Dell S2722DGM Curved Gaming Monitor - 27-inch QHD (2560 x 1440) 1500R Curved Display, 165Hz Refresh Rate (DisplayPort), HDMI/DisplayPort Connectivity, Height/Tilt Adjustability - Black

This is a fine 32 inch 4K monitor for my 2024 Mac Mini Pro, and a very good value at under $500. I'm used to the Apple iMac 27 inch 5K screen. I did not want a monitor with speakers, having desktop studio audio speakers. The G3223Q's screen has a variety of selectable resolutions and color parameters - colors are accurate. It is marketed as a "gaming" monitor and I can't comment on that as I'm using it as a "desktop" monitor so far. I did like the advertised 144 hz refresh rate for gaming. Most 4K monitors only offer 60 hz refresh rates. Something I find interesting as a non-technical person is when I experiment with selecting various available resolutions under Apple's System Settings/Displays, I like 3008 x 1692 better than the default 3840 x 2160, which is actually 4K resolution. This 3008 x 1692 resolution looks sharp and with it applications when opened seem a good choice/compromise for size on the screen. I'm not sure if I'll stick with it because with 3008 x 1692 the 120 hz refresh rate is the highest available. At 3840 x 2160 I can "make larger" Safari web pages (Command + key shortcut) and that pretty much takes the webpage browser's size to where 3008 x 1692 opens Safari, leaving more monitor space for other applications. But I will mostly want those applications to be larger too - so reading smaller fonts isn't a strain. Anyway, the monitor is versatile. One negative, which I should keep in perspective but is a true Dell marketing decision head-scratcher, is the monitor ships with an HDMI 2.0 cable - actually with four different cables. This is nice - hence keeping my perspective as some monitors don't ship with any cables. But the G3223Q monitor has an advertised HDMI 2.1 as a major selling point. Supposedly the monitor must be connected with an "Ultra Fast" HDMI 2.1 cable to achieve its full capability spec of 4K and 144hz, not the 2.0 cable they provide customers. I bought an HDMI 2.1 cable (from Crutchfield - a short one was about $20 - and is of nice quality). I did this because the 2024 Mac Mini Pro supports HDMI 2.1. It may be the provided 2.0 cable does the trick and for reasons I'm unaware of and despite what I read about 2.1 bandwidth/speeds the supposed 2.0's lesser bandwidth/speed capability doesn't actually apply to this monitor. Or, maybe, the monitor isn't actually 2.4? Something seems askew because I didn't see any differences under the Apple System Settings/Displays offered resolutions or refresh rates between the two HDMI cables. Make of that what you will. I did call Dell to complain about the provided cable not matching the advertised speed of the monitor and they acknowledged the paired cable with the monitor isn't 2.1. They also said, "Sorry, this is what is supposed to ship with the monitor. We are in the process of going through our cable inventory." So, not going to send me the right cable even though the Dell.com website sells a 2.1 cable for about $15. Nevertheless I am very pleased overall and would definitely buy the Dell G3223Q monitor again. It is great for games and desktop uses.

I recently tried using my 40-inch television as a monitor, and it was awful. The image was larger, true, and it offered some benefits, but the resolution, the pixel density, as well as number of colors, was not there. Plus, it was actually a little too large, like watching a movie in the front row. If you’re eyeballing your big TV and wondering how well it will work as a monitor, don’t try it. It will only be good for playing videos on the computer. I needed a real monitor, but I needed one larger than my original monitor. So once again, there I was shopping on Amazon. I settled on this one because of the size and the resolution. So many monitors these days have a max of 1080p. I remember way back in the early 2000s, my monitors going higher than that. At least, I think. Well, 2560 x 1440 is what the doctor ordered. This is not merely a gamer’s monitor. It is an animator’s monitor, at a higher resolution. Acres and acres of screen so that I don’t really need to have two monitors any longer. I love it. It’s just on the edge of being too large. The look and feel of the monitor is quality. This thing is serious. After a year of an ONN monitor that I didn’t really like because it didn’t have proper contrast, and a second Dell monitor that was slightly smaller, old, and dying, I was finally back to quality. It’s almost frightening because my animations look so much better now that I hope the final product looks as good to people who see my work. The reason I use two monitors at work and at home is because there’s not enough room on one screen for all my tools. Generally, increasing the monitor size doesn’t help, because only so much information can fit on a screen. But in this case, the screen is bigger AND the resolution is higher, so more information can indeed be placed on the screen. I no longer need two monitors! I have my two work monitors and this huge Dell monitor. Well, honestly, there’s not much more room left on my desk for a second personal monitor anyway. I’ve only included one screen shot to impress upon you the amount of information that can be squeezed onto the screen. On a 1080p monitor, and perhaps on a 1440p monitor, but smaller, the screenshot will look crowded, but it’s perfectly comfortable now. Normally, I always have the timeline at the bottom hidden, because it takes up too much room, and I need the viewport larger. Here, everything is comfortable, and my old eyes have no problem seeing all the information. I’m also finding that I don’t tend to go on full screen as much on YouTube, but I will probably end up switching to the dark mode, because all that white can be blinding. It’s a bright monitor, and it’s a dark monitor. The contrast is excellent. I would buy this monitor again in a heartbeat. I almost talked my daughter into buying the replacement that I was going to send back, but she just has no room for it until she moves. Speaking of replacement, I had a rocky start though. This speaks nothing to the quality control of the hardware itself. The original monitor was just left in my driveway by USPS, just minutes before a sketchy guy came to buy my car. If the neighbor’s