Gadgetory

welcome back to hardware on box today we're checking out view Sonic's latest ultrawide monitor the focus is solely on the gaming market it's the x3 350 R dash C a 35 inch 34 40 by 1440 MVA display with a maximum refresh rate of 100 Hertz and 1800 R curvature and free sync every tales for around seven hundred US dollars or nine hundred and sixty Aussie so it's a little on the expensive side but we'll see how performs and whether it stacks up to other popular monitors in this category aside from the specs I just mentioned viewsonic have included several other gamer features including RGB lighting something viewsonic calls clear motion which is basically back low strobing and black stabilization this is combined with low input lag and very basic support for HDR 10 content however when I took this monitor out of the box I wasn't overly impressed with the design it's a chunky monitor not just in terms of the display unit itself but also when it comes to bezels a lot of monitors these days are moving to slimmer designs but it seems blue Sonic kinda hasn't got the message here because it's bigger than even my Acer predator X 34 which was released back in 2015 the base as well is pretty massive I know some people prefer these designs to the wide three-prong stands but this thing really takes up a lot of room on a desk the good news is that this has led to an adjustable stand with all the swivel tilt and height adjustability on your more budget offerings it's rare to get height adjustments so this is a welcome inclusion and viewsonic does it well with this sturdy construction on the rear we're definitely moving into gamer territory here with the RGB LED lighting and some gamer patterns this isn't as egregious as say and a soos ROG design but it also lacks that sleek and subtle aesthetic that I personally enjoy there's also LED lighting in the base of the stand which shines towards the front a headphone rest that pops out of the stand on the back is included as well the build quality is also rather unimpressive I wouldn't say it's bad but the heavy use of stock standard black plastic doesn't exactly give the extra 350 yards se a pre look when you combine this with the general chunkiness you'd be more inclined to suggest it was a budget display rather than something priced near $700 the array of ports is good two HDMI 2.0 a DisplayPort input a basic three port USB hub and a 3.5 mm audio jack you do get internal speakers they're not the worst I've heard but I can't imagine gamers using them for their in-game audio the on-screen display is both good and bad I like the inclusion of a directional toggle but viewsonic has still somehow made it difficult to navigate by continually switching which buttons perform which actions depending on the area of the menu you are in bit of a nitpick but I found it annoying on top of that the menus color scheme is very difficult to read on certain backgrounds I haven't found myself needing to put a white window behind the menu just so I could see what was going on however there are some useful features in here Clear Motion View Sonic's brand name for backlight strobing or a black frame insertion provides additional clarity to motion in some gaming environments I'm personally not a fan as the backlight brightness drops and you can't use it alongside fruit sync but some people love this sort of feature there's also a wide variety of game modes color settings and so on I was a bit surprised at the lack of cheat crosshairs though given how ubiquitous that feature is among other brands one thing I should mention is my unit shipped with two dead pixels in the far bottom-right corner in close proximity to each other this does happen from time to time it's not really something everyone will experience I think I was just unlucky here with my unit let's quickly talk about the refresh rate here before we move into other performance metrics this is a 34 40 by 1440 panel at 100 Hertz which I think still qualifies as high refresh these days despite the availability of 144 and even 200 Hertz at this resolution it's a smoother experience than 60 Hertz the step up to 144 Hertz isn't noticeable but I feel for a lot of gamers especially those who don't have a high end GPU this refresh rate is very nice the resolution is 1440p class which I feel is perfect for gaming and productivity tasks and the 21:9 aspect ratio adds that bit of immersion to your gameplay as someone that games on an ultra wide I definitely recommend it viewsonic is providing adaptive sync with low framerate compensation here which is great to see it works perfectly on both AMD and NVIDIA GPUs as well so no here and certainly no issues with flickering 1440p ultra-wide high refresh monitors have matured a lot in recent years to the point where even VA offerings have decent response times in contrast to some non ultra wide displays with similar specs using the ultra fast overdrive setting I recorded a greater great average response time of 5.1 3 milliseconds which as you can see is one of the fastest va response time averages I've measured typically for a 16:9 monitor these panel sent around seven to nine milliseconds but for some reason these ultra whines are just a lot faster the xg3 50-yard dash seeds around 0.7 milliseconds faster than the 34 inch v8 equivalent of this panel you can see in budget offerings like Kogan's 34 Ultra 1 the difference here being 34 inch panels are manufactured by Samsung whereas a you Optronics makes the 35 inch models this viewsonic monitor is also a little faster than the best LG IPS panels have to offer with this resolution as seen in the LG 34 GK 950 F and it's six point one millisecond transition time still there's a bit of a costume that 5 to 6 millisecond bracket with not much difference between H option in terms of input lag again a decent result here for the x-33 50-yard dash C with under 4 milliseconds of latency which is within the usual bracket of gaming monitors the 34 GK 950 F is the fastest ultra wide I've tested at 2.4 milliseconds of latency but we're talking about a one millisecond difference here nothing to get excited about brightness is good 313 it's out of the box is going to be too bright for most users and without any real HDR support there's nothing to be concerned about the contrast ratio however is a weak spot for a you Optronics ultra-high panel it's is it just nineteen hundred to one for the XG 350 yards see compared to around three