Acer X32QFS MiniLED. Discussion.

Good news and bad news for anyone still watching this thread. First the good news, two pieces of good news. Did a little more actual testing last night of HDR and wanted to see exactly how bad/good the miniled blooming was. Watched a few HDR testing videos on Youtube. First off HDR looks amazing. The videos were jaw droppingly good. There is bloom on small light sources, which is to be expected, but it didn't detract from how good the videos were. And I have not noticed it in any games or doing any work on the desktop. The other bit of good news is that the monitor has started to remember the HDR settings. I am not sure what has changed in the last couple of days, but I can turn on and off the monitor, switch to SDR and back to HDR and it remembers the HDR settings all the time now.

Well the bad news. I noticed my eyes were getting tired more than usual, despite not noticing any flicker. I just thought it was my eyes adjusting from moving to 4K from 1440P. I even increased the scaling yesterday to see would that help. It didn't. This morning I did some testing for PWM. I should have done this the first day I got them monitor. Anyway, the monitor does use PWM :( It turns out all the MiniLED monitors that have this panel use PWM, like Philips Evnia 32m2n6800m for example.

So I am going to return it. PWM kills my eyes. :(
 
So I packed up this monitor today and sent it off. Went back to my old monitor yesterday evening. The difference is massive. Cyberpunk looks dull and lifeless. And I can't find any non OLED monitor that comes close to been as good as the one I am returning.

What's my final verdict on the Acer X32QFS? It's an awesome monitor. If you aren't sensitive to PWM flicker and you can get it for between £600 and £700, buy it. For a combination of work and gaming, I don't think there is a better 32 inch, 4K monitor out there.
 
I made an account here to specifically comment all the way from Australia sharing my experience with the monitor. And to hopefully get some information.

I brought X32 QFS few months back, and with windows, general everyday usage (coding, PM apps, etc), and PC gaming it has been more than acceptable. Quite an upgrade in fact since my last Dell monitor was quite muted (though good enough for office work). In between I went with OLED and another mini-LED, but had to give up on former due to eyes strain being unbearable, and latter having dead pixels. The colors, contrast, HDR, refresh rate, brightness - everything is top-notch. Unlike original poster, I don't feel any eye strain too due to PWM even though I am using it day long.

And do I have to complain anything about? Absolutely YES. One of the reasons I went with this monitor was my PS5 Pro; I needed a good "private" panel to hook it up into. Now the problem is that if HDR on console is turned on the monitor goes dim on me irrespective of what I set in brightness settings. Without HDR turned on the console (but just on the monitor), its performs with vivid colors; have to dial it down a bit in fact. It looks like monitor is tone mapping on top of console tone mapping, resulting in the issue. I tried playing around with lots of settings - on console and monitor both, but issue persists.

If anyone has settings I can use to better affect for PS5, please do share those. Web search about it has produced scant little. The TechCrunch guys who gave these monitor a solid review seems to either be doing something totally different from what I have tried, or its paid review.

Just to rule out any issues with cables, ports, console itself, the same set works on my HDR tv just fine.
 
Chakkiraaha said:
I made an account here to specifically comment all the way from Australia sharing my experience with the monitor. And to hopefully get some information.

I brought X32 QFS few months back, and with windows, general everyday usage (coding, PM apps, etc), and PC gaming it has been more than acceptable. Quite an upgrade in fact since my last Dell monitor was quite muted (though good enough for office work). In between I went with OLED and another mini-LED, but had to give up on former due to eyes strain being unbearable, and latter having dead pixels. The colors, contrast, HDR, refresh rate, brightness - everything is top-notch. Unlike original poster, I don't feel any eye strain too due to PWM even though I am using it day long.

And do I have to complain anything about? Absolutely YES. One of the reasons I went with this monitor was my PS5 Pro; I needed a good "private" panel to hook it up into. Now the problem is that if HDR on console is turned on the monitor goes dim on me irrespective of what I set in brightness settings. Without HDR turned on the console (but just on the monitor), its performs with vivid colors; have to dial it down a bit in fact. It looks like monitor is tone mapping on top of console tone mapping, resulting in the issue. I tried playing around with lots of settings - on console and monitor both, but issue persists.

If anyone has settings I can use to better affect for PS5, please do share those. Web search about it has produced scant little. The TechCrunch guys who gave these monitor a solid review seems to either be doing something totally different from what I have tried, or its paid review.