dog hadn’t barked, I wouldn’t have stepped out to see the box… left just ten feet from an unused doorbell. But here comes the real rockiness and it sort of embarrasses me because I’m a tech guy. I’m NOT that customer who calls tech support because he forgot to plug in a device. I swear, I’m not that guy! The first monitor arrived with no instructions, and I couldn’t turn it on. I checked cables, and power strips. Amazon offered only general advice for idiots on connecting a monitor and (choking) making sure it’s on. And, this is also key, it was in the box upside down. Remember! This is my alibi. A simple instruction manual or quick start guide would have shown me the nearly invisible power button on the bottom right. And now that I think of it, that power button is in the same place, invisible, on my two newest TVs, though there is a RED LIGHT to alert you that there is the button. The red light goes away when the TVs are on. This monitor has no such illumination of the power button. It only lights up when it’s ON, not off. But all I had was a warranty slip, and the power button was all but hidden on the bottom. I tried every permutation of the prominent unlabeled buttons on the back, and nothing. I thought that the first monitor was dead and called in for a replacement. The replacement came, and by sheer chance, as I tilted the properly packaged one out of the box, there was the faint gray power button! It was literally the FIRST THING I SAW! The replacement came with a no-words uni-language hieroglyphics quick guide for setup that was missing in the first one, that also had a callout for the power button. My heart sank. I went back and checked the original. There was the power button! It had worked all along. There was nothing wrong with it. The final hieroglyphic showed a disc and a hardcover book and a webpage and a down arrow. I checked with Indiana Jones, and he told me that this cryptic message meant to download the user guide from dell.com/s2722dgm for further information. Dell spent a ton of money on more than adequate packaging for this monitor. A whole tree died to deliver it. It came with an extra HDMI cable, which was nice. I would have traded the shiny box, which I’m just going to toss out, for maybe one more 8.5x11 sheet of paper to get me up and running. There was also plenty of white space on the outside of the box for all the info I needed. Just a picture of the power button, because when you look at the back of the monitor, the joystick button makes you think it MUST be the power button. Poor packaging ended up costing Dell and Amazon. How I wish I had gone ahead and googled an online manual, but I was so depressed that it didn’t work that I just waited on the replacement. But the next debacle is all my fault. I thought that the replacement was defective. I couldn’t insert the HDMI into the HDMI 1. The problem was my orientation. I had my head upside down, looking, and then righted myself, my mind inverted left and right, and I was trying to insert into the display port and not the HDMI port. I used HDMI 2 and loved it. So, when I returned the perfectly fine replacement, I mentioned that the HDMI 1 was damaged, when it wasn’t. Some guy at the Amazon returns department is going to call me an idiot. One had to be returned, so it wasn’t a real issue. But overall, I love this monitor. I’m spoiled to it, and don’t want to go back to regular monitors. It shouldn’t be called a gaming monitor. It’s a workstation monitor. Love it to death.

I picked up Dell's S3422DWG back in March, and have been putting it through its paces ever since. It's my primary media device for games, movies, and photo editing, and I'm here to share my impressions of the monitor after the better part of a year. I picked up the S3422DWG for $380 to replace my aging Acer X34, as my latest build used an AMD GPU instead of the previous Nvidia, requiring a FreeSync device. I was immediately struck by how good the blacks looked compared to my old IPS: deep without all the old panel's backlight bleed. This higher contrast really enhances all of the media I throw at this monitor. I'm incredibly sensitive to motion blur, and I really can see the difference in responsiveness between an older 100Hz panel and a newer 1434Hz one. While VAs supposedly have worse viewing angles, I don't ever hit a real-world use case where I've noticed this. The curve is a bit more severe than I'm used to, but after a week my brain adjusted to it. The OSD is much nicer than my Acer with a few flaws. You get a joystick that can be depressed to open the OSD, with four buttons that can be mapped to menu items. Sadly the response time menu is not an option, so turning on strobing requires a menu dive each time. But overall quite functional and intuitive. So what about the dreaded black smearing? Early VA panels were panned for gaming due to dark content having a much worse response time than IPS displays, creating black smears during game movement. I'm happy to report that this monitor does not strongly exhibit this behavior on "Super Fast" response time. I do see a bit of dark content smearing with strobing turned on in games, where the ultra-responsiveness exposes anything but the fastest response times. But this is generally minimal, unless you have something like black text on a white sign. Let's talk to strobing. Compared to previous strobing monitors I've tried, I'm happy to report that the S3422DWG maintains very strong brightness with strobing (which it calls MPRT) turned on. Cross-talk varies depending on where you look on the screen. The center has very good coherency, the bottom is good in this regard, and the top of the screen exhibits noticeable strobe cross-talk. This means that strobing is viable in games where you're not fixing your gaze on the top third of the screen (such as Witcher 3) and not very good in games where you're looking all over the screen at any time (e.g., Diablo 4). Overall it's a nice perk, but not a universally reliable one. The last caveat for this screen is that reviewers have panned it for flickering with GSync under 60Hz, which could be a deal-breaker for NVidia users. Overall, this monitor is incredibly strong for its price point ($350 at the time of this review) for users who want to watch media, edit, or play games with an ultra-wide aspect ratio for AMD users. I recommend it as a gorgeous bargain panel.

