bfun buys a monitor

Look at monoprice too. I have two of their Ergotron knockoff monitor arms on my desk. I think they were around $60. They're fine.

 

I just bought a Samsung G7 28" 4K monitor. It has a pretty decent number of features and should look better than the Dell TN panel I've been using, which has been looking pretty dirty and dingy to me.

 

I hadn't seen much on that one. I've never had an MSi monitor, but I have tons of components made by them.

 

Well, I got the monitor and although I definitely noticed the vast improvement in color and brightness, that just wasn't quite enough for me. I was irritated the monitor was a bit more beat up than I expected ("Excellent" condition seems to have a different meaning to Best Buy than me) and the only cable in the box was the power cord. In addition, the price dropped by $150 the very day I received the monitor, and because I bought and open box they won't match and I'd have to return it and buy it again.

And...I spotted another deal that looked much more appealing on their website.

https://www.bestbuy.com/site/samsun...-gaming-monitor-black/6425569.p?skuId=6425569


I'm returning the open box G7 28" and will be picking up this widescreen monster that was $500 off next week.

 

I had spent $700 plus insurance just for the open box for the 28". The ultrawide dropped to $1100 for $500 off so I just decided to go for it. Typically the G9 costs almost double the price of the G7 I have.

 

The G9 dipped below $1,000 today. I was tempted but not certain about the physical size and price. Then it sold out so the decision was made for me, just as I like it lol.

 

I bought it before today because I thought it would go out of stock. It's quite large. I bought a little table to sit behind my desk for it because The stand I have can barely hold it. 32:9 games like Horizon look pretty awesome but most games aren't going to have those options. Brightness is good but dimming zones are surprisingly poor and make blacks with HDR look pretty bad. It's definitely a huge upgrade over my old Dell TN monitor, though.

 

Do you have a link? I am not even sure how ot search for something like this lol.

So this week I used a 43" 4K monitor on Wednesday. Holy shit was that a interesting experience. I was about to impulsively buy one but my eyes were killing me by the end of the day. I really want to make it work and was thinking about buying a small desk to put behind my desk just for the big ass monitor. I have to assume asethetics of the room go out the window?

 

This is the desk I bought, although it was $10 less at the time, probably due to some sort of Black Friday promotion given it was purchased on November 24th.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QRH2RCX?ref=ppx_yo2_dt_b_product_details&th=1

I have the 55" version of this desk for my keyboard and gigantic XXL mouse pad/ mat. This gaming desk sits in front of the table where the monitor sits. I obviously do not use that little monitor platform attachment.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0834C6G61/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&th=1

My larger gaming desk is black, so it's not a big deal to match it up aesthetically, although this is admittedly not a top priority for me. I'd just target about the same height and color of desk as whatever you have, and I think that would be fine. This arrangement situates me at about 2.5 feet from the center of the screen, which is in the middle of the recommended 2 to 3 feet viewing distance for my monitor.

 

Ah, so we both had the same idea. When you said table, I thought maybe you found a slim table just the right size for a monitor. I got the idea to use a bookcase the same color and height as my desk but it's not easy to find!

 

The stand on the G9 is a staggering 31.62 inches wide. The feet of the stand end only about 4 inches from the edges on each side even on my 39-inch table. I really needed a table this wide for this monitor.

 

I'm interested in getting the G9 Neo some day, the one with like 1000 dimming zones, but I've read a lot of quality control issues about them. Perhaps they'll have an updated revision at some point that has those issues resolved. Also of course the high price needs to come down a bit. Right now I think it costs more than my OLED tv which wasn't cheap either.

 

Are you still happy with this? Anything unexpectedly negative? I'm kinda zeroing in on buying this but need to be sure. I really would not want to end up returning this monster lol.

 

The biggest negatives are probably weak HDR performance with very dark areas (pathetically low number of dimming zones), from what I’ve read difficulty with upgrading firmware (mine came updated already), and general issues with 32:9 software support. Windows 11 worked better for ultrawide resolution and HDR but had a packet loss bug that led to me rolling back to Win10 until that has been addressed given it killed my ability to play multiplayer games. Also keep in my mind the native resolution is around 7 million pixels and is pretty demanding. DLSS and FSR became much more important moving to double the horizontal resolution of a typical 1440p resolution.

Overall I’m happy with the upgrade to this monitor. 32:9 gives me something unique I don’t see with PS5 on my OLED and has made a game like Horizon: Zero Dawn a unique play through experience despite already having 100% completion on the PlayStation version. I’d note HDR looks great in brighter scenes, where dimming isn’t a concern. I wouldn’t have bought it for full price but I think it was well worth it at a $500 discount.

 

Holy crap, I'm glad you mentioned it. I didn't even look into the resolution. I thought it'd be a bigger 3440x1440p I already have at 34". I don't think I have the PC muscle to push 5120x1440 @ 240hz. This is basically almost 4k with a different aspect ratio.

Counterproductively, that actually makes the price more attractive. The 38-49" ultrawides in 3440x1080/1440/1600 @ 75-165hz are all in the $700-1000+ range. This is priced really really well, I almost wonder if it's worth buying and growing my PC into it in the long run.

 

I definitely don't have the muscle to push 240 Hz at 5120x1440 currently. I wanted to at least match the 144 Hz of the old 1440p TN monitor I replaced. I'll rebuild when I can actually get the parts. I don't mind just above 60 fps in graphically oriented open-world game like Horizon: ZD and 120 to 144 fps in multiplayer games for now. I use DLSS or FSR or whatever upscaling or reconstruction tech whenever it's available. DRS helps in certain games. I'll do a full rebuild and take better advantage of the full capabilities of the monitor when the shortages and scalping aren't such problems. I looked at it from the perspective of what a $700 to $800 monitor (such as the 28" G7 4K monitor I bought and had hooked up for a few days) could do and how it seemed worth it to pay a few hundred dollars more (at the $500 off sale price, that is) for such a massive upgrade to the G9.