Gadgetory

the half-staff coeur 915 from Coolermaster is a computer case unlike any other that has the unique ability of stacking multiple systems together so why would anyone ever need to do this well click on the screen to watch the video I made about it it'll change your life forever no you're awesome just stop what's the video how's it goin everyone welcome back to the channel so back when I was putting my x99 test bed together I asked you guys which 4k monitor I should get for benchmarking and day-to-day productivity and right away many of you guys named dropped to the Crystal Pro UHD display from monoprice so I can fight it in your suggestions I don't know why and managed to secure one for the studio well after nearly 2 weeks of daily use I think I'm finally confident in my own opinion of it to conduct a proper review so starting off with what's in the box you get the monitor and stand DC power cord and adapter do League DVI cable 3.5 millimeter auxilary cable end users manual one of the outstanding features about this monitor is that it can do 4k at 60 Hertz using a DisplayPort connection so you can kind of imagine my disappointment upon realizing a DisplayPort cable was not included luckily the DisplayPort cable I ordered from monoprice came with both ends the monitor features a 28 inch TN panel with a native Ultra HD resolution of 3840 by 2160 and an 8-bit color resolution resulting in just over 1 billion colors gamers will also benefit from the displays one millisecond greater gray response time courtesy of that twisted nematic engineering you get an OK contrast ratio of a thousand to one and a generous viewing angle of up to one hundred and seventy degrees the screen itself is lined with the thin layer of tempered glass which is advertised as being anti glare which I can only assume as a marketing term meaning highly reflective at the very least reflections are hardly noticeable when you're dealing with lighter backgrounds but jump into a game or a movie with dark environments and you've got yourself a spare mirror hopefully monoprice plans to release a matte screen model in the future so I can once again be unaware of how bad my posture is when gaming a three and a quarter inch bezel surrounds the top and sides of the screen and a thicker bottom bezel in brushed aluminum adds a touch of stylish Flair in the lower left corner is a non-intrusive power LED that lights up orange when in standby and turns blue when active in the center is some tasteful monoprice branding and on the right are seven physical buttons for power menu select up and down brightness and volume adjustment the menu is easy to navigate and offers up some basic functionality like picture and color options but nothing higher level to indicate this monitor is targeted at photo and video professionals you do however get picture and picture and picture by picture functionality for quicker windows multitasking a feature well-suited for a 4k display while the physical buttons are nice to have I found them to be on the stiff side and the monitor couldn't help but wobble as I navigated the menu I would have also liked to see a dedicated button for input select for quicker switching between video sources the rear enclosure of the monitor uses a matte black plastic construction that feels solid with a 100 by 100 base amount in case you wish to mount this panel to the wall or even another stand for video inputs you get two HDMI 1.4 ports that support MHL and are capable of driving 4k but only at 30 Hertz so you really want to be using one of the two DisplayPort 1.2 connections to really take full advantage of this panels capabilities apart from that you get a dual link DVI port and a 3.5 millimeter jack so you're given the option of having your computer source audio come through the monitors two built-in speakers of course like most monitor speakers it's probably best to avoid ever using them now moving on to my personal favorite part of this monitor is its four dimensional stand which features generous adjustments for height tilt two hundred and something degrees swivel and ninety degree rotation for portrait mode the only bummer here is that the monitor can't really raise high enough to clear the desk when rotating so you end up having to actually first tilt the panel before doing so but overall the stand is outstanding because it glides wherever you want it to there are no funky Springs or latches you have to pull to get it going it just works really well so now that I've covered the main features of this monitor from head to toe how does it stack up in terms of raw usage and performance well for one when it comes to 4k in general I think everyone can agree on the benefits of having more screen real estate for productivity and lack thereof the extra pixels also make for a sharper movie and gaming experience assuming you have the GPU horsepower to drive them additionally the one millisecond response time reminded me why it's the new standard for high-end gaming monitors these days as the reduced motion blur when playing games gave me noticeably cleaner visual on my daily IPS panel however my unhealthy habit of media consumption could have been much more enjoyable have the tempered glass just not been there I don't particularly enjoy watching myself during every scene of World War Z and seeing my face backs the Brad Pitt certainly doesn't do anything for my self-esteem the color reproduction is nothing to write home about but it does fall right in line with other TN panels currently on the market contrast ratio could be improved in future models as I was hoping to see a wider gap between blacks and whites I was pleased to see that the monitor exhibits perfect backlighting distribution with no visible hotspots like you sometimes see on those Korean IPS panels so to sum up where does all of that leave my final opinion of the Crystal Pro 4k well despite my hate-hate relationship with the tempered glass panel having the ability to enjoy for Kade 60 Hertz makes this monitor one of the more compelling options at its price point of just 500 bucks personally I feel that mainstream gaming still isn't quite ready for 4k F but if you're so inclined I think you'll be happy with that next level sharpness and response time if you're content with playing at 60 Hertz well I wouldn't recommend it for hardcore professionals in need of stellar color reproduction I could definitely see this monitor making life a lot easier for folks in search of more screen space we're having two monitors side by side just isn't practical all in all this is a sign of good things to come from on a price as long as they continue to listen to user feedback and uphold the reputation of value and quality speaking of monitors you should monitor today's sponsor with interest it's lynda.com where they have awesome HD online tutorials where you can learn things like game design or cloud computing or How to Train Your Dragon wait no not that last one but their site really is a great resource if you're like me and can't understand half of the tutorials on YouTube these days because they're either poorly done or the person in the video looks like Charlie Brown it's very distracting so check it out I'll put a link in the description below where you guys can try it for free using my special link yeah but that