I bought this mainly for gaming, but it is an excellent choice for anything else like work or art. I've had several monitors now and this is my first ultrawide one. I was initially worried it would be too big for me or cause neck pain from looking at both ends of the screen, especially when gaming, but I can tell you that is not a problem here. It's a beautiful monitor with the right amount of curvature and adjustability to fit my needs. It promises on all of its advertised features and offers choices to accommodate what a lot of gamers look for in a high-end monitor. Before buying though, you'll want to make sure your PC can handle it. I have an RTX 2080, and this monitor is pretty much the best I can get with it, and I can't tell much of a difference in power draw or graphics quality (This monitor replaces a 2560x1440 curved one, which was still an amazing monitor, too). Now, to the design flaw I mentioned in the title, and the main reason I'm writing this; to give a little PSA on a weird quirk of the monitor. There are four settings available for response time: Fast, Super-Fast, Extreme, and MPRT. MPRT is 1ms response time and is what I prefer to use. However, every time I turn my PC on or wake it up from sleep, the response time resets to Fast. Every. Single. Time. A quick message from the monitor will pop up for 10 seconds or so when booting up saying that the refresh rate is too low and needs to be 100Hz or higher to use MPRT. You're probably thinking the Hz is too low, then, and so did I. But lo and behold, the Hz has not changed AT ALL from 144Hz when I go to check. I have to manually change the response time to MPRT (buttons on the side of the screen) for every power on or waking up. Oh yeah, and when it resets to Fast, the screen brightness goes down. You can see the screen get visibly brighter when putting it back to MPRT. I contacted Dell support and they were troubleshooting with me for over a month. Their final conclusion was that it is working as intended. What? I can see why the monitor does this: in the split second it's turning on, its going from 0Hz to 144Hz and so it thinks that you can't have MPRT on when it's below 100Hz. So, it resets it, telling you to up your refresh rate to get MPRT back. But, come on... really? It's not a deal-breaker but is so annoying. I'm on my computer every day and I have to have a sticky note on the monitor to remind me to change it. Even then, I still forget! I'm sure a lot of people will read this and go "Oh, first world problems! You're entitled, don't be lazy, etc.". Normally I'd agree, but this is a $500 ultrawide monitor with all the bells and whistles and comes from a well-known brand. I have a second, $200 monitor that does everything this one can but has never reset any of the settings. I've owned a $100 one that also does the same thing with no resetting. The only difference is resolution and size. I don't think it's laziness to expect an expensive product with a lot of good features to work correctly and not need manual input and handholding on a daily basis. Not to mention going from no worries on all my previous monitors to having to think about response time every day and wondering why my screen looks dimmer. TLDR: Best monitor I've ever had and I'm glad to have made the decision to get an ultrawide. Has all the features it advertises. Amazing for gaming or any use. Only flaw/annoyance is that your response time may reset every time your PC turns on or wakes up from sleep; a lower response time will also dim the screen. You have to manually change it back each time. Not really a big enough reason to not buy it, but certainly something I thought others should be aware of. UPDATE 6/12/2022: I recently upgraded my graphics card from an NVIDIA RTX 2080 to a 3080. Since doing that, the monitor no longer resets the refresh rate. I tried replicating the issue and it now stays at MPRT. I have no idea why the graphics card would affect that, but here we are. Maybe I had a setting somewhere that was reset upon installing the 3080? Or my PC needed a little more power in order to remember the setting? I'm happy that I don't have to remember to change the refresh rate every time, but it's weird that this was a fix. UPDATE 11/28/2022: The response time issue came back. If I have my timeline correct, it reappeared when I got a new PSU for my PC which was shortly after getting my 3080. There's got to be a setting somewhere that fixes all of this but I've tried everything I can think of. Still a fantastic monitor, but this is pretty annoying.

