The response from people who passed my desk while I was reviewing Asus’s latest curved display was pretty much universal: “Golly* that’s big”. And big it is. The Republic of Gamers STRIX XG34WMCDMS is a 34-inch ultra-wide OLED that is bright and colourful and very very hard to miss.

I had to take my usually massive 27-inch display off the desk because it was looking embarrassed.

For all its size, though, the unit takes up a surprisingly small amount of desk space. It comes with a stand that allows for tilt, rotation and height adjustment, with a very moderate footprint. Other displays of similar size and weight often require tripod mounts, so this is a welcome change.

The panel is a QD-OLED, which means that it lacks the white OLED base of some displays. The advantage of that is a wider colour gamut than you find on most gaming displays, as well as better vibrancy. The disadvantage is that the blacks are not true blacks and you lose a bit of contrast.

However, it compensates for that with the BlackShield film with enhances the blacks and an RGB Stripe sub-pixel layer for sharp text. The result is that even without WOLED, this display is compliant with the VESA HDR 500 True Black standard. A common complaint with QOLED is that ambient light reflecting off the screen can lend everything a purplish tint, but the BlackShield seemed to eliminate that in my testing.

All of which is just techie mumbo-jumbo really. The proof of any display is in the using, and the XG34WMCDMS is a wonder to behold. For first-person gaming, you have a genuine cinematic screen ratio, and the curvature provides a deeply immersive experience. It’s capable of a 280Hz refresh rate if your hardware can drive it, and motion is incredibly smooth — frame rates of t40+ per second are easily achievable.

I also used it to stream a few movies, for which it proved highly capable (though sitting up at a desk is less than ideal as a movie-watching posture. It’s not quite 4K resolution, but played UHD streams with no noticeable flicker.

As mentioned earlier, it includes RGB Stripe pixel layout, which means it’s useful as a productivity display in between games. I managed to fill it out with a huge array of Photoshop toolbars with plenty of workspace available, and for text editing it was very easy on the eyes (though the extra space at the sides felt a little wasted). My main lament with displays aimed at the gaming market is that you can’t really productively do much else with them. This unit answered that criticism well.

The build quality is typical for the ROG series — it feels very solid and well-made, not the least bit plasticky. It also follows the design language of Asus’s Republic of Gamers range, which means it looks a little “punk” for an office — but I was OK with that.

It has no shortage of connection options, including DisplayPort 1.4, HDMI 2.1, and USB-C ports capable of delivering 15 watts of power to drive other peripherals. I ran it off both a budget gaming PC and a MacBook Air, and it adapted easily to both environments (though obviously the MacBook Air is hardly a gaming machine).

Perhaps its most surprising feature is the price. At around $1500 retail, the XG34WMCDMS is priced well and truly in the mid-range of the market, yet its performance is not that far short of displays that cost literally twice as much. Compared to Asus’s own flagship models it makes a few compromises to keep the price down. But Asus has been intelligent in which corners to cut, and my guess is the majority of gamers would not feel the difference.

If you’re not fussed by the slightly lower than 4K resolution and the 280Hz refresh rate (which is too slow for eSports, for example) it’s incredible value for money.

 

Rating

4.5/5

 

Pros

  • Bright, clear display with vibrant colour
  • Wealth of connection options
  • Very low price for the quality

 

Cons

  • Not 4K capable
  • Refresh rate is too slow for high-end gamers and eSports

 

 

*The word used here was rarely “Golly” but this is a G-rated review.