Just to rule out any issues with cables, ports, console itself, the same set works on my HDR tv just fine.
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Have you tried HDR from your PC to the monitor? HDR on this monitor was awesome for me. The only time it was Dim was when HDR was turned on but it was showing SDR material. Windows does have an option to change SDR brightness in this case. If HDR is working on your PC with this monitor and HDR is working on your PS5 with another monitor, then I am not sure where the problem might lie. HDMI handshaking issue?

Haven't checked this thread in ages, that's why I am only answering now, sorry.
 
@melmac - thanks for taking out time to respond. Yeah, I know thread is bit outdated, but glad to hear back from you. HDR on the monitor is indeed awesome. If I keep just monitor HDR on, and console/windows HDR off, the picture quality is quite good. Its when I turn HDR on PS5 and windows, that things go haywire. I tried all sorts of tweaking but to no avail. It shouldn't be cable handshake problem, since I tried one or two, and PC connects to monitor via DP, and console via HDMI.

Again, if I leave just monitor HDR on, and windows/console HDR off, the picture pops-up!
 
Chakkiraaha said:
Again, if I leave just monitor HDR on, and windows/console HDR off, the picture pops-up!
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That's how it's supposed to work(or maybe not work would be more accurate) If you play HDR content while HDR is off on the console/windows, it will be oversaturated and look bad.

If you have HDR turned on your monitor and your console/Windows and display SDR content, it will look dim and/or washed out.

So it's like this:

Monitor HDR ON: Windows HDR OFF: - HDR content looks poor, SDR content looks great.
Monitor HDR ON: Windows HDR ON: - HDR content looks great, SDR content looks poor.
Monitor HDR OFF: Windows HDR OFF: SDR content looks great, HDR content looks poor.

Have you tried both HDMI ports? I see people having problems with HDR been dark/dim when using their PS5.

A handshaking issue might not be a problem with the cable. It just means that there is some incompatibility between two devices.
 
Thanks for your helpful responses; truly appreciate it. That makes sense; the only problem in my case is:

Monitor HDR ON: Console HDR ON: HDR content goes dim and dark-ish. Colors look fine really, but there is overall "pall" on the whole screen.
Monitor HDR ON: Console HDR OFF: HDR content looks great. Turning HDR off on console lights up the screen real good. Not just the startup screen but the actual in-game screen too. So I do not have any problem as such maintaining this setup, but I do keep wondering why it is so. I must be missing something at least by keeping console HDR off.
 
Disappointed to see the price raised to £899. But there is a B stock one for £582 with a worse warranty. When will the price be reduced again?
 
GodAtum said:
Disappointed to see the price raised to £899. But there is a B stock one for £582 with a worse warranty. When will the price be reduced again?
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Don't buy is what I had recommend. I tried my best to set it up playing with n number of settings, but irrespective of what I did, the HDR seemed broken. Black crush is beyond terrible, FALD algo unacceptable. Yeah, it can get near-about there with tweaking through nVidia panel and bothering about detailed settings. But it shouldn't be a hassle for a monitor costing so much. Also, Acer doesn't role out firmware updates for it. Strangely enough, the monitor had scant one major reviewer analysing it- techradar; I have so many reasons to believe that its paid one.

I sold it and simply moved to OLED, though I wanted to avoid it. But then it works good enough right out of the box.
 
Chakkiraaha said:
Don't buy is what I had recommend. I tried my best to set it up playing with n number of settings, but irrespective of what I did, the HDR seemed broken. Black crush is beyond terrible, FALD algo unacceptable. Yeah, it can get near-about there with tweaking through nVidia panel and bothering about detailed settings. But it shouldn't be a hassle for a monitor costing so much. Also, Acer doesn't role out firmware updates for it. Strangely enough, the monitor had scant one major reviewer analysing it- techradar; I have so many reasons to believe that its paid one.

I sold it and simply moved to OLED, though I wanted to avoid it. But then it works good enough right out of the box.
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I think you were very unlucky with the monitor lottery. My X32QFS didn't have any of the issues yours had. The only problems I had with mine was the PWM dimming and sometimes not remembering settings when you switched between SDR and HDR. I guess having to turn on and off HDR in the monitor settings was a bit of faff, which might have got more annoying if I had the monitor longer.