The Dell G3223Q impressively fulfills the role as a hybrid gaming professional monitor. When I was shopping for a monitor, I was looking for a "no compromises" monitor that could do everything perfect in a non-OLED format, and the G3223Q comes as close as I could find that can meet that criteria. For a 32' 4K high refresh rate panel, the build quality and image quality is exceptionally good compared to the absurdly low standards most IPS monitors are subjected to. Out of the box, Dell did a fantastic job to hide most of the brightness uniformity issues around the edges, unlike LG's UltraGear monitors which suffer horrendously from bad edge brightness uniformity issues. When you look at the edges, it reminds you more of a VA/OLED which is excellent. However, it isn't without its flaws out of the box, just because the edges are more normally lit, doesn't mean there isn't brightness uniformity issues everywhere else. Dell traded one type of non-uniformity for another, as a result, most of the brightness non uniformity extends more towards the center of the monitor. As a result, only a small portion of the center of the monitor is actually at the monitors max brightness. However the brightness gradient is small, so this non-uniformity will only be mostly visible on white text and white backgrounds. HOWEVER, you can fix this by enabling Brightness Uniformity Compensation in the Creator profile's sub-menu. This fixes ALL brightness uniformity issues PERIOD. Enabling this will give you OLED like brightness uniformity. Dell even sends you a calibration factory report that tells you not only the color accuracy, but what level the monitor passed in the brightness uniformity test. Dell's benchmark target is anywhere between 97% and 102% brightness, but my specific model managed to come with a perfect 100% brightness score on every single part of the screen. That said, color accuracy isn't 100% perfect. If you really (and i mean REALLY) pay attention, slight differences in color temperature can be seen on the edges of the screen. At least for my unit. But again, its not bad at all and NOTHING compared to the brightness issues out of the box. The only thing i wish was that brightness compensation mode could be enabled outside of the Creator profile which limits you to sRGB and DCI-P3 color profiles. This means that you loose a bit of contrast and some of the color "pop" that the default mode provides, but its barely an issue if you already want realistic looking color accuracy in the first place. This monitor with its compensation mode is about the best IPS hybrid gaming monitor you'll find in my opinion. As someone who works with white backgrounds and text all day long, this was a top priority for me. I can confidently say with my unit that Dell nailed what it did with this monitor, with compensation mode on mind you. I only knock one star off because the colors aren't perfect, but if I could rate it 4.5 stars I would. Beyond raw image quality, variable refresh rate works phenomenally well on this panel. It works right down to 20Hz and provides virtually no noticeable image flickering. Enabling the Super Fast response time profile also brings down the pixel response times and makes them very good. As for longevity, sadly i have not had this monitor for long, so I cannot say if my unit will live longer than a year before dying. But its worth mentioning that the physical material looks a lot more durable than say LG's Ultragear monitors, and it comes with a 3-year warranty. It completely boggles my mind that we are at a point in time where IPS brightness uniformity issues are prevalent everywhere, and only 1-5% of monitors actually have perfect image quality. This is why people play the "monitor lottery" and return 5-8 monitors just so they can get the "perfect" one. It is completely absurd that we have to live to these low IPS standards. But it is what it is. I complement Dell for their fantastic work on the G3223Q and its ability to work with crappy IPS panels and massage them into something that's close to being perfect.

Why buying such a large display? I am no longer a gamer (and, besides, true hard core gamer prefer 24 inch displays as they do not need to move their heads and delay reaction time), but I make a heavy use of laptops with a range of applications. I have an 18 inch laptop, but when at home it becomes a desktop and until recently I had 2 25-inch monitors. That solution was feasible, but took way too much space on my (not so small desk) and it was a "jungle" of cables, wires, etc. It looked messy and cumbersome. So that is why I got this monitor. Is it easy to mount and set up? It comes in a big box and it is relatively heavy. The toughest part was to carry it from the mail room in my building to my apartment, but I could have used a dolly, perhaps. Mounting it was actually easier than I expected. Setting it up was actually as easy as with other displays. How does it work? It works well. The quality is high, all my windows are open and well visible and I never need to go looking for them. Letʻs say that there is plenty or "real estate" for even people who make a heavy use of computing. The only thing that I did not pay attention to is that this display does not have built in speaker. However, my computer was telling me that it does and I could not hear a thing when I selected the monitorʻs as my speakers. Not a surprise: cannot use speakers that are not there! Other than that the new display checks all my required boxes and after about 2 months of using it, I think it was a good purchase. Any negative surprise? - Perhaps one: as the monitor has a higher resolution of HD and my laptop is HD if I use the display as a second screen, getting with the mouse from laptop display to 34 inch display is easy, coming back.... not so much. Eventually I learned the point of the big display from which to go back to the computer display, but it is not a smooth operation. Something else one should know? Yes, some are likely expecting that they can watch a movie full screen on a 34 inch like this. The format of the display is different from that of movies and so it can only be used in like 27 inch sort of size with the sides being black. Considering that I watch movies on it from 2-3 feet away, that is aplenty of size, but I am just telling. Is there a way around this problem to take advantage of the big display? Perhaps.... one should make sure that the aspect ratio of his or her ultrawide monitor is set to the correct value, which is typically 21:9. You can access the aspect ratio settings through the monitor’s menu or display settings on your computer. Final comment. The curved thing is not making a big difference for me, frankly, But I love the "real estate" that comes with a 34 inch display. There are definitely better large screen monitors out there, but as a novice to this area I did not want to pay over $1,000 for something I was not even sure that I would have liked. So, after two months I am very satisfied with this purchase for less than $400. It does what I needed it to do. So, as far as I am concerned: thumbs up!

