Acer B326HUL 32" Widescreen LED Professional/Gaming Slim Bezel Flicker Free Monitor -

Soldato
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Hmmm. One annoyance with the Sammy...while it goes into standby fine, they have set it up so that after x hours of standby, it will turn itself fully off.
 
Soldato
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Hmm, so the Acer now dropped at the place where I will buy monitors from...

Can someone tell me, when this goes into standby, does it remain in standby rather than turning off?

What are the down sides to this monitor vs the Sammy?

Worse response time? Less adjustable image quality settings?
 
Soldato
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Hmm, so the Acer now dropped at the place where I will buy monitors from...

Can someone tell me, when this goes into standby, does it remain in standby rather than turning off?

What are the down sides to this monitor vs the Sammy?

Worse response time? Less adjustable image quality settings?

Looks like we're having a similar train of thought ;)
 
Soldato
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Well, from the two reviews, image/colour quality does not seem to be a problem, and the Acer doesn't use PWM as far as I am aware.

I guess the only down side for me now could be response times...

Yes, it's Acer, a brand I always tried to avoid, but this monitor is temporary at best, as I will be waiting for a more affordable curved ultra wide MVA panel.
 
Associate
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Right, finally got my forum account approved this morning so I can chime in on this monitor (the Acer 32" for the record, not Samsung or BenQ)

My was received Saturday - yep, I needed one quickly as my trusty Digimate 24" from 6.5 years ago finally packed up. It's currently sat in the hallway all boxed up (in pristine condition I might add) waiting to be picked up and returned.

My little review...

I initially contacted sales prior to buying as I was concerned on poor reviews regarding response times. I was concerned about gaming. Obviously there are multiple types of gaming and I'm mostly and MMO person. I was assured that the response times are mostly marketing guff and it would be fine for my purposes so I took the plunge because of the great price. I went 32" because I wanted something a bit bigger and had been used to 1920x1200.

Well, when it arrived I nearly died at the size of the box!! But on getting it out, it's not so bad, there's a lot of good polystyrene packaging in there!

OK, first up, I would encourage anyone that sits at a desk to think long and hard about a 32" 16:9 screen. It is massive and frankly started to make me feel sick even if I pulled my desk away from the wall a bit and pushed the monitor back as far as I dared before it was in danger of toppling off.

But that was only the start. I actually had the exact opposite of what I expected. Immediately I noticed that ghosting on the desktop was appalling, Windows with GTX670 connected over Dual DVI or Display Port and OS X (11" MacBook Air) connected over DVI-I adapter (so admittedly only 1920x1080 due to the mini display port to DVI adapter).

When I say ghosting was appalling I mean just dragging a window would leave a dark trail behind that I'm absolutely positive is not some visual effect in Windows or OS X that I've not seen before. Additionally, in OS X, (and this is a weird one that I can't explain!) if you open a new Safari window that has the "Favourites" tab open and you drag that window, Safari would really flicker and stutter like it was running at about 5 FPS. Thats the best I can describe it and it only did it on that particular window. Very odd indeed.

To be fair to the sales guy, I could not fault this display in my gaming that I tried. I tried WoW, Skyrim, Elite Dangerous and Borderlands 2. I'm sure a hardcore gamer might not be happy, but that's not me!

Another thing, the colours on my old Digitate were so vibrant that this thing just looked washed out in comparison. I couldn't get it looking nice at all but that's very much a personal preference kind of thing.

I did manage to get the ghosting down to an acceptable level but to do that I had to knock brightness and saturation down real low and it just looked nasty. Oh, and I HAD to use a dark desktop wallpaper. And those that too many restrictions I'm not prepared to accept.

So, the colours and the terrible ghosting were enough on their own but also given the sheer size of it made me feel sick it has had to go back. Very odd since others seem to be singing it's praises!! Maybe I'm just picky? I don't think so though and given my other use than gaming is development I'd be looking at that ghosting a LOT.

One nice thing that I was able to do in the few hours I worked with it was to set up a custom resolution of 2560x1080 and try that out. I had previously discounted a 29" super wide as too small but in that resolution the Acer is pretty much identical in measurements to what you get with 29" Super Wide and I have made the decision that smaller will in my case be better and have therefore ordered an LG 29UB65 which is turning up tomorrow to replace the Acer.

Sorry if that is a bit long but I hope it helps somebody and doesn't offend anyone that thinks the monitor is the bees knees :)
 
Soldato
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That is useful.

Though I am surprised at the ghosting you mention at desktop, but it being fine in games.

Am also surprised at it being washed out. Picture quality is very good on the Sammy.
 
Soldato
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Right, finally got my forum account approved this morning so I can chime in on this monitor (the Acer 32" for the record, not Samsung or BenQ)

My was received Saturday - yep, I needed one quickly as my trusty Digimate 24" from 6.5 years ago finally packed up. It's currently sat in the hallway all boxed up (in pristine condition I might add) waiting to be picked up and returned.

My little review...

I initially contacted sales prior to buying as I was concerned on poor reviews regarding response times. I was concerned about gaming. Obviously there are multiple types of gaming and I'm mostly and MMO person. I was assured that the response times are mostly marketing guff and it would be fine for my purposes so I took the plunge because of the great price. I went 32" because I wanted something a bit bigger and had been used to 1920x1200.

Well, when it arrived I nearly died at the size of the box!! But on getting it out, it's not so bad, there's a lot of good polystyrene packaging in there!

OK, first up, I would encourage anyone that sits at a desk to think long and hard about a 32" 16:9 screen. It is massive and frankly started to make me feel sick even if I pulled my desk away from the wall a bit and pushed the monitor back as far as I dared before it was in danger of toppling off.