Or maybe it was simply that my model had a newer firmware?

I would have no problem recommending it as long as the user wasn't sensitive to the flicker caused by PWM dimming.

However, telling the person to go OLED isn't bad advice :) I decided to go OLED myself and mine just came today. Really nice monitor so far!!
 
melmac said:
I think you were very unlucky with the monitor lottery. My X32QFS didn't have any of the issues yours had. The only problems I had with mine was the PWM dimming and sometimes not remembering settings when you switched between SDR and HDR. I guess having to turn on and off HDR in the monitor settings was a bit of faff, which might have got more annoying if I had the monitor longer.

Or maybe it was simply that my model had a newer firmware?

I would have no problem recommending it as long as the user wasn't sensitive to the flicker caused by PWM dimming.

However, telling the person to go OLED isn't bad advice :) I decided to go OLED myself and mine just came today. Really nice monitor so far!!
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Thanks for your comments. I have a Macbook Pro M4 for work which has PWM? I don't get headaches with that.

I can't use an OLED because 90% of my use is productivity, YT and Twitch.

Do you think it's worth getting the B grade £583 or wait to see if it comes on sale?
 
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GodAtum said:
Thanks for your comments. I have a Macbook Pro M4 for work which has PWM? I don't get headaches with that.

I can't use an OLED because 90% of my use is productivity, YT and Twitch.

Do you think it's worth getting the B grade £583 or wait to see if it comes on sale?
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What monitor are you using at the moment?

I don't know much about Macbooks, but they could use a very high PWM frequency or have some other tech that might reduce the flickering so maybe that's why you don't notice it.

I think OLEDs are in a much better place now though. I think if you are a person who replaces their monitor every 3 to 5 years, an OLED monitor would be fine. If you could wait a while longer the next generation panels are due out soon and they are even more resistant to burn in.

And speaking about waiting. Should you wait or buy a B grade. I would wait, unless you really need to buy now. There are also new Mini LED monitors coming soon. And I know the monitor can be got new for cheaper than the current B grade price.

However, If you go to the following forum section

**B-GRADE CLEARANCE AND FORUM DEALS**

Just to confirm we cover 6 months as the post above states. who is the case king? i have opened a cust serv(sales) forum thread on my acct. is there a specific person?
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk

You could PM Robbie with a cheeky offer for the B Grade X32QFS. Might get accepted. Just make sure you have the option to return it.

Oh, just took a look through the monitors that were available in the clearance section. There is this one as well


That might be an option for you. It's getting regular Firmware updates too. Check out the reviews.
 
melmac said:
What monitor are you using at the moment?

I don't know much about Macbooks, but they could use a very high PWM frequency or have some other tech that might reduce the flickering so maybe that's why you don't notice it.

I think OLEDs are in a much better place now though. I think if you are a person who replaces their monitor every 3 to 5 years, an OLED monitor would be fine. If you could wait a while longer the next generation panels are due out soon and they are even more resistant to burn in.

And speaking about waiting. Should you wait or buy a B grade. I would wait, unless you really need to buy now. There are also new Mini LED monitors coming soon. And I know the monitor can be got new for cheaper than the current B grade price.

However, If you go to the following forum section

**B-GRADE CLEARANCE AND FORUM DEALS**

Just to confirm we cover 6 months as the post above states. who is the case king? i have opened a cust serv(sales) forum thread on my acct. is there a specific person?
forums.overclockers.co.uk forums.overclockers.co.uk

You could PM Robbie with a cheeky offer for the B Grade X32QFS. Might get accepted. Just make sure you have the option to return it.

Oh, just took a look through the monitors that were available in the clearance section. There is this one as well


That might be an option for you. It's getting regular Firmware updates too. Check out the reviews.
Click to expand...

I'm a bit scared because it only has a 6 month warranty. What happens if there's something wrong in 7 months? A standard 3 year warranty gives me peace of mind?
 
GodAtum said:
I'm a bit scared because it only has a 6 month warranty. What happens if there's something wrong in 7 months? A standard 3 year warranty gives me peace of mind?
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Then you will have to wait for one of them to come on sale. Keep checking around though. If the worst comes to the worst, wait for Black Friday. At least by then some of the new Mini LEDs might be available. Or even some of the next gen OLEDs.
 
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