MSI MAG342CQM 1500R Curvature 21:9 Aspect Ratio Narrow Bezel 1ms 3440 x 1440 (UWQHD) 144Hz Refresh Rate Tilt/Swivel/Height/Pivot Adjustment 34 AMD Freesync Gaming Curved Monitor, Black

I originally ordered this monitor because it checked all the boxes I was looking for! However, when I checked for dead pixels, there were a couple. Amazon sent me a replacement as a result, and when I checked the replacement for dead pixels, not only did the backlight go out within a week, but there was a hair stuck between the LCD and display.

I have only had the monitor for one day so this review will reflect that. I plan on updating this review in a month or so after some decent time has been put on it. Firstly, this is my first monitor upgrade in nearly ten years since I purchased dual Dell 22 P2211ht monitors-- and its astounding to see first hand, not just on YouTube reviews, just how far diplays have come in that time even on the low end of spectrum. The wow factor here is 10/10. 34 of screen space is much more impressive when it is on your desk. I have a sizeable desk, and Im now looking at side tables to put my full tower PC on. At the same time though, not having to swing my 22 forward on the vesa arm it was mounted on is saving valuable real estate and now its not as cramped feeling when I have my hotas or wheel out for sim racing/flight sims. I was concerned about the curvature coming from a flat panel but its actually very nice, feels natural and took less than an hour for it to feel like the new normal. Zero dead pixels on the display from what I can tell, no manufacturing defects-- a big relief after seeing some other reviews complain of those things. Ghosting/smearing is not really noticeable in my use case (sim racing) but is present. I got used to it pretty quickly and it doesnt bother me. Once Im in game I dont notice it. I dont notice any blacklight bleed but I dont play in pitch darkness, either. Other games can produce more noticeable effects. The color needed some adjusting. The OSD is functional and I had no issues adjusting contrast and brightness to tone down the oversaturation that was present out of the box. It does seem a bit washed out but still looks nice. I dont have a real need for HDR so I cant comment on that yet. The display is plenty bright, brighter than my old monitors. USB ports would be nice but this isnt a dealbreaker, my PC has plenty for my needs. Wish the RGB worked with mystic light or was at least adjustable since I dont really care for rainbow RGB. As far as build quality, it doesnt seem terrible but isnt premium. The stand is sturdy and while the plastic gives off flimsy vibes I was adjusting tilt and height just fine without anything other than plastic-y creaks and pops that seem slightly more pronounced than my previous Dells. I have a GTX 1070 (thanks, cryptominers!) so not too many games I play can make full use of the refresh rate but the ones that I could push there felt great. Very fluid and smooth. All in all, first impressions are very positive. A pretty big leap in technology for myself and I feel the price is fair. I can easily recommend it at the sub $500 price point and have zero regrets so far.

Couple of downsides: * other than the power button, the buttons don’t seem to wake up the monitor * No speakers, but it has 3.5mm audio jack for external speakers * The only way picture-by-picture or picture-in-picture works is by plugging in to one of the HDMI ports and DP. * sometimes it takes a while for the monitor to recognize the laptop or it’s docking station (plugged via HDMI). Don’t seem to have that problem with DisplayPort where my desktop is plugged into.

Appears To Be A Good Monitor So Far Still Learning About It

Im no body but this monitor earned NO MORE than 3 Stars from me. I wanted to try a 34 144hz wide monitor but I picked the wrong one. I dont like the black shadows (ghosting) when watching a cut scene from a video game or movie. This monitor is terrible for dark color (ghosting) The reason why I didnt return it is because I paid $250 for this monitor. So it was cheap when I bought it on July 2022.

Très bon moniteur pour faire du montage vidéo ou de la photo. Les contrastes sont beaucoup plus élevés (4000:1) que sur mon ancien moniteur Dell de 30 pouces (1000:1). Les noirs sont profonds et les nuances de couleurs dans les zones sombres sont beaucoup plus apparentes. Je travaille chex moi dans un endroit dont léclairage est tamisé le jour et dans le noir total le soir. Jai réglé la luminosité sur 50% et cest parfait pour moi. Cela dépend donc des habitudes des personnes. Langle de vision est bien de 178 degré. Mais comme cest une dalle courbe de 1500R il faut en tenir compte lorsque lon regarde de côté. Langle nest pas partout le même dépendamment si vous fixez soit le centre ou un des cotés du moniteur. Bien entendu cest une dalle VA donc faites attention à votre choix parce ce que le temps de réponse nest pas aussi rapide que sur une dalle IPS. Pour ce qui est du ghosting jai réussi à le rendre presque inexistant pour la navigation web en jouant un peu avec les paramètres. Pour le HDR Il ne faut pas sattendre à un miracle. Ici nous avons un écran de 300 nits. Pour du vrai HDR cela demande dans les 1000 nits et le prix viens avec bien sûr. Donc en résumé pour le prix (je lai acheté neuf chez amazon pour 459.00$ avant taxe) cest un excellent moniteur. Probablement un des meilleurs pour une dalle VA. Jai lu des critiques qui le compare à des écran beaucoup plus chers ce qui ne lui rend pas justice. Finalement jen ai acheté un deuxième dans la même semaine.

The Monitor arrived in Mint Condition, no dead pixels and was easy to setup, Game Tested and the quality is amazing.

Upgraded to this after my previous monitor (30 in. Spectre ultrawide @ 2560x1080 200hz) died after 2 years of use out of the blue because the capacitors burnt out. After a bit of contrast and RGB calibration out of the box, the colors look even sharper than the Spectre. Definitely a lot less gray and more defined. The backlight bleeding the Spectre suffered from is also practically nonexistent in this one. Very even lighting through and through. FFXIV looks much more crisp at this resolution, to the point where Ive disabled most of the custom FXAA/bloom/blur shaders I previously used at 2560x1080 which helped hide the jaggedness. Overall quite happy with my purchase. I cannot elaborate on VA smearing and response times as I do not play FPS games, and this is perfect so far for my MMO + programming needs.

A solid monitor for the price, but the one I received has had a few issues with picture quality. It appears after using an application with a white title bar that it has burned into the display overlaying any pixels in that space. This monitor has also had one pixel that was miscolored briefly and has had weird motion blur with dark colors in some cases. Otherwise this product is likely to be fine, though the motion blur can be a bit distracting at times.

It gets the job done for gaming on games like apex legends flawlessly. Super crisp resolution for watching youtube vids and movies. And the ultrawide res gives you so much working room when you are working from home so you can see everything on one screen. Best money Ive ever spent on a monitor tbh