS titles there's also more horizontal
viewing in racing games and strategy games can benefit from this as well
however not all games support 21 by nine format natively unfortunately a lot of
the games that I play don't have native support for this aspect ratio like Need
for Speed payback Need for Speed he these are some of the
titles that I'm really invested in and unfortunately it is just does not work
that vertical crop really ruins the whole gaming experience now while a lot
of the games that I play are older don't expect that this is just an issue with
older titles because newer games also suffer from this compatibility issue now
of course there are workarounds to this you can simply go into the config files
change a few things to make it work on your ultra wide monitor but that does
involve a lot of researching and it's just not a quick
easy step to make it work on a 21:9 display now I will leave a link to the
site called wsg f dot org it's a fantastic forum where it walks you
through the best optimal settings to take advantage of your 21x9 ultrawide
monitor I'll leave a link down below highly recommend checking that out
unfortunately some games can't be fixed either like overwatch and some of their
titles apply a vertical crop some have said that this could be due to giving
anyone a competitive advantage but it's still just torn annoying I highly
recommend that you research the games that you want to play and just not
assume that it's just gonna work automatically on a 21 by 9 display
because when they work they look amazing it is an absolutely amazing experience
but when they don't you almost feel like you know all that money that you've
invested in just just got wasted the next factor that I want to talk about is
to curve on the monitor because it takes your immersion to a whole new level if
you're playing racing games or flight simulations or FPS titles that curve it
sort of gives you this wrapper on feel it's difficult to describe it in words
you really have to experience it in person I think another way of putting it
is that it sort of tightens up your field of view but you're still not
losing your sight or your peripheral vision everything is still in your
peripheral vision I think that's the best way to put it if that made any
sense and while this is a 1500 are curved display I didn't really find it
too aggressive it was just perfect like I said I had a blast but
unfortunately that curve comes at a disadvantage when it comes to
productivity because I spend the majority of my day creating content and
if I'm working on a thumbnail in Photoshop my lines look warped the
composition just looks totally off so I can't really make the call as to what
it's gonna look like when someone views it on a smartphone display that's for
the most part flat so if my lines are straight on a kurd monitor or if I make
it straight on a curb monitor it may look warped on some other display that's
flat again it just throws me off it throws my composition it just again I
did not like having that warped image as I'm working in Photoshop or even in
Tiffin she resolved the other thing that bothered me was the size the AOC curved
monitor is slightly wider compared to the bank you you're getting
roughly three inches more with the ultra white which is a bonus on either hand
the height favors the bank you monitor because it has a 16 by 9 aspect ratio
and it requires to keep up with that spec now keep in mind that I did include
the bezels as well just to keep it simple and to be honest with you this
3/4 inch ultrawide monitor looked smaller to me compared to my 32 inch in
BenQ monitor and I think that has to do with the height of the monitor rather
than the width because with the 4k Bank you monitor your getting more vertical
pixels than the 34 inch ultra wide so you get more vertical screen real estate
when you're working with different applications I'll give you a perfect
example people generally think that when you're using an editing software the
ultra wide aspect ratio gives you a broader perspective of your timeline but
I added videos in chunks meaning Izu min to the timeline and then edit 10 to 15
seconds of the video perfect the cuts make sure that the transitions are
smooth and then move on to the next portion so the ultra wide didn't really
make a huge difference to my workflow however what did bother me the most was
the program monitor was significantly smaller compared to my pinky monitor
there was just so much wasted space around that now keep in mind this is a
layout that I like to work with yours may be completely different and if I
switch over to the 32 inch pinky monitor you can clearly see that I can take
advantage of all of that extra vertical screen real estate to make it bigger and
I can have a really nice view of the timeline as well it's just perfect
now if I were to compare this 34 inch ultra wide to a 27 inch 1440p display
the ultra wide is a clear winner because you obviously get more space to work
around horizontally I think mine now you have a clear idea that I've been spoiled
by higher resolution displays the next bit is watching videos on YouTube
Netflix Amazon Prime and other platforms because most content being produced
these days come in a sixteen by nine format that can take advantage of every
possible screen real estate so on the BenQ monitor when you hit that
fullscreen button boom the whole thing fills up without any black bars it's a
pleasing experience overall switching over to the ultra wide and you'll
immediately start to notice vertical black bars which might not be a
deal-breaker for a lot of ultra wide users
but I just can't deal with that however when you find content being shot in that
ultralight aspect ratio it's an amazing experience on the positive side
multitasking typically favors the ultra-right because windows management
is efficient so if you prefer having two different apps in split-screen mode
you'll benefit from the extra field of view meaning you can see more things
within each window I think this would be a great upgrade for those coming from a
27-inch 1440p display because you are getting more horizontal pixels without
sacrificing vertical pixels there are some tools like fancy zones windows
manager that makes the non gaming experience on these ultra wide monitors
so much more usable shout-out to a Doug for pointing that out on Twitter it's a
super efficient way to snap multiple windows in different layouts I'll leave
a link down below it's truly amazing but here's the thing I don't see myself
getting into that situation because when I'm right in front of a display editing
a video or laying out a script or researching a topic for a video I'm more
focused on the center part of the display rather than the sites I
typically position like browser tabs at the center instead of going fullscreen
yes I'm that guy also when I'm making thumbnails using Photoshop the content
is right at the center and I like to sort of frame things right in that area
because it just helps me stay in focus and be more productive I'd like to get
things done step by step I'm by no means a multitasking guru and for the type of
work that I do I just prefer having a single window writer on the center and
I'll just be completely fine with that now I'm also aware the lot of ultra-wide
users love having two three four windows at the same time which fits their
workflow and that's totally fine too now as I mentioned earlier I was
skeptical about trying out a curved ultra-wide gaming monitor but I think
the biggest takeaway after spending time a good amount of time using this thing
is that it really gives you an immersive experience when you're gaming on it the
wander field of view when you try to play games that properly support that
aspect ratio it's just a fantastic experience but would I switch to it
permanently absolutely not because I just cannot sacrifice that vertical
screen real estate just because you know 4k it's
perfect for my needs and I just yeah I mean this would this would be a perfect
complement to monitor to my 32-inch but I wouldn't switch to this as my primary
display with that being said this AOC monitor strikes a good balance between
performance and affordability because for $450 suspects that you can honestly
it is just a steal in my opinion and if you're someone who's coming from a non
4k display or a large format display say for instance a 24 inch 1080p monitor or
a 27-inch 1440 monitor you should probably consider trying out a 34 inch
ultra wide because you're really not losing a lot in terms of size and most
importantly screen resolution on that note thank you so much for watching I
hope you were able to take away something from this video I'll be
hanging out in the comments down below I'm really curious to hear your thoughts
your stories your experiences using ultra wide displays so yeah stay safe
guys spend responsibly and I'll talk to you guys in the next one