thousand to one four monitors that use the Samsung panel let's move in now to take a look at color performance the x-33 50-yard dash C is a standard gamut monitor the focuses on srgb in my testing it exceeds the srgb spectrum slightly but not by enough to be DCI p3 compliant none of this matters srgb is most important for PC usage today whether that's gaming or application use out of the box this monitor is surprisingly decent in terms of its calibration a white point of 65 54 K is excellent and if it weren't for a bit of inaccuracy in the darker area of gamma curve we'd be looking at a sub 2.0 Delta average when viewing saturation performance we do hit that sub 2.0 Delta average which is great and helps massively by the accurate white point and then we also get a better than average result when viewing colorchecker numbers considering most gaming grade monitors ship with very little calibration to speak of I'm pleased to see near accurate results from the viewsonic XG 3 50-yard dash seat out of the box with a few small tweaks and changes to the color controls in the on-screen display I was able to tighten things up further with sub 2.0 Delta averages across the board which is a very strong showing and of course we can go one step further with a full calibration the results of which you can see here patreon members can download the ICC profile icon for this monitor if you want to experiment with it although juda panel variants in work create accurate results for all owners while this monitor does deliver a relatively strong color results excellent response times and good input lag there is one aspect that really let sit down and that's the panel coding this isn't something I normally talk about in reviews because it's not usually an issue but with the x-33 50-yard dash C I immediately spotted something strange about the way this monitor displays text it's a subtle effect but this monitor seems to have a bit of smudge yunus to it tex lacks the sharpness and clarity of other 34:40 by 1440 monitors i've recently reviewed and when viewing the display through a magnifying glass i put this down to something strange about the coding that's diffusing the light slightly which is creating this smudge issue the subtle lack of sharpness is almost like the monitor is running and a sub native resolution except it's actually working as intended it's a really weird one because again the screen coding isn't something I normally have any issues with but on this problem alone I'd always find it hard to recommend this monitor when similar options exist that give greater clarity moving on to uniformity again these are pretty good results for an ultra wide we're getting typical fall-off along the outer edges but the central zone is reasonably accurate definitely more so than some curved ultra whites I've tested with all the testing done the data in and the comparisons made I think the viewsonic XG 3 50-yard dash C is one of the rare monitors that I can't really recommend and this isn't just from a value or price perspective the monitor is expensive and I'll talk about that shortly it's from a technical standpoint there are just a few too many issues here for a monitor in a category that's mature and filled with options to me there are four key problems the smudgy screen coding is a rare issue but an annoying one that reduces the clarity for an otherwise decently high resolution power the design is bulky not all that appealing and built from unimpressive materials the on screen menu is flawed in both its navigation and color scheme which makes it very difficult to use and the contrast ratio is lower than equivalent monitors they're not for samsung's VI panel / AU Optronics there are some positives here response time and input lag performance is great it's not outstandingly better than equivalent monitors but it's still very good out of the box color performance is better than I expected and better than average and it does come with features like a height adjustable stand back light strobing modes and RGB lighting but unfortunately the cons are compounded by a price tag that's far too high in today's market at $700 a 3440 by 1440 ultra-wide really needs to be offering a higher refresh rate than just a hundred Hertz to justify that price tag it's only $100 more to get the Acer predator X 30 for P or LG 34 GK 950 G both are all-round better monitors with a 120 Hertz refresh rate and full chasing support of course not everyone can afford the extra hundred dollars which is why for budget-conscious 34 40 by 1440 buys I point to the more entry-level offerings in this category sure monitors such as the $450 via tech G + 34 c or M si ma G 341 CQ don't offer features like a height adjustable stand or backlight strobing but there is no way those features are worth spending an extra $250 on to make matters worse these cheaper options actually deliver better picture quality response time and input lag results are similar but the contrast from Samsung's cheaper VI panel is higher and you don't get the weird coding issue that this viewsonic monitor has I also find the price quite strange to be honest here in Australia viewsonic also sell the VX 3515 to KPC hdw a monitor with a mouthful of a name but one that offers a 34 40 by 1440 resolution and 100 hertz refresh rate for just 500 Aussie dollars it Pete strongly with similar options like the vo-tech and MSM owners I just mentioned and it's one I'd be considering if it's available in your region yeah with this very monitor on the market viewsonic decided to sell their new ultra wide at $1,100 locally with current discounts bringing that down to around nine hundred and sixty dollars that's around double the price which just seems insane to me when the key differences are a few gamers specific features and a better stand really not sure what viewsonic we're thinking so those are my thoughts unfortunately this display just isn't a great value proposition and has a few too many flaws for my liking that other viewsonic monitor I mentioned is great value and his worth checking out as are the vo-tech in MSI models alternatively some of the higher-end ultra wives with better refresh rates I think going in either of those directions is a better idea right now subscribe to get more monitor reviews in your inbox consider supporting us on patreon where you can enjoy some of our behind the scenes content and exclusive discord community and we'll catch you in the next one you