Love this monitor, hooked it up and everything went great! I've been using secondhand 1920x1080p 60Hz displays for as long as I can remember now. Going to this, wow, just wow. 144Hz? I can't imagine going back to 60Hz. Everything feels worlds better. 1440p? Finally gaming at this resolution is amazing. I'm also glad that I've invested years in to working with video conversion, and having an up-to-date media library meant I had some 4K movies to enjoy, and now I want more lol. Having more peripheral view especially in auto sim and racing games is so nice. My Video editing software feels so much nicer since it can spread out more. This monitor, being 1800R, is pretty much the least curve you can get, so is probably a good thing if you're someone like me who's never had a curved screen before (1500R is common, and slightly more curved, and 1000R is also quite common but I was worried it may be slightly too much curve in my case). That, to me, has been the theme with this monitor. You'll experience the possibility of a smoother experience and want to make full usage of it. You'll want to get those higher FPS, and you won't want to go back to 1080p. My RTX 2070 has been showing its age for a while now, and it is not happy running more intensive games on this. But that is something that I figured would be the case and I'd been just putting off that upgrade for a while but this monitor was what tipped me to also upgrade my GPU. I feel like this has been the most exciting computer related purchase I've made since the first Ryzen was made available. I'd been eying Ultrawides for years but didn't want to go for it until such time as I'd be able to have the hardware to properly push it and a minimalist enough lifestyle that it shines as the centerpiece of my PC room. I was considering other options, but then got to thinking about longevity. Yes, everything is a gamble in that regard, however personally I've had very good experiences with Dell in terms of both longevity and customer service. I will say, in regards to Dell monitors, I've felt they tend to have a darker and less vibrant display than some others, however I'm happy to say I don't feel that with this one. I am not a color accuracy expert so I cannot speak to this, but it feels at least as good as the best thing I've ever used before. I like monitors that don't require that power brick like a laptop would have. This just needs a normal 3-pin, the same one you'd use for a standard tower PC. Easy to replace the cable or get a longer one if needed, and this also means that you do not need to worry about getting yet another power brick to one day wonder what it's for, throw away when you can't think of anything, then subsequently realize that you very much needed that.

first of all i wanted a ultrawide because i play games watch youtube and browse web. i thought instead of having multiple monitors it would be more simple to just have one wide monitor for multiple tabs open. i mean i literally could play a game on one side of the screen and watch twitch on the other. at the same time! here’s the thing tho: after a while i realized that it is much more enjoyable and functional to just have 2 monitors. one on the side that can have a tab open to look back to. in all honestly it was cool for first couple weeks but after a while it became very cumbersome to have such a wide screen. and also games don’t quite run correctly when they are in a window mode, at least for me it seems my framerate was suffering and vrr suffered and would glitch like bad. i have a nvidia 3080 btw. i read on reviews that this monitor doesn’t work well with gsync and honestly it doesn’t tbh i saw a lot of flickering ngl. i know it could be on me not having setting perfect but if ur someone who plug n play could b an issue for u too… especially when playing games windowed ok so going off that topic, basically when i first unboxed this monster of a monitor i was coming from a 24” 60hz 1080 dell glossy screen finish monitor. and i was blown away. just putting this screen in front of you without even turning it on is really cool. the curve and ultra wide size is no joke. it’s like putting vr goggles on for first time. it genuinely feels like ur driving a race car simulation set up where u are fully immersed. now i wanna say as cool as this is. after the first couple weeks it genuinely became more of a cumbersome aspect than a cool one. i mean u remember getting your first console or your first car and after a few weeks instead of being happy u own it every day u complain about little things or just get used to it? ya everything is like that but this is even further to where i considered returning it. i mean i couldn’t tell why i didn’t like it but looking back now i realize it’s that when we use our eyes to see things most of the time we keep our eyes straight and move our head. we aren’t chameleons where we move our eyes all around. ik this sounds funny but it’s true. i found that even tho i had a huge wide screen i never really saw it. our peripheral vision is genuine but it’s not good enough for this use case. i found that instead of enjoying the wider screen. i was more unsatisfied with the lack of height of the screen, because hear me out: when our eyes are straight forward we are going to see the top and bottom of the screen more than the left and right side. so i started wishing that i actually had a taller screen. now i took it upon myself to do research and i found a website that compares screen sizes. it turns out that a 34” 21:9 ultrawide monitor is the exact same height of screen as a 27” 16:9 normal size monitor. now you might not be able