The QD-OLED Gaming Monitor To Get? - MSI 342C Review

welcome back to monitor's unbox today we're checking out msi's take on a cutie OLED gaming monitor this one has been a long time coming since it was T's way back in I think it was May of 2022 but there's no need to wait much longer as the Meg 342c Cudi OLED is scheduled to be released this month and we're here to take a look and see how it performs relative to the big established contenders in this space from Alienware the 342c has a surprisingly short name for an MSI monitor good job on that one but the specs themselves aren't surprising as this display uses the same Samsung qdo LED panel as we've seen in the Alienware aw3423dw and DWF plus the Samsung G8 OLED that we're hoping to check out soon this means the 342c packs a 34 inch size 3440 by 1440 resolution 21x9 aspect ratio and a maximum refresh rate of 175 Hertz it also has quite impressive performance claims in other areas like a 0.1 millisecond greater grade response time 1 000 nits of peak brightness 99.3 DCI P3 coverage and of course adaptive sync support for modern gpus we'll be seeing how these metrics hold up to our own shortly MSI has also given the 342c a competitive price tag of 1100 us which puts it on par with the aw3423 dwf's price there's a few minor differences in specs between these models so it'll be interesting to see which one ends up the Best Buy after we run it through our testing but at least early in this review it's good to see that we're not seeing a new qdo LED monitor being released with a high price tag for no reason 1100 is where it's at these days unfortunately this review gets off to a rocky start when looking at the design of the 342c while the visual style isn't too bad here and I appreciate msi's efforts to be a bit less gamer on the rear I wasn't impressed with the design and build quality of this monitor almost all exterior surfaces are made from a cheap feeling plastic that is similar to what we see on budget and mid-range monitors rather than something that costs over a thousand dollars U.S at this sort of price point I typically expect a more premium build quality for example the gold highlights don't seem bad at first Until you realize they are just boring colored plastic rather than metallic the Alienware equivalents also use a lot of plastic but it looks and feels like a higher quality when you see it in person the build quality is also unimpressive from a construction standpoint one example I can easily point to is that my unit had a noticeable gap between the glossy display panel and the outer housing especially in the top right corner there's a few other obvious seams like this around the place too it's just not a premium finish here combine this with the thick chin bezel on the front generally thick build certainly a lot thicker than the Alienware monitors just not a very attractive product and it feels sort of what I expect at this price tier stand is also somewhat basic only supporting height and tilt adjustment no rotation support at all I don't think this is an essential emission but it limits the ergonomic adjustability compared to other products as for the RGB LED strip on the front this isn't the first time I've seen this from MSI and a few other brands have tried similar I just don't get the point though it's distracting while gaming and seems to offer no other obvious benefit I like that there's a setting you can enable where the RGB LEDs imitate the colors on screen so it Blends in with the content being displayed but again this doesn't make a lot of sense on the front as you're already seeing that content I would have thought it would make a lot more sense for an Adaptive RGB ambient light like this to be included on the rear so that it can create an ambient light effect against a wall something I feel Gamers might actually want given the popularity of third-party lighting solutions what I did like to see is a robust feature set included with the OSD settings including a KVM switch which the Alienware monitors don't include there's also things like crosshairs beware of burning using this on an OLED a smart scope that Zooms in the center automatic brightness controls low blue light mode Shadow boosting it's quite a feature-rich monitor I also like that it supports 65 watts of charging through the USBC Port again that's a genuinely useful addition for ports we see a further Advantage for MSI over the competition in that it includes two HDMI 2.1 ports in addition to display port 1.4 a and USBC with DP alt mode the Alienware monitors for example only include HDMI 2.0 so the maximum refresh rate over HDMI is limited to 100 Hertz despite this the MSI implementation is a little odd the display does support 4K 120hz downscaling over HDMI 2.1 by default in the console HDMI 2.1 setting but to access 3440x1440 at 175 Hertz over HDMI you have to switch it to the PC mode don't really know why there are two modes just a quirk of this product like other qdo LED monitors the 342c is active cooled meaning there is a fan inside that spins at a low RPM to keep the panel and components cool most of the time the fan is near silent and can't be easily heard from a normal viewing distance though I'd say it is slightly louder than the aw3423dwf but quieter than the DW model once or twice during my usage I noticed weird fan Behavior where the fan would ramp up to a more audible level for a few seconds before quickly dying down which is a bit concerning as it once happened when the monitor was not actually doing anything and it was set at a low brightness level but since it was a rare occurrence I don't think it's a huge issue it is annoying when it happens though it certainly is something that I guess could be tweaked by a firmware update which is supported on this monitor as a 342c uses the same panel as the aw3423dw those that have watched that review will be very familiar with some of the issues surrounding the coding and subpixel structure of the qdl Ed panel if you are hoping that the MSI variant would better handle Reflections or cut down a bit on ambient light reflectivity this is not the case it looks fundamentally identical to the alienwares if you're not familiar with the coding here is a quick summary lid panels coding is glossy and lacks are polarizer so it can reflect quite a bit of ambient light depending on the conditions in a standard indoor viewing environment with artificial light or in a sunlit room blacks can appear gray or