Gadgetory

hey guys and welcome back to hardware unboxed since its launched two years ago the Aesop over X 34 has been one of the best gaming monitors on the market it's so good that I use it as my personal monitor for gaming and video production because I love that combination of the 34 inch 21:9 34 40 by 1440 display with a hundred Hertz maximum refresh rate g-sync and even great color accuracy for a game monitor but this new monitor from Acer an upgraded version of the X 34 is even better in almost every way it's called the predator X 30 4 P and it could be the perfect monitor to tide us over before the HD are capable X 35 finally hits the market and a big shout-out to p ck skier for providing the x 34 p for our review i'll chuckling to them below as i believe that the only retailer in australia with this monitor at launch so big shout out to them as an interesting note the x 34 p has received its fair share of launch troubles this monitor was actually unveiled all the way back at Computex 2016 so it's taken a long time for the new panel in this display to become ready for mass production and yes there is a new panel in the x34 p it retains the same 34 inch size and 34 40 by 1440 resolution as the original x 34 but it now comes with a hundred hertz refresh rate as standard with the ability to easily overclock up to 120 Hertz previously the x 34 cam is a 60 Hertz monitor with a 100 Hertz overclock though some buyers couldn't hit a hundred Hertz table etutor flickering the x 34 piece solves this entirely it offers native 100 Hertz with that nice boost up to 120 Hertz in most cases and my retail unit had no problems hitting that hundred Hertz barrier and I hope this is the case for others as well the other main change in the panel is a more aggressive curve it moves from 3600 hour to 1900 ah I'm not a massive fan of curved displays but the X 34 is so wide that the increased curvature actually improves the experience with the new 1900 art curve the edges are just slightly more in your field of view which I like to think helps me gun down foes more easily in games I guess the truth is I'm probably just as mediocre as before but you know I've got a fancy new monitor to look at I guess most other display specs are the same IPS technology 300 nits maximum brightness are one thousand to one native contrast ratio for millisecond greater gray response times 100 percent srgb coverage and of course chasing support power consumption is apparently the same - though in my testing the x34 page uses about eight watts more power when overclocked to 120 Hertz and about six watts more at the hundred Hertz on both panels the panel isn't the only aspect of the new x34 P that's been upgraded the design it's received an overhaul that basically fixes every problem I had with the original x34 the annoying glossy plastic has been nuked in favor of plastic with a faux brushed metal finish while all other plastic has received a subtle upgrade to a more classy design that better suits this monitors very high price tag unfortunately the chin along the bottom remains though this is likely a byproduct of how the panel itself is designed the good news for slim bezel fans like myself is the bezels have also shrunk marginally with the x34 P moving from 13 mils to 10 mil on the most sides which is in neat though minor upgrade the stand has become more versatile as well now supporting a greater range of height adjustment along with a new swivel support stand is a bit uglier from the rear as a result but the added flexibility is certainly a nice bonus the modern er gods have finally listened to my prayers here as the x34 P includes a directional toggle for the on-screen display rather and the awful five button approach of the original design the toggle makes it so much easier to move around the OSD and make adjustments as necessary and it's complemented by three other buttons for quick adjustments to the input brightness and display modes there's nothing hugely revolutionary about the OSD and here you'll find basic color controls along with overdrive settings the overclocking option typical features like shadow boosts and low blue light along with additions like crosshair overlays and even a refresh right counter most of the additions you know I never bother using though you might find something useful in there the 20 Hertz refresh rate boost the x34 pay provides over the original model is interesting it's certainly not as noticeable as the jump from sixty to a hundred Hertz but it's nice to get a bit of extra refresh rate Headroom especially as top-end graphics cards can push above a hundred fps at this displays resolution these days now back when the x34 launched it was much harder to hit 100 FPS at 34 40 by 1440 with you know ultra quality settings in triple-a games but with modern cars like the 1080 TI this modern has extra speed genuinely does come in handy ASA generally makes accurate claims about the performance of their monitors and x34 P you know it's no exception contrast ratio is around 1042 won just slightly better than what is listed on the spec sheet while peak brightness I measured at 294 nets which is pretty close to that 300 net mark a contrast ratio of above 1001 is maintained throughout the brightness range too which is good to see like many curve displays the x34 P does suffer from a few uniformity issues though it's not nearly as bad as I've seen with other panels the right side is slightly tinted yellow relative to the center with a maximum Delta II difference of two point two with an all-white display this is somewhat noticeable when viewing solid colors but for the most part I don't think you'll notice too much ghosting and pixel response appears near identical to the x 34 which means the normal