Acer AOPEN 32HC1 Gaming Monitor Evaluation: Immersive, Inexpensive Gaming
Acer AOPEN 32HC1 gaming monitor
Clear, understated curved monitor design
Cable administration constructed into the stand
Quick refresh fee and response time
Shade correct display makes this a flexible monitor
Intuitive joystick for navigating on-screen show menus
Shiny black floor is a fingerprint and dirt magnet
Restricted adjustability
No built-in USB hub or USB-C help
Although there are many gaming screens that boast quick refresh charges and response occasions, few include an reasonably priced price ticket.
Priced at $315, our AOPEN 32HC1 assessment unit is a barely curved gaming show that boasts AMD FreeSync help, a quick 144Hz refresh fee, and a easy design that makes it look pure in a sport room or work desk. With a compelling array of specs and options, the AOPEN holds its floor towards costlier rivals, like Asus’ $749 35-inch FreeSync-capable ultra-wide curved show, Alienware’s $700 34-inch ultra-wide curved gaming panel, and even accomplice Acer’s $799 Predator Gaming X34 curved UWQHD panel.
The facility of stealth
Given its gaming pedigree, the AOPEN 32HC1 is likely one of the most understated gaming screens we’ve come throughout. Like a stealth bomber, this monitor is freed from the garish prospers discovered on lots of its opponents.
Though the final technology Alienware 34 Curved show – primarily based on Dell’s Epic design language – already feels easy with a muted black end, AOPEN takes this a step additional and strips its panel of LED backlighting, contoured ridges and harsh angles which can be typical of aggressive gaming designs, and flashy coloration accents in favor of a monochromatic, all-black end with a easy curved rear.
This stage of understated aesthetics discovered on the AOPEN is extra typical of enterprise shows, like Dell’s UltraSharp and Samsung’s CHG90, and panels catering to creatives, like LG’s Ultrafine 4K and 5K screens.
Nonetheless, don’t mistake easy as fundamental. The skinny zero.38-inch black bezels that border the display nonetheless offers this monitor a really fashionable look. Although minimal, the black bezels serve to border within the content material in your display, permitting you to focus in your spreadsheets, Workplace paperwork, or your sport at hand — with out being distracted by LED backlighting or flashy purple accents.
Shopping for into AOPEN’s technology-packed design requires a little bit of meeting. Out of the field, the display, plastic stand, and steel base are available in separate items, probably a part of an effort to maintain the packaging compact. You’ll want a screwdriver to screw the big screw that’s pre-mounted on the underside of the bottom to connect the stand.
The excessive gloss again helps to make up for the monochromatic design, however the end is a magnet for mud and fingerprint.
We might have favored AOPEN to have used a thumbscrew to make this a part of the meeting as tool-free as attainable, however it’s a easy sufficient process. As soon as the stand and the bottom are assembled, the display snaps onto the stand, or you too can use your personal VESA mount.
Although the largely plastic building feels stable sufficient – the steel base helps to maintain the entire setup securely grounded on our desk – we’d have liked to see extra steel used within the building of the stand to provide the monitor some heft. The AOPEN weighs simply 13.45 kilos, or simply half the burden of Alienware’s 34-inch curved panel, although the latter comes with a barely bigger display.
The excessive gloss again helps to make up for the monochromatic design, however the end is a magnet for mud and fingerprint. For the reason that stand doesn’t present an possibility for swiveling or pivoting the display, you’ll have to bodily transfer the monitor if you wish to regulate the display. Thankfully, the panel itself is mild sufficient that transferring the monitor shouldn’t be a problem, however you’ll wish to preserve a microfiber material helpful to wipe down the rear in the event you plan on repeatedly rearranging your desk.
Immersive window into your video games
The spotlight of the AOPEN 32HC1 is its 31.5-inch large QHD panel, which helps a decision of two,560 x 1,440 pixels. Regardless of coming with an ordinary 16:9 side ratio and never being “ultra-wide” like many competing curved gaming panels, the AOPEN nonetheless manages to be immersive because of its 1800R curvature. The curvature feels extra refined than on the Alienware 34 cruved, which has a 1900 curvature radius.
The AOPEN depends on a vertical alignment (VA) LED display expertise moderately than the IPS panels on most client screens, which helps with distinction and rendering deeper blacks, options that avid gamers will probably admire. Like IPS, the VA panel on the AOPEN helps large 178-degree viewing angles, although with the display curvature, most avid gamers will probably wish to be centered in entrance of the monitor.
