Acer Predator Z35

tezt

tezt

tezt

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Joined
17 Feb 2014
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25
Hi everyone,

I've decided to upgrade my set up with new monitor and I was looking through the website and forum on what are the options at budget of 600 GBP.
Currently I have a basic 27" Samsung monitor with 60 Hz refresh rate and Packard Bell 24".

So I've seen Acer Predator Z35 which initially looked exactly what I wanted,
but then I've started to read more and more about it and realised that people are having issues with "ghosting/smearing".
Some people have also mentioned that the resolution is not that grate for 35" monitor.

I would like to hear from people who currently have this monitor what is their opinion on above statement(s) ?
Is there anything better coming up in the future that is worth waiting for ?

P.S. I could not find anything else it the same price range and with the same specs (ultra-wide).
I've looked at more expensive models with 4K and IPS panels, but I've read that IPS has it's own issues (IPS Glow and Back-light Bleeding).
 
tezt said:
lowrider007,

its 1920x1080. I currently have 780 Ti, but I'll probably upgrade in near future to 1080.
Click to expand...

35" @ 1080p is the same PPI as 27" 1080p.

So you should be fine with the Z35 if that doesnt bother you.
However, theres plenty overshoot/ghosting on the Z35, and responsetimes as high as 50ms.
 
tezt said:
lowrider007,

its 1920x1080. I currently have 780 Ti, but I'll probably upgrade in near future to 1080.
Click to expand...

As tezt said above the PPI on the Z35 will be the same as your 27" so you won't notice a downgrade in that respect, but then you do have to take into consideration the ghosting etc, I think the Z35 really needs to be auditioned before purchasing tbh, I don't always like suggesting this but end of the day if buy the screen online and it's genuinely not good enough for you you can always pay to send it back, I've done that before and for me personally the cost of delivery was worth it to find out if it was the right panel for me.

Have you considered grabbing a 27" 1440p gsync panel instead? the extra resoulution, hertz, the GSYNC will be a massive upgrade and a 1080 gpu will really take advantage of it better at a later date, other than that I can only suggest an Acer X34 but that is good £250 more than the Z35 atm.
 
I am currently in extensive research for a new monitor, and actually have two monitors I am comparing to decide which to keep - Z35 and XB321HK.

Z35 has excellent blacks, but pretty bad black smearing. Not surprising, since its response time "from black" is ~50ms (and this is with overdrive!). This only affects transitions _from_ black, but I play a lot of space sims - and it was actually detrimental to experience in Elite Dangerous and Kerbal Space Program, since it made orbit lines barely visible, being thin bright lines on pitch black smearing almost eliminated them. I toned down refresh to max 120Hz (I think best setting for this monitor), but it didn't solve problem adequately.

Black smearing could be almost eliminated only by enabling ULMB, but then you lose G-SYNC and strobed backlight makes my eyes/head hurt during long gaming sessions so its no go for me...

I think that high refresh rate in certain situations here actually makes slow panel response a lot more visible - since you see clear discrepancy between certain (e.g. bright) parts moving fast, but dark parts creating huge "trails".

In static applications like websurfing & office work it was no issue and high contrast is very pleasant - but resolution is lacking. Its not that you notice pixels but image is lacking sharpness. Also its my personal preference, but I can't quite stomach the straight horizontal lines all made "bendy" looking by a curved panel.

Also VA panel had no corner light bleed/glow, but quite noticeable contrast shift toward edges - and I was pretty annoyed when I kept noticing windows with text losing contrast/gamma shifting if I dragged them toward screen edge.

I have not had any problems with games support for 21:9, save for some annoyances like lot of games kept switching between "full screen" (e.g. for free-camera) and "16:9 letterbox" (e.g. for cutscenes/dialogs).

So I am currently inclining to returning Z35 and keeping XB321HK, since I have much better experience with it.

4K is absolutely amazingly sharp, I am able to watch 1080p youtube without maximizing the player. Also I've set windows scaling to 200% which gave me the pixel-perfect display for apps without high DPI support (they have bigger pixels obviously but no blur due to pixels simply doubled). Not many games are able to run in full 4K, but ones which do (e.g. Pillars of Eternity) look absolutely amazing. Also 4K gives more scaling choices - e.g. you can use 1080p for pixel-doubled display very sharp.
The only downside is that its only 60Hz top, but I can spend GPU power on resolution instead of framerate - which is acceptable tradeoff for me.
Blacks are usual "IPS glowy" obviously, but no color/contrast shift and no black smearing which is a winner for me.
32" 16:9 has about same screen area as 35 21:9, taller but narrower. As I value vertical space for websurfing & office work it more valuable for me. Flat panel does not distort straight lines and 16:9 perfectly supported in supported in games.
 
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Have to agree with the comments above the Z35 is a good gaming monitor but should not have been sold as a faster then 120Hz monitor. No issue with that in any of the games I've played on it and Mad Max was actually better than playing on my Acer X34 due to the more earthy colours with lots of rust contrasted against bright light and sand. Films are also arguably better on the Z35 too compared to many IPS monitors an wasn't far off my old 50" pioneer plasma TV.

You can certainly see icons and text clearly on the Z35 but yeah the screen has a very obvious curve which may annoy on the desktop and in apps/utils.
 
bimbleuk said:
Have to agree with the comments above the Z35 is a good gaming monitor but should not have been sold as a faster then 120Hz monitor.
Click to expand...
With >50ms "from black" panel response time it does not even fully qualify for 60Hz. E.g. to provide true 60hz response time should be somewhere around 16ms. Certainly not 80ms (!) like some people actually measured on Z35.