to understand what i’m saying but it’s like taking a medium size monitor such as 27” and all u do is pull the sides out. it basically means that the ratio is no longer balanced. although the immersion was great with the curved wide screen. i started thinking it would be much more enjoyable to have a curved “normal” screen such as a 32” 16:9 or even a 27” 16:9. now when i compared a 32” 16:9 monitor to a 27” 16:9 and 34” 21:9 on the website, it turns out a 16:9 32” is taller in height screen wise than both of the other two, while the horizontal length is in between those 2. again, a 27” 16:9 and 34 21:9 monitor have the exact same screen height. just different width. so what i’m getting to is that if you want a “big immersive experience”... i do not recommend buying a 34” 21:9 monitor. i just don’t. i recommend buying a 16:9 monitor. either get a curved 27” 16:9 or a curved OR flat 32” (or bigger...) now i want to talk about gaming. i came from 1080p 60hz 24” dell monitor so i thought i would be way better at my favorite games like fortnite and rocket league and etc. but the weirdest thing was that somehow i was worse. i finally realized why. it’s because when you have such a big screen you can’t actually see everything that’s shown on the screen at once. ironically the small size of the 24 was making me play competitive games better. go figure. ya sure the immersion of the 34 was great. i mean playing fortnite in ultrawide for first time was like logan paul putting his color blind glasses on for the first time. i was questioning my entire life, “how have i never tried this before?”, i kept asking myself. now as enjoyable as this was, it was equally and extensively more impractical. think of it this way: the reason i wanted ultrawide for gaming was not just immersion for playing story games like the witcher or gta or whatever. no, i wanted it for a competitive advantage. quite frankly i wanted to “cheat”. when u have more horizontal space on a screen it means u can literally see more of the game around you. now i thought this would help me, obviously. i thought that when i was behind a wall in fortnite or whatever game, that i could peak around the corner without the enemy seeing me and i could basically just screen peak everywhere. well let me just keep it real, it doesn’t actually help you in any way. imagine in a 15 minute match i may peak around a corner in fortnite like 1 or 2 times, i just never actually found myself using this “feature”. and when i did i didn’t think it actually resulted in me “winning the fight” or having a real advantage. but not just that. i actually found it may diminish my skill and experience. for example, i found myself being more lazy in the game. it required less input from me to look around. but this is not smart because instead of having good spacial awareness and flicking your mouse side by side to see what’s to your left and right i could see it all at the same time. but what this means is that you’re essentially multi tasking. and we should all know by now multi tasking is essentially doing multiple tasks with little to no success. i was overwhelmed with on screen input and found myself playing worse somehow. i realize now that it’s better to have a smaller screen to be able to focus on the whole screen at one time (instead of a small portion of a big screen) so that you can concentrate much better and therefor execute tasks to fruition even though it might not look as cool or immersive. now i know it’s better to swipe your view point by way of your mouse or joystick than with your head/eyes. the amount of time it takes to look to the left or right of screen with your head or eyes is longer and more cumbersome than if u had a smaller 16:9 screen and just moved your mouse (or controller) to the left or right to see what’s next to you. now ik i might sound crazy or i’m making a stretch but that is genuinely my thoughts on why i play worse. (even with higher refresh rate 144hz) even after i got my aw2721d and gigabyte m27x 1440p 27” 240hz monitor, i realized that i play a little better and am more focused on a 24” size because of the small size. now i’m not saying it’s worth going 1080p just to have a small screen. let’s be real 1440p is a lot better for story games battle royals n desktop use so u might as well be at 27 and get used to the size. but i mean still the smaller the better. now imagine going 34” now the next reasons why i loved this monitor were also it’s biggest downfall. when compared to my ips 24” 60hz 1080p monitor, i was impressed, to say least, of the black levels. just when i had spotify open on my desktop the black parts of the tab were actually so black it looked like a void and when i moved the spotify tab over to the ips panel all i could see is grey black. this va panel ruined standard ips for me lol. it really made a difference back to back. not just a little better but it made it more enjoyable to just use the pc. i loved it. and even though va panels supposedly don’t “pop” the same as ips as far as colors i would say i almost think it’s possible they pop more because of the sheer level of contrast. a red color might be more red on a ips. but compared to light grey black levels, a bright red looks meh. whereas compared to deep black levels, a medium red would look bright and punchy, do you understand at all? and also i’d like to mention. The colors also looked really good. i didn’t notice it was “va” or anything like that. i wouldn’t complain about the colors of this va once i had the right settings on it. i think va blacks are worth it. but here’s the problem. now va has bad viewing angles right? and