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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psuedonymous - Wednesday, July 24, 2013 - link
The paper also mentions that cycles/degree is only ONE of the ways that the eyes perceive 'detail' When it comes to line misalignment (i.e. aliasing), we can see right down to the arcsecond level. If you want a display that does not exhibit edge aliasing, you're looking at several tens of thousands of DPI.twtech - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
Even if you can't see the individual pixels, you'll still notice a difference in the clarity of the display.EnzoFX - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
I cannot believe people who are saying 4k is a waste on TV's, this is asinine. 1080p on a large tv is terrible, the pixels are clearly visible.1Angelreloaded - Wednesday, July 24, 2013 - link
Well lets be honest, its only usefull to us if the PPI is high enough to throw AA out the window, or atleast down to 2x of any iteration. I can see some uses in productivity or workstation applications. As for the TV market they aren't even fully at a standard 1080p in content, and they invested a lot into upgrading content as Hollywood started upgrading the cameras for higher resolutions, so I don't see the industry on a bandwagon to keep upgrading.SodaAnt - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
720p is about as good as you need if you have a 50" TV and you sit 10 feet away from it. If you have a 30" display that you sit 18 inches from, it makes a huge difference.smartthanyou - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
No person has ever made such a blanket statement. It has always been in the context of what was being viewed and the distance to the display.In the future, consider your posts more carefully before you put in writing that you are an idiot.
NCM - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
So evidently you didn't make it even to the end of the article's first paragraph?CalaverasGrande - Thursday, December 26, 2013 - link
I suppose since I work in broadcast I am special but 4k, HD and 720 are all apparent when you have a decently sharp display. Even from several feet away.karasaj - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
I just had an argument with my friend over why laptops around 15" are getting 3200x1800 displays but we still have < 100 ppi on desktop displays.We both agreed that it would be nice to have high DPI desktop monitors but i insisted that they're too expensive and more niche than laptops and tablets.. It's crazy to see the first 4k monitor ever get such a nice reward, what do you think prevents the cost from going down yet?
bryanlarsen - Tuesday, July 23, 2013 - link
Displays, like IC's, get exponentially more expensive as the size increases, especially for newer technologies. It's mostly due to the defect ratio. A 30" screen is 4 times as large as a 15" one, but it's way more than 4x as expensive. Suppose that there's a single fatal defect; the 30" screen would have to be discarded, but 3/4 of the 15" panels would be fine.