There is no point that GPU could pump high FPS to it if pixels can't change fast enough - and visual difference is obvious if you compare Z35 with any high refresh monitor with properly low response times of the panel. E.g. in Witcher 3 when running I can see Geralt's legs moving fluidly, but with distinct "shimmery outline" to them, which was not present on truly high-refresh monitors.

They should name it "144Hz *unless you play games which have dark moving scenes" ;) Which pretty much precludes it from space sims.

You can certainly see icons and text clearly on the Z35
Click to expand...
Of course you do, unless your eyesight is bad ;) But if you ever visually compared 140PPI to 80PPI the difference is obvious, how much more detail you see and how much sharper text looks in comparison.
 
My Z35 is sat at the end of my of my sim rig so it's a fair distance away and the lower res does help in that case. Plus it was B grade so -48% off retail and about the price it should have been sold at :)
 
Bought a second Z35 as the first one developed a problem. Major smearing especially on dark images on a light background. Playing Dragons Dogma post game was truly awful.

Playing on normal overdrive + 60hz so this one is going back as well.

Disappointed as the rest of the monitor is great but I guess VA panels are just not up to it for gaming.
 
Black Dog said:
Bought a second Z35 as the first one developed a problem. Major smearing especially on dark images on a light background. Playing Dragons Dogma post game was truly awful.

Playing on normal overdrive + 60hz so this one is going back as well.

Disappointed as the rest of the monitor is great but I guess VA panels are just not up to it for gaming.
Click to expand...

I'm sorry to hear that the Z35 didn't work out for you, it certainly has it's issues. In relation to that specific problem, it isn't something that 'developed' nor is it a unit-specific fault. It is an inherent limitation of the panel used and is specifically addressed in detailed reviews such as my own and indeed that on TFT Central. It isn't overshoot, it's trailing caused by sluggish pixel transitions. Hence why disabling overdrive won't help.
 
RidingTheFlow said:
I am currently in extensive research for a new monitor, and actually have two monitors I am comparing to decide which to keep - Z35 and XB321HK.

Z35 has excellent blacks, but pretty bad black smearing. Not surprising, since its response time "from black" is ~50ms (and this is with overdrive!). This only affects transitions _from_ black, but I play a lot of space sims - and it was actually detrimental to experience in Elite Dangerous and Kerbal Space Program, since it made orbit lines barely visible, being thin bright lines on pitch black smearing almost eliminated them. I toned down refresh to max 120Hz (I think best setting for this monitor), but it didn't solve problem adequately.

Black smearing could be almost eliminated only by enabling ULMB, but then you lose G-SYNC and strobed backlight makes my eyes/head hurt during long gaming sessions so its no go for me...

I think that high refresh rate in certain situations here actually makes slow panel response a lot more visible - since you see clear discrepancy between certain (e.g. bright) parts moving fast, but dark parts creating huge "trails".

In static applications like websurfing & office work it was no issue and high contrast is very pleasant - but resolution is lacking. Its not that you notice pixels but image is lacking sharpness. Also its my personal preference, but I can't quite stomach the straight horizontal lines all made "bendy" looking by a curved panel.

Also VA panel had no corner light bleed/glow, but quite noticeable contrast shift toward edges - and I was pretty annoyed when I kept noticing windows with text losing contrast/gamma shifting if I dragged them toward screen edge.

I have not had any problems with games support for 21:9, save for some annoyances like lot of games kept switching between "full screen" (e.g. for free-camera) and "16:9 letterbox" (e.g. for cutscenes/dialogs).

So I am currently inclining to returning Z35 and keeping XB321HK, since I have much better experience with it.

4K is absolutely amazingly sharp, I am able to watch 1080p youtube without maximizing the player. Also I've set windows scaling to 200% which gave me the pixel-perfect display for apps without high DPI support (they have bigger pixels obviously but no blur due to pixels simply doubled). Not many games are able to run in full 4K, but ones which do (e.g. Pillars of Eternity) look absolutely amazing. Also 4K gives more scaling choices - e.g. you can use 1080p for pixel-doubled display very sharp.
The only downside is that its only 60Hz top, but I can spend GPU power on resolution instead of framerate - which is acceptable tradeoff for me.
Blacks are usual "IPS glowy" obviously, but no color/contrast shift and no black smearing which is a winner for me.
32" 16:9 has about same screen area as 35 21:9, taller but narrower. As I value vertical space for websurfing & office work it more valuable for me. Flat panel does not distort straight lines and 16:9 perfectly supported in supported in games.
Click to expand...

You should try 3440x1440 monitor, resolution of a 40" 4k screen but ultrawide and you can get 100hz Gsync. And you can also actually run games at 3440x1440 as opposed to 4k which is too many pixels. z35 is an instant "no" for me due to response times, excessive curve, low PPI and also it is auoptronics VA which from my experience with these is not as good as other VA, more gamma shift and colors are not great. IPS you get lower contrast and IPS glow which are both annoying, but still these are the best monitors available IMO.
 
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NirK said:
You should try 3440x1440 monitor, resolution of a 40" 4k screen but ultrawide and you can get 100hz Gsync. And you can also actually run games at 3440x1440 as opposed to 4k which is too many pixels.
Click to expand...
Looked at one in the shop. Didn't like:
- still makes straight lines "bendy". I work with some UI design and I want to be able to tell at glance that line is straight or not.
- I still can run games at 3440x1440 on my 4K. I also have many more choices - e.g. pixel perfect 1920x1080, ultrawide 3840x1600 or 2560x1440.
- 40" 4k is actually too big for my liking, for me 32" is sweet spot - high DPI and corners not too far, reducing corner IPS glow (bane of current 34" IPS ultrawides).
 
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