raised due to some of this light being reflected off the panel this is unlike a glossy LG OLED which appears much blacker even with ambient light in the room this ambient reflectivity is exacerbated when there's more light in front of the panel but isn't as problematic when lighting is only behind the display and it's a non-issue in dimly lit or dark rooms hamper the deep rich OLED experience in some viewing conditions oleds are famous for their black levels but with the 342c you'll need to have an optimized setup to get the most out of it it's really hard to say whether this will be an issue for you as it can be a case-by-case basis personally I do find it annoying and one of the larger issues with these first generation qdl LED panels but if you primarily game at night it's not anywhere near as much of a concern at the very least it's something to be aware of as for the subpixel structure it's not ideal for desktop productivity use the QD OLED panel uses a triangle RGB layout instead of the traditional RGB stripe which can cause fringing on some high contrast edges such as text this is not easily fixable with software Corrections some people don't notice this issue but others including myself found it reasonably obvious especially next to a normal LCD this reduces the crispness and Clarity of text in some situations but it's a complete non-issue for Content consumption like gaming or watching videos oleds generally aren't great monitors for desktop usage productivity apps and web browsing anyway because they are susceptible to permanent burn-in so the sub pixel shoe won't be of huge concern if you are using this monitor as intended for Content consumption but if you do plan on using it for productivity work you'll not only have to factor in the risk of burning into your buying decision but the sub-optimal subpixel layout as well as for burn-in warranty MSI are offering a three year warranty that does include burn-in coverage according to an MSI rep when I asked unfortunately this information is not yet on their website so it'll need to be written down somewhere in concrete terms just to confirm it but I was told the website will show this soon this is an important aspect as it gives it warranty parity with the Alienware models which offer similar coverage in terms of response time performance it's no surprise to see this QD OLED panel offering Lightning Fast speeds similar to other qdo LEDs we've tested at its maximum 175 Hertz refresh rate we're seeing a 0.3 millisecond average response which is extremely fast and that leads to very clear motion for this sort of refresh rate with no noticeable inverse ghosting the 342c is as good as the aw3423dw for motion Clarity and far superior to any LCD at the same refresh rate cumulative deviation is astonishingly low at just 45. of how oleds function is that performance is basically identical at all refresh rates this means whether we're testing at 175 or 60 hertz we're still seeing about a 0.3 millisecond response time average LCDs typically get slower as the refresh rate decreases but this isn't the case here so the 342c offers a single overdrive mode experience without any overdrive settings of course as they aren't required for an OLED there's no difference in performance between this OLED panel and others so if you were tossing up between the 342c and an Alienware monitor or the new 27 gr95qe all are similar in response times the only major difference here is in the maximum refresh rate the higher this is the clearer motion will be so that LG monitor will have better motion clarity as it's 240 hertz versus 175 Hertz here but even 175 Hertz looks great and in my opinion similar to a 240Hz LCD and of course similar to the other kudi oleds at the same refresh rate looking at average performance we get the best idea of how an OLED Stacks up to LCD a typical OLED will be around 10 times faster than a class leading LCD and will do so with more consistent performance across the refresh range and with lower overshoot there's really no comparison that makes an LCD look good up against an OLED oleds are just that fast cumulative deviation is again a fantastic result for the 342c showing performance in line with other OLED products and fast Superior to LCDs this display is also a great choice for gaming at 120 and 60 hertz though at these refresh rates there will be some blur attributable to the sample and hold nature of OLED technology something that has been surprisingly contentious with the first wave of qdobs has been input latency after the aw3423dw came in with a poor latency result but I'm pleased to say the MSI model is much better in this regard and in line with results from the Alienware DWF variant which is to say input latency less than 0.5 milliseconds this is true for both the SDR and HDR modes when gaming in an Adaptive sync configuration so that's a great result here for MSI power consumption it is on the high side as is the case with other qdo LEDs despite not using a g-sync module the 342c is roughly equivalent to the aw3423dw in power consumption with the DWF using slightly less power these panels do suck down a lot of power but it isn't anything super crazy given we are testing a worst case scenario for an OLED with showing full white typical usage is more on the sub 60 watt range which is similar to other oleds for color performance the 342c is a wide gamut monitor with quite High color space coverage we get 99.3 coverage of DCI P3 exactly what MSI advertise plus 97.4 coverage of adobe RGB which is good though this isn't really a product suitable for color critical productivity work in total we get 80.5 percent coverage of Rec 2020 which is among the widest gametes I've tested though similar to other qdolets this provides a nice range of colors that can be used while gaming in HDR for SDR content Factory calibration here is average to below average in the default mode grayscale performance for example is okay without being amazing but the main issue is that there is no gamut clamp enabled by default with such a wide color gamut this means SDR content like YouTube videos are oversaturated and especially skin tones can look redder than normal this leads to high Delta ease in the configuration that this monitor ships in in comparison to other monitors you can see what I mean when I say average grayscale performance is mid-table and not quite as good as the alien wears while color Checker performance is below average the DWF