HP OMEN 32" QHD LED Gaming Monitor

Sometimes - you come across a product that surprises you in a way you weren't expecting. HP and Omen PCs tried to tackle the Ultrawide market and plant themselves as a serious enthusiast grade option in a market dominated by ASUS, LG, and Acer when it comes to the 21:9 format. I think they succeeded. The Omen X 35" is an achievement in design and VA panel performance. Simple, sleek lines combined with deep blacks, great colors, and incredibly snappy performance (for a VA based panel) are all present here in a package that screams professional. Despite this - no monitor is perfect, and all display technologies have inherent strengths and weaknesses - and let's get those out of the way first. There is a small amount of ghosting - it's present, you have to understand the nature of the beast. ALL VA based panels are slow compared to their IPS and TN brethren when it comes to dark transitions. You may notice this on the edges of fast moving objects in games if you are really looking for it - but the built in overdrive does it's best to compensate for this. Yes - there is a small amount of overshoot - but it won't send you screaming to the hills. Fast moving static objects on a bright or very dark background may exhibit a small amount of smearing - but you'll quickly learn it's rare enough that it doesn't come into play here. There is currently a small problem that is present in most of the Omen X displays, and that is an overdrive bug at 100hz. Every five or so seconds - the overdrive does something wonky and "skips" causing a smearing effect at 100hz. HP is aware of this, and is in the process of fixing it. Newer monitors (post June 2017) should have the issue completely resolved. Existing customers are promised a replacement - and the problem is rendered moot when you set the refresh rate to 99hz via a custom resolution - a stop gap measure for sure, but something in the mean time you can do to make it a non-issue. Gsync flickering is present here - but this is an nvidia issue that is being addressed - not an HP issue. Expect a driver update to fix this soon. VA panels also have significantly smaller perfect viewing angles compared to their IPS competitors - but if you are using this as a monitor - like a normal person - and you sit in front of it, it's more an observation than an issue in practice. Just something to be aware of - there is color shifting if you look at the monitor from an angle. Don't do that. That's the negative out of the way. Let's talk about the positive. HOLY MOLY THE BLACK LEVELS HERE ARE ASTOUNDING. Blacks look inky, and deep - with varying levels of depth on uncompressed content easily visible - on a properly calibrated display using a Spyder5Pro colorimeter the levels of contrast here are staggering. Good luck finding another display that isn't OLED that will deliver blacks as crisp, dark, and deep as this panel will deliver. Color reproduction is excellent here as well, covering over 100% of the sRGB standard, and around 86% of Adobe RGB on my panel. That's pretty damn impressive for a monitor aimed at gaming and not content creation or professional work. For an amateur - this monitor could serve multiple purposes easily. The panel is a true 8-bit panel, delivering 16.7 million colors - and while I would have preferred an 8-bit+FRC or a true 10-bit panel - that also requires a end-to-end 10-bit workflow in order to deliver the 1.07 billion colors - and the content is just not there for gamers, or content viewers. If 10-bit support is important to you - the LG panel in the Acer X34 and the ASUS PG348Q is 8-bit+FRC - giving a dithered 10-bit image - but in my experience, while "better" than just 8-bit - if 10-bit is something you need - then you need an actual true 10-bit panel, and you need to look elsewhere. Movies in 21:9 format are pure bliss to watch, delivering a truly cinematic experience on your desk. Be aware however, that when dealing with a panel of this quality with it's high contrast ratio, compression evident in films and other video content is quite visible in the form of compression artifacts, especially in dark scenes. THIS IS NOT A FAULT OF THE DISPLAY - I WANT TO MAKE THAT VERY CLEAR! This display is good enough that you will SEE limitations of compression on content. Display uniformity is staggeringly good - no VA clouding or blacklight bleed is evident here - even at the highest brightness setting. Good luck finding IPS panels that display this level of consistency regardless of the location on the panel. Input lag is next to nil - I noticed no input lag at all, something I am very sensitive to. Coming from a 144hz BenQ XL2430T - I never felt like this panel introduced any input lag in the display chain - so I can abate any worries there. The drop from 144hz to 100hz is noticeable, but the gains you make with just the quality of this panel here over a typical 16:9 1080p display are much more evident than the smoother refresh rate that a 144hz display offers, but that is my opinion. This is not a competitive FPS monitor - it never claims to be, but I don't think you'd be gimping yourself if you used this for that kind of thing. I am an old Quake 3 semi-professional player - I would play Quake on this, without much to complain about. If refresh rate is the be all end all for you, look at something else - you're not the target demographic for this monitor anyways. The 1800R curve - let's talk about this for a minute. Now - I am an owner of a curved TV. It is the biggest gimmick I have ever seen on the TV side of things - but when I used to sit right next to my TV - the curve was really, really incredible - making me think monitors would benefit from this immensely compared to TVs, and I was right. The curve is pronounced enough to make it feel like the display is "hugging" you - but not too obvious as to make lines appear warped or distorted. It also is MUCH more pronounced than the curve on the LG based panels like the PG348Q and the Acer X34. If you're going to have a curved display, manufacturers, make it a really nice big curve - don't skimp out and make it more of a "dented" display - CURVE THAT SUCKER! The OSD is serviceable. Lacking a lot of customization options here - but this can be addressed via ICC profiles and tuning on the GPU side of things. I highly recommend picking up a colorimeter like the Spyder5 from Datacolor with this purchase, if you do not already have a colorimeter. It makes a difference, definitely. There are RGB modifiers, a handful of different viewing modes, and brightness - that's it. No gamma changes here. Atleast - out of the box, it came in at a gamma of 2.2 - it just needed some tweaking via a quick calibration. Lastly - let's talk about design. I am no fan of gaudy, tacky displays with ridiculous logos, futuristic, super angular, edgy designs like those found on the ASUS PG348Q, and I am certainly not a fan of awful logos like that of the Acer X34. You need to not only enjoy looking at your display, but you need to enjoy LOOKING AT WHAT CONTAINS THE DISPLAY! Seeing the ASUS and Acer competitors in person, I kept having to try not to look at the strange design choices they made when it came to the panel housing and stands. The HP on the other hand is sleek, subtle, and very classy by comparison. The only visible logos being the Omen logo on the stand - and on the chinbar - reading O M E N. The bezels are sleek, minimal, and you forget they're there because of how thin they are. At times - especially in a dark room - it can feel like there is a display just floating in front of you. The LED accent light is a nice touch, but not something I would utilize on a regular basis - but neat for showing off. Manufacturers like ASUS, AOC, and Acer need to take some cues from the likes of HP's Omen team, LG, and Samsung - simple is better when it comes to monitors. They should complement your setup - not clash with it. At over $1200 - the Omen X 35" display is a big, wide pill to swallow. But once you've gotten it set up - you quickly realize how well that money was spent. The huge display, with 106ppi pixel density feels incredible to look at. You won't find anything, in my opinion, that checks off this many boxes when it comes to a premium, enthusiast display experience. A "sizeable" upgrade compared to monitors on the market short of extremely high quality IPS displays, and OLED - most of which are well beyond this price point. So is it a bad omen? No - it's a very, very good omen. FYI - in the pictures the picture with the Joystick is pre-calibration and using a 2560x1080 wallpapers (I thought it was 3440x1440) - so ignore the strange look to the wallpaper.