My MG279Q experience

[Andrewf]

First off, let me explain how big of an upgrade this is for me. I've never known or even seen a display more than 1080p @60hz, and I've been used to this cheap Samsung T24B350 for over 3 years now. I've been looking for an upgrade for a while and Gsync seemed really important to me since obviously I have a GTX 770, however after seeing the price being only $580 (with freesync) compared to the insane prices of similar Gsync monitors, I was pretty much sold.

 

I've read and seen all the reviews about how terrible the quality control is, but I had higher hopes than that, I mean, when people get something and their satisfied, most of the time they're going to just enjoy it, and forget about writing a review. So only the crazy enthusiasts write reviews and my theory was that they are just too picky.

 

I ordered it on Sunday, and on Monday I saw that it was on it's way, hurray! Except I realized I accidentally ordered it to my parents' house, oops. So long story short, it got there first, and my sweet, beautiful mother had it sent to me the same day, while Amazon was kind enough to refund me the amount it cost to deliver from there to here (in college)

 

I got it today, Thursday, all standard shipping of course, and I couldn't be more satisfied and excited about how quickly I got it. I finally brought it back and opened the package, set it up, plugged it in and turned it on. I almost instantly devastated by a few things.

 

[spoiler= ]

 

I was sure that I had to return it. I figured I might as well test it out in the meantime. Although I knew there was going to almost certainly be a little backlight bleed, the most obvious problem up top was unforgivable! I tried pushing the frame down and messing around with it with my hands, alas, no avail.

 

I started using it with my computed and sweet baby cakes it was deliciously beautiful. I was blown away by the sheer picture quality, and when I finally turned it up to 120hz in Nvidia settings, I was blown away again. It was smoother than a baby's bottom. I didn't want to let go, I couldn't part with this glorious angel of a display. I tried fixing the obvious problem with my hands again. Nothing. I thought to myself "clearly there's a crack in there somewhere," right? I didn't think pushing the frame down would completely fix it. I figured I might as well keep trying, I was desperate. I tired again this time using a paper card, but I couldn't squeeze it in. I used a different card, a credit card, still not getting it. I tried a different spot, the card snapped in between the clean matte bezel, and precious crystal display. I slowly and carefully slid it over towards the problematic spot, and SNAP. The bezel returned to it's proper alignment and since I had a black picture in fullscreen I instantly realized that it was fixed 100%. Returned to it's former glory!

[spoiler=]

 

I knew that the back-light bleed wasn't ever going to be fixed, since it's more of a core design flaw. At least at -out-of-box settings, it was obvious, but I used TFT Central's review to change it to optimal settings, and it was hardly noticeable. I could not have been more satisfied.

 

I am currently typing on this monitor now, and the text isn't too small like people have warned, Windows 10 works perfectly with it as well. Nothing out of the ordinary. 

 

I fired up a few games and they are astonishing. Dark Souls II looks okay. I tried GTA V, however the game doesn't want to start properly for some reason. Oh well, another time. I am sure gaming is a very pretty sight.

 

In terms of working. What can I say? Photoshop is much easier to use, more pixels, amazing color accuracy. So much screen real estate as well.

 

Adobe Premiere Pro works fine, looks amazing, however I will post later once I finished setting up the dual monitors. Don't worry, I'm using the old Samsung monitor as a timeline, and media bin space, and the Asus as the main preview monitor. I can't wait to get used to it and see how my workflow increases, since I'm already pretty fast using just that one 24" monitor 1080p.

 

This is how everything looks as of now, it's very clean but don't worry, it'll be filed with solo cups, and other crap soon enough 

[spoiler=]

 

When it comes to having a freesync monitor, yet I have an Nvidia card. I don't care. Gaming is honestly secondary for me, but very important nonetheless. Although considering what I've been used to, I think I can live with having an immense upgrade of a monitor that I was able to afford rather than not be able to afford others or say, the upcoming PG279Q which I know for sure I won't want to spend that kind of money on. The biggest thing for me was IPS, 1440p and 144hz. Although I'm still trying to figure out how to increase it from 120hz to 144hz, any help would be much appreciated!

 

This is such a joy to use. It swivels with little to no effort, it tilts up and down to any degree that anybody could ever want. The height adjustment is absolutely superb. It sits snug, and stays very fixed, and tight. When you try to move it up and down, it feels like an expensive desk drawer from Ikea but a little bit less grease. I can imagine after a couple years it will loosen, so starting it out a little tight was a very smart move. The bezel is tiny, especially compared to my old monitor. This MG279Q is a massive upgrade in every way possibly imaginable.

 

I love playing with settings, especially display settings, and getting the right settings for optimal use, as well as personal preference is really important to me. It provides extensive customization and it will suitable for almost any environment/lighting situation. It gets very very bright, from rooms with windows, and it gets very very dim, for the dark rooms. The optimal settings I used (thanks to TFT Central) was Racing mode at 24 brightness, and RGB, at 100 96 96 respectively.

 

Th built in sound is okay. I think it's important to have that for people who are just browsing, need to hear notifications, etc.. But I would definitely recommend headphones if you don't have any other desktop speakers. I have both, thankfully. (Not pictured)

 

My next concern is how my mouse is going to move from higher density display, to a low one, (eg. the Asus, to my Samsung) I'll post later about that, but I'm sure it won't be any big deal since the Samsung is smaller, perhaps the actualy pixel density is similar.