from Alienware isn't fundamentally that much better in this metric though so none of the QD OLED monitors released so far are particularly impressive out of the box one strength that the 342c has is that MSI ships it with multiple color modes covering srgb P3 and Adobe RGB other brands tend to only include an srgb mode or if you're lucky in P3 mode so it's nice to see MSI take a further step here however again this RGB mode here is only average relative to other gaming monitors in the srgb modes yes performance is improved the gamut clamp Works to a reasonable degree and this reduces oversaturation but there are still a few issues with grayscale and ultimately Delta E's are middling for code Checker I wouldn't say these results are good enough to describe the monitor as Factory calibrated for Str srgb usage the included P3 mode is a little bit better MSI advertises a Delta e2000 average of less than two and this was achieved in the saturation test but I wasn't wowed by this mode and by my standards it still fell somewhat short of what I usually like to see from a calibrated mode Alienware DWF model also has srgb and P3 modes and for both configurations the Alienware is more accurate with a color Checker Delta e average around half that of the MSI with that said you can fully calibrate the 342c to deliver better performance after a pass with Cal man and a software profile installed the MSI model is pretty similar to other oleds that I've tested it was also pleasing to see a very consistent experience across various conditions performance doesn't change much depending on the APL of the content being shown which has been an issue with some of the LG oleds that I've reviewed Max brightness is always a big talking point with OLED monitor reviews but unfortunately there isn't a whole lot to report here if you are hoping for a brighter experience from this MSI model you will be disappointed as the 342c reported in basically identical results to the two alienwares I'd reviewed previously the result from OLED though I think 240 nits is sufficient for most use cases but of course brighter would be better we're also seeing a large gap between these and the LG based Outlets which can't sustain 200 nits in their SDI configuration minimum brightness also satisfactory at 29 nits contrast graphs are a bit pointless with an OLED as their zero level blacks lead to an effectively infinite contrast ratio but here's how the Black Point compares to LCD so you can see the difference if black levels are a concern and something you look out for there is no better choice than an OLED viewing angles are outstanding from qdo-led panels so you won't have any issues with color shifting or tint when viewed from off angles the only concern here would be the curve reducing the visibility of the entire screen though 1800r is good for gaming at this sort of size and aspect ratio uniformity my unit was well above average with really excellent results much better than the W OLED 27gr95qe I looked at a few weeks ago but only slightly better than the Alienware curio leads I reviewed and this can vary a bit between units one of the major selling points to getting an OLED display is for HDR performance which is leagues ahead of the majority of LCD monitors that advertise HDR functionality unlike those LCDs oleds have true HDR Hardware capabilities which leads to a night and day difference in terms of real-world HDR image quality seriously the difference is so vast between an OLED for HDR and a display hdr400 LCD monitor for HDR that you'd think the LCD monitor was completely broken the main advantage oleds have is that they are self-lit this means each pixel can individually illuminate itself for perfect HDR image quality LCDs have to rely on a backlight to function and most true Asia LCDs then use dimming zones to achieve the high levels of contrast required for HDR even good full array locally dimmed LCDs with 2000 plus zones don't look as stunning as the effective 5 million zones this MSI provides the advantage this has for image quality does vary depending on the content but it oleds simply do not suffer from blooming or hallowing around bright objects which you can get on a mini LED LCD especially if the Zone count is insufficient now there are good HJ LCDs out there but even the best struggle with fine HDR details like Star fields or Christmas lights and the worst panels with only a few Zones look downright Terrible No Such issues with an OLED panel like this which looks brilliant in all conditions oleds also have a big advantage over LCDs for black levels and contrast in general in the most difficult scenarios a good LCD May top out with a contrast ratio around twenty thousand to one which is definitely very good but the OLED has an easy one up with an effectively infinite contrast ratio and true zero level blacks the big strength of OLED is therefore in Darker scenes with lots of Shadow detail where oleds can get astonishingly dark when viewed in a dimly lit room a trade-off and weakness of oleds including the 342c is brightness All Leads are great at Shadow detail but poor for bright highlights while the reverse is true for an lcd-based HDR display when testing in the brightest Peak 1000 nits mode the 342c is again only capable of around 256 nits full screen which is identical to the other QD oleds and this remains true for other testing like at a 10 window size where this display is rather poor but similar to its competitors in fact there's really no difference to brightness Behavior comparing this MSI model to the alienwares they all deliver basically the same experience so no Advantage here to MSI this does mean though that the 342c is capable of slightly over 1000 its peak brightness for small elements on screen which is superior to W OLED based panels from LG when testing real world scene brightness the 342c isn't too bad it was the brightest of the qdo lids tested in our YouTube HDR video sample but well short of the best LCDs in our movie HDR video sample the 342c is reasonable beating the aw3423dwf by quite a margin but Falling a bit short of the DW variant in our gaming test all three eqd oleds were excellent and delivered right on the expected 1000 nits as face jet accuracy the 342c is okay probably a bit below average for a premium OLED here using the true black 400 mode with a 10 window size the top two thirds of the eotf curve are good with decent brightness roll-off but the bottom third is too bright