But that was only the start. I actually had the exact opposite of what I expected. Immediately I noticed that ghosting on the desktop was appalling, Windows with GTX670 connected over Dual DVI or Display Port and OS X (11" MacBook Air) connected over DVI-I adapter (so admittedly only 1920x1080 due to the mini display port to DVI adapter).

When I say ghosting was appalling I mean just dragging a window would leave a dark trail behind that I'm absolutely positive is not some visual effect in Windows or OS X that I've not seen before. Additionally, in OS X, (and this is a weird one that I can't explain!) if you open a new Safari window that has the "Favourites" tab open and you drag that window, Safari would really flicker and stutter like it was running at about 5 FPS. Thats the best I can describe it and it only did it on that particular window. Very odd indeed.

To be fair to the sales guy, I could not fault this display in my gaming that I tried. I tried WoW, Skyrim, Elite Dangerous and Borderlands 2. I'm sure a hardcore gamer might not be happy, but that's not me!

Another thing, the colours on my old Digitate were so vibrant that this thing just looked washed out in comparison. I couldn't get it looking nice at all but that's very much a personal preference kind of thing.

I did manage to get the ghosting down to an acceptable level but to do that I had to knock brightness and saturation down real low and it just looked nasty. Oh, and I HAD to use a dark desktop wallpaper. And those that too many restrictions I'm not prepared to accept.

So, the colours and the terrible ghosting were enough on their own but also given the sheer size of it made me feel sick it has had to go back. Very odd since others seem to be singing it's praises!! Maybe I'm just picky? I don't think so though and given my other use than gaming is development I'd be looking at that ghosting a LOT.

One nice thing that I was able to do in the few hours I worked with it was to set up a custom resolution of 2560x1080 and try that out. I had previously discounted a 29" super wide as too small but in that resolution the Acer is pretty much identical in measurements to what you get with 29" Super Wide and I have made the decision that smaller will in my case be better and have therefore ordered an LG 29UB65 which is turning up tomorrow to replace the Acer.

Sorry if that is a bit long but I hope it helps somebody and doesn't offend anyone that thinks the monitor is the bees knees :)

Thanks for your review. I must admit I had my reservations being that I am used to the excellence of Dell monitors for the past few years. I am also FPS gamer so that makes a difference. All very well having a good price but if the quality is not there then the price becomes immaterial. As I am in no rush to replace my monitor I will leave it till next year and see what is available.
 
Caporegime
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JediFragger, would you be able to pop on here http://www.testufo.com/#test=framerates-text and tell me if there is ghosting following the text? This for me is where overdrive is most noticeable - Switching it on and the text looks like it doubles up, with a light faint version following the black text offset by a couple of pixels.

Yup, their is a faint blur after the words scroll up (but can't see the words doubling up). Not getting the ghosting with windows either that guddler is getting. Weird. (gfx card might be the deciding factor though??)
 
Associate
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I think if you have the option to wait then I would.

Like I say, I didn't really see a problem with the gaming that I tried, it was with non gaming I had the issue (I would assume films would be good, the same as gaming). I do play FPS, but I'm simply not that good so I wouldn't be likely to be that critical.

It's perfectly possible I got a particularly bad unit, of course.

Sadly I don't have the option to wait which is another reason for going for the smaller / cheaper monitor. I'm hoping that next year we will start to see something that is in between massive and barely big enough, especially in the super-wide category. So I'm working on the basis that the less I spend now, the easier it will be to upgrade again next year.
 
Associate
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Yup, their is a faint blur after the words scroll up (but can't see the words doubling up). Not getting the ghosting with windows either that guddler is getting. Weird. (gfx card might be the deciding factor though??)

That is certainly possible. Obviously the GPU was fine in desktop but it was getting a bit stressy in games. Though I could have knocked some settings down from 'Ultra' - I just didn't want to. I guess GTX670 is a couple of years old now. Sad how time flies, especially in the GPU world.

[EDIT] PS: I'm aware my rig is getting on a little now and could use a refresh. It may be an i7 with 12GB of ram but it is the revision that predated all the names like "Sandy / Ivy" etc. So while it was top of the range when built and I have upgraded the GPU and added SSDs, yep, I'm coming to the painful realisation that 4.5 years later it looks like I'm staring a re-build in the face as soon as I can afford it and I am going to have to start to knock down the settings in games. Still doesn't really explain the desktop ghosting issues though.
 
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Soldato
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Jeeze, it used to be that you just bought a Dell or DGM 24" and be done with it. Has the standard of monitor manufacturing fallen off a cliff or are there just more people around to complain?

Thanks for checking that JediFragger. I don't think it's enough to kill the deal but good to know ahead of time. Guddlers review is much more worrying but then perhaps he, like me with the AOC, just got a really poor sample?
 
Caporegime
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What's your build date guddler? Mine is May 2014

I wouldn't say I was fussy Ade, but if something wasn't right about this Acer then I would have no problem taking it back. The truth is I'm more than happy with it and it'll do me great for a year until a lovely 40" 4k Freesync monitor is on the market :D :cool:

But everyone is different, and maybe I'm just not so susceptible to ghosting...
 
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Associate
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Sticker on the box says the same, May 2014. I can be quite susceptible to motion sickness which maybe means I'd notice something like that more? Not sure.
 
Associate
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Oh, from what I could gather on investigations over the weekend it would seem that Acer have gone a little overboard with the "Overdrive" to reduce the response times (increase? whichever!) and that probably explains why I'm not seeing any issues in games. However unlike the other manufacturers that use this VA panel, they've not included any options in the OSD to change the amount of overdrive that is applied.

That in my opinion is a major oversight as it would probably have outright solved my problem I expect. Although I wouldn't have wanted to have to flick between two settings every time I go in or out of a game.
 
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