The Predator x34 is a curved ultrawide monitor from Acer with some pretty awesome specs,
so let’s check it out and see if it’s justified for the price.
Although this model is around a couple of years old now I’ve had my eye on it for
some time, as it’s got everything I’ve been looking for in a monitor.
Let’s take a look at the specs of the panel to find out what makes it so interesting.
It’s a 34 inch monitor with a 21 by 9 aspect ratio.
In terms of resolution it runs at 3440 by 1440, which is bigger than some of the other
cheaper ultrawide monitors out there.
It’s also got G-Sync, which again is going to up the price a bit compared to FreeSync
alternatives, however as I’ve got an Nvidia graphics card this is perfect.
The panel also runs at 60Hz out of the box, but it can be overclocked to 100Hz with no
problems, and if that’s not enough for you check out the newer X34P which goes up to
120Hz.
It’s also got a 4ms grey-to-grey response time, and a peak brightness of 300 nits.
Usually with these kind of specs there’s some trade off like the panel being TN, but
that’s not the case here, as it’s using an IPS panel.
This allows for wide viewing angles, up to 178 degrees vertically and 172 degrees horizontally,
and while looking at the screen on any angle I personally had no problems at all, everything
was still clear with no observable colour shift.
IPS panels also generally give great colour reproduction, and Acer state that this one
is capable of 100% sRGB, so I’ve tested this with my Spyder 5 Pro which confirmed
that it is indeed capable of displaying 100% of sRGB, as well as 73% of NTSC and 79% of
AdobeRGB, so it seems like a pretty good choice for content creators like myself.
As you’ve probably noticed, it’s got a curved screen.
I’ve always been interested in this, but at the same time didn’t want to spend a
lot of money on a curved monitor without trying it first to see if I’d actually like it,
and overall I’d say it was pretty good, it was a bit strange editing video in Adobe
Premiere as the timeline didn’t look straight, but with a display this wide the curve definitely
helps in seeing the far edges.
It’s got a 1900R curve and I don’t personally find it too harsh, to me it felt fairly subtle.
I’ve also performed my usual backlight bleed test on the display, which involves having
the screen show a completely black screen in a dark room to help emphasize any bleeding
around the edges.
I then take a long exposure photo with my camera to help display any bleed, so basically
this is a worst case scenario test.
We can see that there’s a bit of bleed towards the corners, and I didn’t personally notice
it during normal use anyway, although this will of course vary between monitors.
It’s not all just about the panel though, taking a look at the rest of the monitor it’s
got a solid metal V shape stand with a handle on the top.
The bezels aren’t too thick, at around 1.5cm based on my own measurements, but honestly
they weren’t even noticeable as there’s so much screen to look at.
The stand can also be removed, revealing a standard 100mm VESA mount.
The back is a black glossy plastic, which easily shows up dust and fingerprints, although
this probably isn’t too much of an issue unless you’re going to be looking at the
back.
There’s also two 7 watt speakers on the back, and I thought that they actually sounded
pretty good.
Music was clear, even at maximum volume which sat at around 80 decibels and there was even
a little bass.
It does sound a little distant as it’s coming from the back, but if you’re against a wall
it sounds better.
The IO on the back towards the bottom faces out, and from left to right there’s a DisplayPort,
HDMI port, power input, 3.5mm headphone jack, and USB hub with 4 USB 3.0 Type-A ports which
are accessible once you connect the included USB Type-B cable to your PC.
As for the rest of the included cables you also get a HDMI cable, a DisplayPort cable,
and of course power cable with external power brick.
The metal stand in addition to large panel size makes the whole monitor fairly heavy,
weighing in at around 9.9KG, and due to the size I wasn’t able to weigh it myself.
Although it’s quite sturdy considering its size, if I bump the desk the panel does wobble
a little.
As for the overall dimensions, it’s 82.55cm in width, 37.6cm in height, and 9.9cm in depth,
so it’s fairly big, you’ll definitely want to measure your desk first to make sure
you’ve got enough room.
There’s some level of adjustments available too, with -5 to 35 degrees of tilt, and 13cm
of height adjustment with enough tension so that the screen actually stays where you leave
it.
No swivel or pivot here unfortunately.
Pivot I understand, but a little swivel would have been nice.
The on screen display was pretty easy to use and navigate through, there are physical buttons
underneath the front on the right hand side.
Also under the front is the LED lighting bar with 9 lights, which can be changed through
the on screen menu options.
The colours can be changed between blue, white, orange, red or green, and the effects can
be changed between fixed, breathing, flashing or ripple, and you can of course turn it off
if you prefer.
The operating power consumption for the monitor is listed as 54 watts on the spec sheet, and
while testing at 100Hz with minimum brightness with the LED bar on I found it to sit at around
25 watts, at 50% brightness the total power draw rose to 42 watts, while at 100% brightness
it increased to just under 60 watts.
Turning the LED bar off only seemed to change things by 0.4 watts or so.
So far the monitor looks pretty great, but how was it to actually use day to day?
I’ve edited a couple of videos with it now and I’m still getting used to the extra
space, I actually feel like I’ve got too much which sounds strange to say, I probably
just need to get used to it more.
Playing games such as PUBG was a bit different too, the field of view is quite a bit wider
which really helps with the immersion factor.
Combined with G-Sync and the 100Hz refresh rate playing games felt awesome again, having
come from two 24 inch monitors from 2010, however you will of course need a pretty powerful
graphics card to push that many frames at the 3440 by 1440 resolution, I’m using the
Nvidia 1080 here.
As for the price it’s come down a bit over the last couple of years, but it’s still
definitely not cheap, you’re paying for a premium product.
In Australia this model goes for $1299 AUD, or $999 USD from Amazon at the time of recording,
which seems pretty fair compared to the competition for what you’re getting.
So what did you guys think about the Predator X34 monitor from Acer?
Overall I like the design, the colours and materials look pretty good to me personally
without looking too “gamery”.
The 100Hz refresh rate, high resolution, and G-Sync support make it a great combination
in games, and the colour accuracy and extra space make productivity tasks such as video
editing a breeze.
Be sure to let me know your thoughts down in the comments, and leave a like if you found
the information useful.
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one.