 

Anyway, it didn't take long for me to fall in love with the MG279Q, and hopefully, others out there that are reluctant to spend $700+ on a similar Gsync or a similar freesync monitor that's affordable... Rest assured, I am happy with my purchase, and I'm glad I didn't wait to spend an extra $350-450 on the upcoming PG279Q.

 

Thank you very much for reading my story/review. I'll have more to talk about later on, so stay tuned!

[PineappleHolidays]

Quick question;

I'm on the edge as it's ~650€ compared to ~1200€ for a 3440x1440,

 

is the bezel big / thick ? 

 

Does the pixel density look good compared to a 1080p 24'; would you say it's good enough for the pixels to be invisible?

[Andrewf]

Quick question;

I'm on the edge as it's ~650€ compared to ~1200€ for a 3440x1440,

 

is the bezel big / thick ? 

 

Does the pixel density look good compared to a 1080p 24'; would you say it's good enough for the pixels to be invisible?

 

The bezel isn't the thinnest, but it's close to the thinnest. The pixel density definitely looks far better. The biggest thing is the color accuracy, I'm preparing a few pictures to show the difference between my Asus and the Samsung, it's almost baffling.

[Andrewf]

 

Does the pixel density look good compared to a 1080p 24'; would you say it's good enough for the pixels to be invisible?

 

 

Let's examine further. For the sake of experiment and comparison and science or whatever. I have taken a set of images to compare some things that are very... particular.

 

I messed with the settings of the Samsung to try and match the brightness and quality of the Asus as much as possible. As you can imagine, a very low quality monitor can not even come close, but I did my best.

I posted some picture on imgur so to whoever is interested, let's take a look.

http://imgur.com/a/3dCrt

 

Let's take the image quality into consideration first. Looking at the first image, I am comparing the same frame of a video taken in 4k on a Panasonic HC-X1000. You can instantly notice the color difference, and without seeing which monitor was which, I think it would still be very obvious which one wins here, even to an untrained eye.

The next two images are comparing the lighting as well as color. In the Samsung monitor, the pixels kind of get in the way, but that goes without saying about the benefit of the Asus MG279Q 1440p.

 

You can take a close look at lighting of the bench, the color of the foliage, and the ground. Looking at the ground in front of the bench, it shows a vast difference in contrast, proving the MG279Q a very superior IPS panel. (note that the Samsung monitor's technology is unknown, IPS, TN, VA... there's no way for me to find out) The color reproduction is incredible too, and it's easy to notice all over the place.

 

There are more images in the link to imgur for whoever cares enough. Now let's look at the pixel density and how to affects the distance and size of the two. I wanted to do this because of Mehemine's question earlier, and I wanted to take it further. Another reason is because there isn't very much information about the Samsung monitor, and the specs are very limited.

 

This first image, you will see that I positioned display #1 (Samsung) on the bottom. So near the bottom of the screen, they are obviously lined up. As we travel upwards the distance between the two grows. This is due to the pixel density of the Samsung being lower, so this concludes that the increased size of the Asus does not make up for the increased number of pixels. In the second picture you will see that Display #1 (Samsung) is on top this time. The same proves to be true, they are in close proximity near the top, and as we move down, the distance apart increases. The amount of pixels required to travel x amount of physical distance is greater in the Samsung. I believe this proves the greater amount of pixel density.

 

There's another picture where I place the display in the middle, virtually and physically, just to show a more accurate depiction of the differences between the two different setups.

 

To really expand the answer to your question Mehemine... It depends how far you sit. Any pixel density can look invisibile if you sit far enough. As for this Asus MG279Q, it's hard to notice the individual pixels on the screen. I made detailed comparisons of the pixel density and the sizes to show this.

 

Let me know what you think.

[anthonyc813]

I am a proud owner of this monitor and just like you, I have Nvidia GPUs! lol its such a terrific screen at 200 bucks less then a G Sync. I am gonna watch some videos and read up on FreeSync since Black Friday is coming and I was thinking of going back AMD. I mean why not? I have a 1440p FreeSync monitor!

[Andrewf]

I am a proud owner of this monitor and just like you, I have Nvidia GPUs! lol its such a terrific screen at 200 bucks less then a G Sync. I am gonna watch some videos and read up on FreeSync since Black Friday is coming and I was thinking of going back AMD. I mean why not? I have a 1440p FreeSync monitor!

It's limited to 35-90hz, which isn't a huge deal, but it's still very limited in my opinion, I'm not sure if i'll be getting an AMD card just for that. Perhaps further in the future there will be even greater display that are IPS 120hz+ 4k, 4ms or lower, who knows how long, but they will arrive eventually.

[Abracadaver]

Good review and very helpful to me!

 

I'm more or less in the same situation having a cheap samsung monitor and looking for an upgrade. I have been considering the PG279Q with g-sync (I have a gtx770 as well) but the high price is holding me back, i'm considering the MG279Q now as an alternative. Glad to hear that you are very happy with the monitor and you perceive it as a very good upgrade, i think you just convinced me to get this monitor as well