this means that for any content below about 25 nits it will be brighter than it should be hurting Shadow detail there's good and bad news here the good news is that this sort of performance doesn't change drastically under different settings or conditions for example the HDR Peak 1000 mode is basically the same with somewhat worse roll-off at higher brightnesses bad news is that the ray Shadow brightness is still an issue in this mode but overall this means there's no reason to use the true black 400 mode as it caps out at below 500 nits just use the 1000 nit mode for that 1000 it brightness with no substantial hit to accuracy compared to other HDR monitors there are strengths and weaknesses to this display's HDR accuracy for example the DWF from Alienware also had raised Shadows to some extent but was completely unusable in some content in the 1000 nit mode so the MSI model is the better calibrated option for HDR it's not as accurate as the DW model in its 1000 nit mode dose but it does perform better at high APL so it's a mixed bag none of these HDR monitors are as well calibrated as the 27 gr95qe which has great HDR tracking or the LG C2 which is Elite final section is the Hub Essentials checklist which looks to see if MSI are accurately advertising their monitor and meeting basic minimum performance standards MSI does a good job in the first two sections only giving me pause for concern over a few dodgy marketing images and a borderline result for factory calibration with their Adobe RGB mode being the best which is what we've shown here Motion Performance was also a reasonable result though 0.1 millisecond response times are a bit unrealistic for the most part and there's no backlight strobing black frame insertion support HDR performance is of course excellent as the 342c is offering true HDR with good brightness and deep blacks the issue section though has a few deductions due to its triangle RGB subpixel layout risk of permanent burn-in and some weirdness associated with the fan overall the MSI Meg 342c qdo lid is another great HDR gaming monitor that brings everything we love about all the technology once again it's fundamentally very similar to other QD OLED Ultra wides we've tested by virtue of having the same panel but that means it largely delivers excellent performance across a variety of key categories obviously the big one here is HDR the 342c is an outstanding HDR monitor due to its per pixel local dimming deep zero level blacks bright highlights including good real-world performance and wide color gamut if you were looking for an HDR upgrade and you wanted a true HDR experience at the top of its class it's hard to look past this cutie OLED panel it really is that good for HDR gaming and content consumption on top of this we get great Motion Performance another inherent benefit of OLED Tech response times in the 0.3 millisecond range consistent performance across all refresh rates and great motion Clarity are all a feature here at 175 Hertz it isn't in the elite TF motion now that we have 240 hertz oleds available but this is still an excellent refresh rate that gives motion Clarity similar to 240Hz LCDs which is to say it's a very good experience oh and there's minimal input latency so it feels nice and responsive to use SDR performance is also reasonably good here due to its acceptable sgr brightness excellent viewing angles and uniformity and range of included color modes however in general I don't really recommend this sort of display for productivity or desktop work due to the risk of permanent burning and weird subpixel layout this is a Content consumption monitor that's really well suited to that use case as most of the heavy lifting with the monitor is done by the panel itself MSI aren't bringing a lot to the table here that's different from other cutie Allen ultrawides but there are a few small things that may benefit you if you need them for example unlike its main competitors in the Alienware models the 342c does include HDMI 2.1 and has a KVM switch plus 65 watts of power delivery over USBC it also has better HDR accuracy than the aw3423dwf though it's not perfect while keeping many of its strengths like user upgradable firmware and low input latency brightness is identical to other qdo Lids though so don't expect any difference in that area at eleven hundred dollars US this display is going head to head with the aw3423dwf while being cheaper than the DW model at thirteen hundred dollars and the Samsung G8 OLED that web yet to review which is fifteen hundred dollars US unless the j8 OLED does something spectacularly well I think the clear battle at the moment is between this very MSI Monitor and the DWF where the 342c has a real weakness is its design and build quality this is an unattractive monitor in my opinion with a lackluster choice of materials and unimpressive build quality it is subjective so you may have a different opinion but I far prefer the more premium finish to the DWF however the MSI model has other benefits like HDMI 2.1 and better HDR accuracy plus overall performance is very similar personally I'm torn on which monitor is the better one I don't think there's a clear answer when they are so close in so many ways if you're thinking of buying a kudiolin Ultra wide it's really going to come down to nitpicking and of course pricing your region hopefully this kicks off a bit of a price war in this sort of format but at least it's good to see that msi's version isn't out of contention by any stretch it's right up there battling for first place anyway that's it for this review of the MSI 342c if you're interested in buying one of these monitors or some of the other products that we've talked about in this review we do have links to check the current pricing in the description below while we're checking those out if if you're seeing this review a couple of months after it goes live also if you do want to support our independent testing which is crucial for this sort of review then please do consider supporting us via our patreon and float plan accounts links are in the description below if you sign up to there you'll get access to some cool benefits and perks like our Discord Community we do some monthly live streams and cool stuff like that so really appreciate everyone that supports us directly and allows us to make reviews like that so thanks everyone for watching hope you enjoyed this one and I'll catch you in the next one [Music] [Music]

