ASUS PQ321Q UltraHD Monitor Review: Living with a 31.5-inch 4K Desktop Display
by Chris Heinonen on July 23, 2013 9:01 AM ESTComing into this review, I wasn’t totally sure what to expect from the ASUS PQ321Q, or any monitor with this high of a resolution. I love the screen on my iPhone 5 and my retina iPad, but I hold those really close to my face. Since I sit a couple feet away from a monitor, was I really going to notice the difference? Yes, yes I did.
Even coming into the office right after a standard 30”, 2560x1600 display, the difference is huge. You get either a larger desktop, or a far crisper screen, or possibly both. It isn’t a small difference, but one that I can notice easily, and every single time I sit down to my desk. It also is apparent that many application vendors have to hurry up with their software support for DPI scaling, because when it isn’t supported correctly it is really ugly out there.
The ASUS PQ321Q does have its share of problems. The color gamut isn’t perfect and leads to a good number of errors in the red, orange, and yellows of the spectrum. I found yellows to be the only one that I could easily notice when I looked at photos, but I did see red and orange issues as well. The dual HDMI 1.4a inputs are nice, but with HDMI 2.0 possibly coming later this year you are going to be limited to 30p on those inputs. The OSD could also be improved upon, as it works, but lacks any location or size adjustments and takes up almost half the screen when active.
In the end, my feelings about the ASUS PQ321Q wind up being very simple. Of the dozens of displays that I’ve reviewed for AnandTech so far, this is the one I want to hold onto the most. The razor sharp screen is just addictive to use, and you realize this is the future for displays. I’m sure over the next few years that performance will improve, prices will come down, and features will increase, and that helps everyone. But I want this now, and I don’t want it to leave my house.
The ASUS PQ321Q is pricey, and I can’t say that getting three or four 30” 2560x1600 panels isn’t a better deal, but it’s not the same as having one display that looks like this. In the end, I give the ASUS PQ321Q a Silver Award, which is the highest award I've personally given to any display. It's not perfect, but there isn't a display that's come across my desk that left me in constant awe over how incredible it was to use on a day-to-day basis that the ASUS has. It's also effectively killed any thoughts I've had about buying a laptop like a MacBook Air instead of a Retina MacBook Pro, because I can't imagine going back to a regular display. The next few years of high resolution displays can't come fast enough now.
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B3an - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
I think the individual DPI scaling in the Win 8.1 preview is broke. I don't know anyone who has got it to work properly, so i'm not surprised it didn't work for you either. Hopefully it's fixed in the final release.mrdude - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
Is it interesting that the benefits of that working or not hinge greatly on what you're planning to do with this monitor?My first instinct is, "Awesome! Finally some great PPI for the desktop crowd," but after a bit of thinking my response is quickly subdued.
How would I use this thing? and for what? It's very nice having additional real estate, but using a 31.5" monitor at native resolution w/o PPI scaling (to fully utilize the extra real estate) means sitting closer to it than I would a lower res monitor that's smaller in size. I guess that's one question I have for Chris: How is it like sitting 2' away from this thing for hours on end when using native resolution? I had a 27" monitor that I returned for a 1080p because I found it too big and needed to sit farther away from it.
If you sit farther back, than the DPI scaling would have to be set higher and you'd be losing real estate - a trade-off that many would gladly live with for a sharper image. The thing is, there's still a vast majority of software out there, particularly in the Windows landscape, that can't handle or scale well, especially when it comes to legacy professional applications which tend to have cluttered menus.
I guess my point is that there's only so much screen real estate that one needs until it starts to become a hindrance and scaling is required, and that's heavily influenced by personal preference and screen size. I would rather have three x1200 at 21-24" monitors for the screen real estate than a single 31.5" at 4K. When it comes to gaming, though, I'd love the 31.5" 4K monitor
airmantharp - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
I have two examples for you:First, games. They still need some kind of shader-based anti-aliasing, like FXAA or MSAA, but the resolution is amazing- I really enjoy 2560x1600 with a pair of GTX670's.
Second, any application that is currently resolution limited. Think CAD, photo editing, and video editing; anything that requires a rendered visualization. For instance, I'm editing 20MP files shot from a Canon 6D on a 4MP monitor that has UI elements on it, reducing the effective workspace. A monitor with over 7MP would improve my productivity.
thurst0n - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
Wait, you have a 1440p 120hz IPS?tviceman - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
Hey Chris,Out of curiosity did you try to run Half Life 2 at 1080p? Performance is going to crush most GPU's running at 4k, and I am just curious as to the clarity of the scaling when running non-native resolution that keeps the same pixel uniformity.
Spunjji - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
@ Chris: Out of interest, did you get any of the POST / boot failure problems with your setup that were experienced by the chaps at PCPer?cheinonen - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
No, I did not. A firmware update is supposed to be coming that will fix those, but I haven't seen them.Assimilator87 - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
Chris, if HDMI supports 2160p30 and DisplayPort 1.2 has double the bandwidth of HDMI, then why is MST used instead of a single signal/stream?rpsgc - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
Basically, apparently there aren't timing controllers (Tcon) capable of 4K@60Hz so Sharp (and Asus) cheated and used two controllers.thurst0n - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
This was supposed to be in reply to dishayu.