With FreeSync expertise and a 4ms gray-to-gray response time and a 144Hz refresh fee, the AOPEN handily beats out final 12 months’s G-Sync panels – our Alienware 34 Curved AW3418 assessment unit was solely in a position to get to 120Hz with overclocking expertise – however doesn’t come near the 240Hz refresh charges on this 12 months’s G-Sync screens, like the brand new Alienware 34 Curved for 2019.
We examined the AOPEN with techniques with AMD’s Radeon graphics playing cards, and efficiency was easy as marketed. By giving the AMD graphics card management of the refresh fee of the monitor, tearing and stuttering – often brought on by misalignment with the body fee of a sport – was tremendously lowered on the AOPEN 32HC1.
Although the degrees of blacks can’t match costlier panels supporting AMOLED or QLED applied sciences, the AOPEN was a really responsive display that gained’t go away AMD avid gamers wanting extra. And regardless of being marketed with FreeSync help, Nvidia avid gamers aren’t unnoticed – not too long ago launched drivers assist GeForce avid gamers benefit from FreeSync shows. titles like Battlefield V, the monitor was in a position to sustain with the sport, and ghosting and tearing on the show was very minimal, and customers with extra a extra fashionable Radeon graphics card will likely be happy with the efficiency.
Rated with 250 nits of most brightness, the AOPEN isn’t the brightest panel that we’ve come throughout, however display visibility shouldn’t be difficult in any respect.
Muddle-free ports
To maintain the design clear, the AOPEN has a recessed cutout on the underside to accommodate the fundamental ports. As a result of the panel doesn’t swivel 90 levels to provide you a portrait orientation, the bottom-facing ports make it tough to achieve.
In fact, you’ll probably solely require entry to the ports as soon as once you’re establishing the monitor for the primary time, because the AOPEN doesn’t include a USB hub that’s typical of most high-end screens to make it handy to entry USB flash drives. In case your gaming setup consists of the AOPEN, be ready to achieve in your desktop tower to attach all of your USB peripherals.
On the underside of the monitor, you’ll discover DVI, HDMI 1.four, and DisplayPort 1.2a ports together with a connector for the facility cable. Thankfully, the facility provide is constructed into the monitor, so no less than you gained’t be saddled with a big energy brick hanging off your desk with this setup.
Typical of the stands on most fashionable screens, the stand on the AOPEN comes with an extended, oval cutout. In the event you’re obsessive about conserving your house tidy, you possibly can feed the wires by way of the slit to assist with cable administration. Provided that there isn’t a USB hub constructed into the AOPEN, you’ll probably have simply two wires to feed by way of the opening – your show wire connecting the panel to your AMD-powered gaming PC and the facility twine.
To maintain prices down, the AOPEN doesn’t include built-in audio system, so that you’ll have to convey your personal gaming audio system or headphones for audio output.
Slightly than a sequence of buttons, AOPEN depends on a single joystick that’s used to energy on the show and toggle numerous settings. Pushing in on the joystick turns the panel on and off, and flicking the joystick in any route prompts the OSD menu, permitting you to enter into any one of many pre-set modes or regulate the distinction and brightness.
Along with granular controls, there are three preset gaming modes, a customized person mode, customary mode, eco mode, image mode, and video mode. The gaming presets are tuned for motion, racing, and sports activities.
Made for gaming, however good for extra
Although the AOPEN 32HC1 was made for gaming, it could actually additionally readily fill in for fundamental artistic work in a pinch. In the event you’re a designer and wish so as to add the ending touches to a artistic challenge, the AOPEN’s color-accurate panel can take this monitor past gaming. In line with our show evaluation taken with Datacolor’s SpyderX Professional coloration calibration instrument, the AOPEN advantages from a panel that helps large coloration gamut.
The display helps 99 % of the sRGB coloration house, 86 % of the Adobe RGB house, and 92 % of the P3 coloration house. Display screen distinction can be equally good, coming in at 1070:1, inserting it inside vary of the iMac 5K’s 1040:1 and Floor Studio 2’s 1140:1 distinction ratio. By comparability, final 12 months’s extra premium Alienware 34 Curved got here in with a decrease distinction ratio at 730:1 however it has the next 326 nits of brightness.
In video games that function massive patches of darkish areas on the display, you’ll discover a bit of sunshine bleed across the edges of the show.
In terms of coloration accuracy and coloration uniformity, Datacolor’s Spyder5 Elite show evaluation gave the AOPEN a ranking of no less than 4 out of 5. For coloration accuracy, the typical delta rating for the AOPEN is 2.40, making it extra appropriate for artistic workflows than the inbuilt AMOLED panel on the Alienware m15 laptop computer, which has a delta of 6.31. In terms of coloration accuracy, a decrease delta is best, and inventive screens just like the LG Ultrafine 4K constructed for Mac customers scored only a hair higher at 2.39. Dell’s premium Ultrasharp U3818DW had a delta of zero.97, however that show comes with a price ticket in extra of $1,000.