Channel: Monitors Unboxed

Views: 121,652

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Id: 0nxmwatqtjk

Length: 25min 17sec (1517 seconds)

Published: Fri Mar 10 2023

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

build quality look insanely crap for the price, look like cheap AOC

[u/conquer69]

It costs over a thousand dollars. Any idea why it doesn't come calibrated from the factory?

[u/Progenitor3]

I used to be against OLED because of the burn in issue and some of the other drawbacks but I'm so fed up with how terrible IPS looks that I'm ready to deal with any problems OLED can bring.

That said, I feel like we're still in the early adopter phase and prices are still pretty high.

If something like the LG 27 1440p monitor gets to around $600 that will be perfect. Although it might take longer than I expect for that to happen.

[u/JesusLordKing]

Ugh...audible fan...again. So is the Oled G8 the only one that reliably never makes a noise? Sadly it's a mess in other areas.

[u/dolphingarden]

The same panel as the other QD OLEDs. Does this warrant its own review?

[u/wussgud]

Any rumours or leaks in regards to a wide screen version instead of an ultra wide? Would buy it if it was 16:9 tbh.

[u/Doubleyoupee]

Didn't need to go past 3:30 in this video to decide this model is not for me. Hopefully the Samsung or DWF will be <1000 on deal soon.

[u/Fun_Duty_8761]

Anyone know if the Phillips evnia qd oled version is coming to the us market?

[u/playthissong2541]

The accuracy of HDR is good. And it has some feature which other QD-OLED doesn't have.