Acer X32QFS MiniLED. Discussion.

melmac

melmac

melmac

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Thinking about getting a new monitor and it's a lot tougher to decide than I thought. Currently I have an Asus MG279Q that I bought in 2015. It was one of the first Freesync monitors and it's been flawless. Great PQ with almost no IPS glow. Have no real complaints, but am thinking about going 4K so was looking at various options.

The monitor is going to be used for work and games. I work mainly from home in a brightly lit room, a window is just to the left of my work space. The monitor will be on for 8-10 hours a day most days. Sometimes longer. The room I am using as my home office, also doubles as my home cinema room. I have 55 inch OLED TV at the other end of the room if I want to watch movies etc. So the new monitor will only be used for work, very rarely for media. I should add, that I don't play competitive games anymore.

At first I was definite that I was getting an OLED. But now I am not so sure. It would seem silly to me to buy an OLED monitor when I have an OLED TV in the same room. I am also concerned about the brightness, especially during the day when I am working. Not too concerned with Burn in. So I started looking into the closest thing to OLED at the moment which seems to be MiniLED.

So, after doing a lot of looking around the last few weeks, these are the four monitors that I keep coming back to.

1. MSI MPG-321URX - OLED

2. Acer predator X32 FS - MINI-LED

3. Philips Evnia 32m2n6800m - MINI-LED

4. Samsung Odyssey Neo G8 S32BG85 - MINI-LED

The Acer and the MSI I can get for roughly the same price. I just can't find many reviews of the Acer X32 FS. The FP got decent reviews but was let down by the number of Local Dimming Zones. This one has double and has a few nice features.

3. The Philips seems to use the same panel as the Acer X32 but uses PWM and is extremely bright even at 0% brightness.

4. The Samsung, Not sure about the curve for work. I know there is a quality control issue and there is a scan line issue. If you get a good quality one, that this seems to be an amazing monitor. The only issue been the very aggressive curve.

Pricewise, as said I can get the Acer and MSI OLED for roughly the same price. About £20 cheaper for the Acer. The Philips is about £100 less than that. The cheapest one I can buy is the Samsung. Which I can get for nearly £200 less than Acer or the MSI.

Has anyone any knowledge of these monitors? Or have you any other suggestions that might be just as good?

Thanks!!
 
To counter the Phillips suggestion. I’m lucky enough to have a month old faulty OLED that Phillips support are dragging their heals fixing or replacing. OcUK direct me to Phillips for non existent support.

My experience yours may be different.

Edit This has prompted me to chase OcUK.
 
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Thank you both for your comments. I have been reading a lot more about both the Philips and the Acer. I think I have narrowed down to those two.

It's a mixed bag about both monitors to be honest.

But, I have decided to give the Acer a go. There are no reports of PWM Flickering with the Acer. However, the more I read about all these monitors, it's so dependent on the Quality Control lottery. So I just hope I get lucky!!

It should arrive Friday, which will give me the weekend to play with it.
 
So Philips have finally said my screen is in need of repair - 4 week wait (ish). So back to a 27inch from work. OcUK didn't really care.
 
The monitor arrived, UPS messed up the delivery, it's only 4 days late, I guess that's probably good for UPS :p

And I made one mistake, I forgot to check the weight, it's too heavy for my monitor arm. Luckily the stand isn't the worst. It's going to take me a little while to get used to it. Haven't changed any settings yet, just using out of the box standard mode. And I must say it looks fantastic. Text is crisp and clear. The thin frame is really nice too.

Haven't done any gaming yet, just some work and some web browsing. But, so far, I am very happy with my purchase.

Will report back later when I play with it a bit more.
 
melmac said:
There is so little info out there about this monitor. Are there Firmware problems? I guess the main problem is the fact that you can't do firmware updates yourself. Which is a bit unusual in this day and age.
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I think it was on Reddit that I saw people saying that the monitor doesn’t allow you to change the brightness and contrast settings in HDR mode, and it also loses settings when switching between SDR/HDR.

Might be something you want to check out.
 
thewanted said:
I think it was on Reddit that I saw people saying that the monitor doesn’t allow you to change the brightness and contrast settings in HDR mode, and it also loses settings when switching between SDR/HDR.

Might be something you want to check out.
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There is an Acer 32FP mini-led monitor. I know it had those issues.