i didn’t know exactly what it meant till i tried it. when ips panel is not exactly on center with your vision what happens is that u see ips glow or backlight bleed where basically the dark parts of the corners become a lot lighter when viewing from sides. this is annoying but it doesn’t affect the actual colors. now if you don’t view a va panel from directly head on perfect center it’s the actual colors that are affected. it’s literally like they got washed out like chalk on the sidewalk. i can’t stress enough how big of an impact this makes. on ips it’s a gripe, an annoyance, whereas on va it’s a down right issue, it’s a legitimate deal breaker. and i mean that. now you might think, well why wouldn’t i be looking straight at my screen? if i’m looking the correct way the va panel won’t matter. i’m sorry but even i was corrected here. you see because the monitor is not small like 24 inches the edges become off axis from your straight line of sight. now this is why va panels are curved. so that it corrects the line of vision to go straight to your eyes. now here’s the good and bad. yea it does work and it pushes the edges to be straight to your eyes from the middle of screen to the very side. and yeah it makes a immersive cockpit feel. but here’s the downside. you not only have to be looking from straight on, you have to be an exact distance away from the monitor for there to be no off axis viewing of the corners. now what does this mean? basically this monitor has a curve. some are 1000 some are 1500 this is 1800. now u might think it’s smart it’s not as crazy of a curve of 1000 but here’s the problem. i found that i had to sit back away from the monitor from a distance farther than i actually wanted to. when you are looking at the monitor from close up it really surrounds you and gives a great feeling of being in a cockpit or a simulation right?. well once u back up a foot or two what happens is now you see the top and bottom of the screen. now ur looking at a wide screen instead of looking into a wide screen. and it just doesn’t work. it diminishes the whole experience. and hear me out, this is where the vertical height of the screen really stands out as a weak point. it’s just not tall enough. it’s not a good ratio and i’m sorry to ultrawide lovers out there. but if you want an ultrawide 21:9 monitor this means to me that you HAVE to go ips. (so that you can sit in close to the monitor) i’m serious. the viewing angles are a deal breaker here. i found myself playing chill fun games even like age of empires but kept being disappointed and distracted by how all sides of the screen had these bland and dead colors. imagine red being brown. that’s what it’s like and it RUINS the ultrawide. i mean why on earth are you buying a 21:9 screen so that you can have more horizontal screen, and then that extra screen is rendered useless and cumbersome because it’s washed out because you want to sit closer to be immersed into the screen? sure you can sit farther back or put it on a monitor arm and keep it far away… but for me to essentially be strapped into one exact seating position feels really limiting. it feels like you’re just not getting what u paid for, it sucks quite frankly. i’m sorry. now i haven’t tried them yet, but i think something like a 1000r curve 32” or 27” 16:9 for a VA panel could actually work. this is because the sides won’t. e as wide as the 21:9 and it is chore strongly curved inward for you to be able to sit closer. but again, i haven’t tried it so i can’t say. now also let me get to next point. those deep black level lovers out there such as myself there is hope for us. now i recently got two 1440p 240hz ips 27” monitors from gigabyte and alienware. and no joke as much as i like them, as good as they are, they’re terrible grey level blacks and ips glow and ips back light bleed ruin these displays. now i don’t wanna be super gloomy but it’s a genuine issue. and i don’t hear enough people talk about it. reviews online basically dismiss it as just a “side affect” of ips technology. and u know what. we don’t have to accept it. the same way we don’t HAVE to accept matte screen finishes. so even tho the va black levels made a great picture quality, the sheer size of the sides of the monitor became cumbersome, not only for every day use of browsing the web but of playing games. i felt like it took up too much of the desk for just casual browsing and then when i wanted to take advantage during games it just made me play worse and i noticed the corner colors washed out a lot. so i would think regularly about how i’d rather have a taller display and a secondary monitor on the side. i also started thinking about 4k because i could notice the pixel density a lot on this 1440p display. on a 34” screen 1440p is just not enough. so over time i started to dislike the dell 34” 21:9 more and more and then one day fate took it’s turn. all jokes aside, there was an earthquake where i live.a very strong one that shook everything in the whole house. the earthquake was genuinely so strong it shook and knocked over my dell 34” uktrawide monitor…. idk what it hit but it hit something… and now half the screen is literally shattered. not physically but internally somehow. when i turn the screen on it has red and green lines going horizontally across the screen and 1/4 the left side of the screen is cut off and amd turned to static like an old tv lol. so this really was a blessing and a curse. i lost $400 :( but it also gave me an excuse to get a new monitor.. which i was excited for! now here’s my recommendations for everyone reading: if u swear by 21:9 ultrawide and u don’t