The monitor curse... no, really...

[Legend]

I'm sitting here in somewhat of a disarray, infuriated and perplexed. Over the past few months I have attempted to find a monitor without faults... here is my experience...

x1 - LG 32GK850G-B - several stuck pixels
x1 - LG 32GK850G-B - several stuck pixels and dust under the panel
x1 - Acer Predator XB321HK - dust under panel
x1 - Acer Predator XB321HK - dust under panel
x1 - Acer Predator XB321HK - dust & dirt under panel in several places (this was worst example I've ever seen. I've no idea how any of these got past QC, but this one inparticular was just ridiculous).
x1 - AOC AG271QG - stuck pixel and dust under panel
x1 - Samsung 32H850 - dead pixel cluster

7 monitors, all crap. What more can I say?

 

[Legend]

Try dell u2715h. I've had 2. Both perfect.

I'd want 144Hz at 1440p, and GSync would also be desirable. No choice other than 60Hz at 4K (short of spending £2K+ which I'm not about to do).

If these were cheap monitors I'd be more understanding, but they aren't... well, the Samsung I tried was the cheapest of the bunch, but still, hardly 'budget'.

It's really a sorry state of affairs.

 

[Legend]

For me buying a monitor is the most unpleasant purchase experience as I know I'm going to have to go through a few before I get something decent. Luckily the viewsonic I bought recently was spot on. But it took me around 6-7 monitor from different brands to get there. And the whole experience was so frustrating.

Tell me about it!! I can't envisage it being remotely acceptable for any other product being open to such issues... can you imagine if buying a new car was like this? Scratches in the paintwork, scuffed alloys etc.? There would be a national outcry! Yet with monitors it's become almost accepted.

A lot of those 27" 1440p G-Sync monitors use the same IPS or TN panel (and/or revisions of) from AUO and despite some strengths there are a lot of negatives to it - colour banding, screen burn*, some issues with the electronics that result in heat damage (not sure if the heat build up causes the issue initially or if there is a problem out the box with high current drain to ground causing heat that results in the eventual failure) and so on. Dell seems to have done the best of a bad job with the S2716DG, etc.

* From what I can gather these panels seem to be a spin off of AUO's AHVA development (not to be confused with VA technologies) which is more susceptible to it than other TN or IPS tech.

These days I've gone back to buying mostly Dell monitors as they seem the best of a bad bet when it comes to buying monitors now and (usually) a bit better CS experience if you do get a bad one - Asus especially are quite happy to palm you off with someone else's poorly refurbished monitor even if your brand new "premium" line panel dies after a fairly short time.

Yes, AU Optronics do seem to be the worst culprits. It's frustrating as having tried quite a few monitors now, 32" 4K is definitely the sweet spot for me... perfect size given my viewing position, great for productivity, and games look great... I'm not in to fast twitch competitive shooters, so the 60Hz cap was an acceptable limitation for my needs. Furthermore, the Acer XB321HK is the only monitor of that description which features G-Sync... which is very nice to have. In all other respects it was a good panel... 10-bit and great uniformity. The issue they seem to have is in their assembly clean rooms... ironically named as they can't seem to keep dust/dirt out of the panels!!

 

[Legend]

outside of the QC issues, what was your impression of the Acer? I might just get that to replace my 3008wfp and use remaining budget to upgrade the rift to an Odyssey.

Are there any 32inch 4k G-Sync panels on the horizon to look out for in the near future?

I actually really liked it. 32" is the ideal size for 4K... well, you can go a bit bigger arguably if you have space, but 27" is too small. It is the only 32" 4K G-Sync monitor available annoyingly. I'm not sure when any others might come out, but it amazes me this is the only one, and it's not even like this was released recently... it's nearly 3 years old!!