From reading posts on reddit, the main issue that I see is that Freesync doesn't work with FALD enabled. I haven't had a chance to do any gaming yet so can't comment on this. When I get a chance I will try the brightness/contrast when HDR is enabled.
 
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I could have sworn I saw it in a post about the X32Q FS but I can’t find it now. Not so easy on a phone though.

FreeSync not working with FALD makes it pretty unsuitable for gaming, surely?

I need a 32” 4K monitor that’s non-OLED, and this one is very appealing due to the price and quality. I don’t really need MiniLED, but it’s nice to have in case I ever get a console. I’ll be using it for office use 99% of the time.
 
thewanted said:
I could have sworn I saw it in a post about the X32Q FS but I can’t find it now. Not so easy on a phone though.

FreeSync not working with FALD makes it pretty unsuitable for gaming, surely?

I need a 32” 4K monitor that’s non-OLED, and this one is very appealing due to the price and quality. I don’t really need MiniLED, but it’s nice to have in case I ever get a console. I’ll be using it for office use 99% of the time.
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That reddit post about FALD and Freesync was last year, so hopefully it's been addressed at this stage.
 
thewanted said:
I could have sworn I saw it in a post about the X32Q FS but I can’t find it now. Not so easy on a phone though.

FreeSync not working with FALD makes it pretty unsuitable for gaming, surely?

I need a 32” 4K monitor that’s non-OLED, and this one is very appealing due to the price and quality. I don’t really need MiniLED, but it’s nice to have in case I ever get a console. I’ll be using it for office use 99% of the time.
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Ok, I have tested a few things. And it's mostly good news :)

First: Freesync does work with FALD enabled. Which is a relief to be honest!!
Second: You can change brightness in HDR mode, You can't change contrast. You can't have the blue light filter on either.
Third: It remembers the settings when switching from HDR to SDR and back again.
Fourth: Make sure to disable Super Sharpness. It makes everything look terrible, especially in HDR.
Fifth: HDR looks way better when using HDMI rather than Display Port.

That's as much as I have tested so far. I have been using it all day for work and it's been perfect. Text is crisp and clear. I am coming from a 1440P monitor. The stand is the only real downside so far. It's not terrible, just not great either.

When it's darker I will see what the black levels are like :)
 
There is one really annoying thing so far. When you turn off the monitor it forgets it's HDR settings. I have to turn off Super Sharpness every time. And the Widget I mentioned above, it can't change settings for HDR, so I have to go to the back of the monitor. It wasn't much of an issue at first, but it's funny how the small things just become more and more annoying over time.

This is also my first HDR monitor. HDR really is a bit of faff in Windows isn't it?
 
Ok, I did my first serious gaming session on this monitor today. I bought Cyberpunk yesterday, as I thought it might be the best game to really test the monitor out. The game has both very dark areas and extremely bright areas and lots of colours. And today I got the chance to play it :)

The game looks stunning on this monitor. HDR looks amazing. Driving through the city in the rain is just a brilliant experience.

So far the only annoying thing about the monitor is having to turn off Super Sharpness every time I switch to HDR. Other than that, it's exceeded all my expectations. Whatever few doubts I had about it vanished after playing Cyberpunk for a few hours. And it's has been great for work stuff too. With no flicker which is a bonus!!

I would recommend this monitor to anyone looking for a 4K monitor and doesn't want to get an OLED.
 
Sounds like a great monitor! Unfortunately I lost interest in it when the price shot back up. I’ll probably end up getting the Dell U3225QE.

Do you think you can live with the sharpness setting not sticking?
 
thewanted said:
Sounds like a great monitor! Unfortunately I lost interest in it when the price shot back up. I’ll probably end up getting the Dell U3225QE.

Do you think you can live with the sharpness setting not sticking?
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Oh my god, I just seen the price increase. It's now nearly €500 more than what I bought it for!! Slightly less of an increase on Overclockers, but it still jumped £300. Is it worth the extra? The Dell is almost as expensive? Well it is over here.

As for the sharpness thing, I don't know what I am going to do yet. It only happens when you turn the monitor off. It's so nice to play on. Have a couple of weeks before I have to make a decision. What I might do is rig up my CX OLED to the computer and see how Cyberpunk looks on it. Then make a decision.
 
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