The place the AOPEN can enhance on is in its luminance uniformity. Engaged on common computing duties – like net looking or Workplace paperwork – you gained’t discover the areas the place display brightness differs, however in video games that function massive patches of darkish areas on the display, you’ll discover a bit of sunshine bleed across the edges of the show. Our Datacolor Spyder5 Elite detected that the highest heart, decrease aspect edges, and the underside proper aspect of the show is available in brighter than the middle of the show.
In the event you’re enjoying video games with darkish scenes, doing artistic work, or are a frequent person of night time mode with a black background, the uneven display brightness is usually a bit distracting. Nonetheless, this isn’t noticeable for common productiveness duties.
One other middling rating for the AOPEN is within the display’s white level ranking. Whereas the brightness uniformity’s results are heightened with darker contents on the display, the white level, also referred to as the display’s coloration temperature, impacts how whites are proven on the show.
The results of the white level on the AOPEN are noticeable after the show has been calibrated utilizing Datacolor’s calibration utility. Out of the field, the panel seems hotter, exhibiting a refined yellowish or reddish tint that’s not in contrast to among the vivid AMOLED panels on smartphones. Calibration dialed down the display’s total saturation, and pores and skin tones appeared cooler. I really most popular the punchier colours when gaming on the pre-calibrated show and solely utilized Datacolor’s calibration settings right here once I wanted to do duties that required extra correct colours, like picture modifying.
Our Take
AOPEN’s 32-inch curved gaming panel is a reliable monitor designed as a companion for avid gamers who play on AMD expertise. An reasonably priced price ticket coupled with performance-driven options – like 144Hz display refresh, quick response occasions, and a coloration correct panel that helps a large P3 coloration house – in a subdued monochromatic design helps make the AOPEN a flexible panel with enchantment that extends past gaming.
Is there a greater various?
Doable options to AOPEN’s 32-inch curved WQHD gaming monitor embrace HP’s Omen 32, a panel with the same measurement and backbone that helps 5ms response time and a slower 75Hz refresh fee. As an AMD FreeSync-compatible panel, the Omen show is priced competitively at $344 to the AOPEN, however the downside right here is that you simply gained’t get a curved display and the response time could also be a bit slower than what avid gamers demand.
Within the AMD area, one other well-liked monitor is Alienware’s 25-inch AW2518 monitor. Although that is final 12 months’s mannequin – the corporate not too long ago introduced an enormous redesign for 2019 at Gamescom – it’s steeply discounted to $279 presently, making it an reasonably priced entry into the AMD ecosystem. This panel boasts extra superior specs, like 240Hz refresh charges, 1ms response time, a 400-nit display, and FreeSync efficiency that appears to be extra superior than the AOPEN assessment unit.
The disadvantage right here is that the significantly smaller 25-inch panel tops out with FHD decision, and also you’d lose the immersive curved display design from the AOPEN in the event you select Alienware’s possibility. Alienware does supply a bigger 34-inch curved show, however that monitor depends on Nvidia’s G-Sync expertise and is a extra pricey possibility.
How lengthy will it final?
With 144Hz refresh fee and three years of guarantee protection, the AOPEN ought to final most avid gamers for no less than three years or till show applied sciences change. One instance, because it pertains to Alienware’s 34-inch G-Sync succesful monitor is that the panel jumped from 120Hz with overclocking final 12 months to a local 144Hz refresh fee this 12 months. Equally, inside just a few years, we anticipate the 240Hz refresh fee on the FreeSync-equipped Alienware 25 to be a typical function for high-end AMD gaming ecosystems, and fanatics will probably wish to select a panel with the quicker refresh fee. Till then, the AOPEN monitor presents many compelling, high-end specs for an reasonably priced worth level.
Probably, until you personal a premium gaming rig from a boutique plan or have splurged on prolonged guarantee protection in your PC, AOPEN’s three-year restricted guarantee will assist the monitor outlast most PCs by way of help protection. The coverage covers each elements and labor and is likely one of the beneficiant customary guarantee insurance policies we’ve seen for PC equipment available on the market.
Must you purchase it?
Sure, AOPEN’s 32HC1 is an reasonably priced gaming monitor that help delivers on key options that many avid gamers require. Non-gamers will admire the monitor’s coloration correct display that helps a large P3 coloration house, and the subdued design makes this panel versatile sufficient for gaming or work use.
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