really care what i say or u want to try it for yourself. go for it. really go for it. but i strongly encourage you not to get this one. please just get an ips ultrawide. or a va with a stronger curve. because this screen is so wide the viewing angle issue is much more of an issue than a smaller screen and this 1800r curve isn’t strong enough to fix it. maybe a 1500r curve would be enough but i haven’t tested it, like on the new coolermaster 34” ultrawide VA has 1500r curve but honestly i’d guess it’s probably pretty similar. i’d go ips for 21:9 so u can really sit in your display. now i personally wouldn’t even recommend that because i think you’re better off getting a curved 27 or 32” 16:9 monitor for immersion but that’s just me. or u can get a big flat display like the 40” innocn, however it’s only 1440p and let’s be honest at 32” or above you really do need 4k. and to that you should probably have a rtx 3080 if u want to run 4k 144hz. so u can go 4k if u play easy to run games or mostly use your monitor for media consumption. (unless u have an expensive graphics card go crazy) (but also u can always run a 4k monitor on 1440p for games). so pick what u want, live your life king. now if u are like me. u play games u watch movies. even for spotify lol, u know deep blacks are worth it… but u don’t know what size to get? i would recommend u look at mini led ips. now oled is out there and va is out there. but from what i’ve researched 2023 is the year for mini led. there is innocn 4k 27 and 32 m2v. they will give u black levels and ips quality. there is cooler master gp27q which will give u mini led 1440p 27 ips and gp27u gives you 4k 27 ips. and then ktc has a 27” 1440p va and 4k ips 27” monitor. the ktc 27” 4k mini led is the same one that’s in coolermaster gp27u. ok now i wanna say if u only care about gaming. like u wanna have best advantage in cod or fortnite or valorant go with a 24” and at that point u have to stick with 1080p but it’s worth it. u can get the zowie 2566 360hz or the 2546 240hz or acer nitro 390hz or even a viewsonic 31 something 240hz is really good for backlight strobing and u will play best on those. but if u want what i want and that’s more height than a 27” u have only one choice. 32”. it’s big. i know it’s a lot. but go 32” and go 4k. go mini led. ips 144hz and u can’t go wrong. i know it’s a lot of money. but innocn 32 m2v is $850 on amazon right now. that’s what i went with. i haven’t received it yet. but i’m genuinely confident it’s the answer. now if money is an issue… if u don’t have $900. if u have $500 go with a 1440p 27” monitor. don’t bother with 240hz. just get a curved va or get a mini led for the black levels. the coolermaster gp27q is $500 and will give u an insane hdr experience. the ktc is $500 and va so i would be weary of it for the viewing angles. now if u only have like $300. u can get the viewsonic 240hz ips or the acer nitro 390hz ips for between $250-350. and if u want ultrawide go for the va coolermaster 34 if the 1500r curve works better or just get an lg ips. anyways i know it’s long review and i’ve never done it before but i wanted to warn u. even as cool as ultrawide is. it’s just not worth it. get your “dream” monitor. and then put a cheap 24” 1080p monitor next to it. i mean seriously. having 2 is better than 1, i promise. honestly what i could recommend is u could even get a gorgeous display like a 1440p 27” mini led for $500 for story games and youtube/movies as your main, and then get a 24” 1080p 240-360hz for $300 for your second which can obliterate first person shooters and you would have the ultimate setup. i just got the 32” 4k innocn m2v because after using an ultrawide 1440p 144hz dell 21:9 34” i was so impressed by how massive it was, i fell in love. but then i fell out of love because of the quirks and impracticality the 21:9 format presented. but then after trying to switch to 27” 1440p 240hz ips for getting the “most competitive edge” because i play games i’m not the best but i enjoy winning and i wanted to have most smooth experience and best chance to win. but after thoroughly testing 240hz vs 144hz i swear to you there is a very hard time telling any difference. if i was shroud i would need 240. but i’m not and never will be. i would rather get deep inky blacks and better picture quality to enjoy my monitor when i’m not playing games 50% time. and after using 27” i felt like it was harder to be as competitive in games as my 24”. even tho the 24” is only 60hz being able to get right up to screen and still see every part of screen helps a lot for vision and reaction. and 27” felt like i was goldilocks didnt fit quite right. it is nice don’t get me wrong. it’s bigger than 24 and it’s 1440p but i felt like i am missing something. i can never quite get the viewing distance right. its not mini led and it’s either too far away and looks small or it’s up to my face and i can’t see corners of screen and they get washed out from ips glow. so this leads to what i believe to be the cure to my disease. if i go 4k 32” 16:9 144hz. i will get the added height of screen over both 27 and 34 21:9 sizes which i wanted. and i won’t have to be looking side to side and it will have 138ppi clarity because of the 4k while maintaining 144hz and i can then lay back in my bed and watch movies and youtube because it’s basically a tv at 32 inches. idk if you guys forgot but 32” used to be a normal size for tvs btw. and with the mini led tech it is darker than a va panel. i mean i hope i’m not wrong once i get this thing in the mail. but i hope i could help steer u guys in a better direction. peace and love your best self, j