overdrive setting is you know remains that ideal option for most users the IPS panel used here is fairly quick for this sort of display technology so ghosting is not a big issue for the most part and viewing angles of course are also very good as you'd expect from an IPS panel though you know contrast ratio isn't as good as you'd see from a VA display with a new panel on board I was curious to see how the predator x34 P stacks up in color performance particularly as the X 34 is an excellent monitor out of the box unfortunately the same can't be said of the x 34 P there with a few tweaks this monitor can do decent results the main problem with the x34 p out of the box is white balance by default the monitor is too warm with the white point around 6000 K and an average of 61 85 k this screws with greyscale performance as you can see with the Delta II average of four point six eight and gamma that's you know it's completely wrong on the other hand the X 34 is nearly accurate by default with a much better CCT average that leads to a sub 1.0 Delta a average in greyscale out of the box which is a very solid result for the older monitor poor color temperatures skews color performance in saturation and color checker tests again producing Delta averages about 4.5 had aces shipped the monitor with a better color temperature more in line with the original x34 performance would have been great as the mono is capable of 98.7 percent srgb coverage with the following set of tweaks in the on-screen display you can get the predator x 34 p back on tracks are produced in great colors no you will have to set the gamma to 1.9 rather than default to point to as the 1.9 gamma mode actually produces closer to gamma 2.2 in my testing you know it's a bit strange but that's how it is I guess on this monitor the main thing to note is making these adjustments to the x 34 p does reduce the contrast ratio to around 832 1 where's the x 34 can maintain an 1,100 to 1 contrast ratio with similar performance that's a noticeable negative impact from the different display that's used in the x 34 p but on a more positive note you can achieve pretty decent performance with a few OSD tweaks the panel doesn't perform as well as the original x 34 but Delta e values around 1.0 across all tests is still a very good result without performing a full calibration color temperature is slightly too loose to the low end though gamma is fixed and only a few color point succeed at Delta a of 2.0 even better grayscale performance can be achieved through full calibration using spectra Cal's calm and 5 software in particular the color temperature curve is flattened and greyscale performance improves to a sub 0.5 Delta II saturation color checker results they're not impacted hugely with you know Caleb calibration in most case however with Delta e values new 1.0 anyway this is a decent place to end up especially for a gaming monitor however it's disappointing to see the x34 piet unable to match the x34 at any stage when fully calibrated my ex 34 achieves sub 0.5 results across all tests while maintaining a decent contrast ratio you know it's unlikely anyone would be able to tell the difference between this and the results put up by the x34 p but it's clear the older panel is slightly better from a color performance standpoint and more importantly comes better calibrated out of the box this leaves the x34 p in an interesting place it's better than the ex 34 in most ways it supports a higher refresh rate it's more curved and the stand is more flexible with a better design across the board however it doesn't reach the same levels of color performance it is only a small difference after a few oh s date tweaks but those that want the best-looking 1440p ultra wide are slightly better served by the older x 34 to be clear though both displays do deliver great color performance and the things I'm talking about here will be nitpicks for most buyers if you want a fast high-resolution ultra wide with a great IPS display the x34 P gives you exactly that while providing a higher refresh rate and a better design than its predecessor it's a great proposition for gamers in particular due to that new 120 Hertz refresh rate pricing for this monitor it is pretty interesting you know in Australia the x34 pace hits at 1700 bucks which was the original launch price for the ex 34 that is you know since trickled down to around $1,300 that's a significant price difference and I suspect we'll see something similar in the US where the ex 34 is currently available therefore you're around $1000 and when the x 34 pay goes on sale I reckon will most likely be around $1300 in time no doubt the ex 34 will be phased out and the x 34 pay will take its place at which point you won't really have to think about which to buy but right now with both monitors in the market it's a tough choice is the extra 20 Hertz of refresh rate and new design worth 400 bucks I'd say probably not at this stage though I'm not sure how long the cheaper x34 will be around for ether mana is a great option in the end though and if you choose to spend the extra cash on the superior x34 you won't be disappointed 1440p high refresh ultra wide gaming is pretty bloody awesome if you can stomach that high price of admission and that's it for this look at the ASA Predator X 34 P this modernist should be available worldwide shortly but those of us in Australia can I guess skip the queue and purchase one right now from PC case yeah I think there might be one of the only retails in the world with these monitors at the moment so it could be a bit of a world exclusive for them anyway big shout-out to PC case key for setting this monitor out links to them in the description below and I'll catch you next time you