In the box we find a simple two piece stand that you need to screw together, manual, power cable, display port cable, some screws for both monitor stands and stand-offs for vesa mount should you wish to use it. Also a little red clip which really confused me at first, this goes on top of the monitor mount and creates a little headphone hook. Neat!
This is a 34 inch curved VA panel with QHD resolution, that is 3440×1440. This monitor comes with 100Hz refresh-rate and 6ms response time which can be pushed to 4ms using overdrive.
On the back of the monitor we find power, audio, display port and three HDMI ports. Do note that only one of them is HDMI 2.0, the others are HDM 1.4 ports.
As soon as I set this unit down, I noticed similarities to the F270i Pro I reviewed last year – monitor stand has very limited adjustment options, in fact it only does one thing – you can tilt it slightly up or down. I guess it’s a good thing that I’m getting the monitor arm, subscribe to see that review in the future.
Right, back to the monitor. The screen estate is huge and wide, the 34 inches really fills your view. The monitor has super slim bezels and the 1500R curvature that follows the natural curve of the human field of vision better. I like that Prism+ went with the 1500R curvature over the 1800R as this way it’s a little bit more curved and feels more immersive. It is also more comfortable for the eyes and I find that going from one corner of the screen to the other I actually don’t need to turn my head especially in games that support its ultra wide format. Do note, some games just stretch the corners rather than allowing you to see more content, but it still adds to the immersiveness.
While setting up my preferred features, I did notice that the menu button layout is somewhat cumbersome to navigate and it takes time to get used to it but that’s just a minor detail and once you set it up, you’re good to go.
When it comes to productivity, I am now exclusively splitting the screen into two, this allows me to multitask with plenty of space due to the sheer size of the monitor and QHD resolution. Even when splitting the screen in half there are plenty of pixels to see everything while maintaining sharpness. Talking about splitting the screen, this unit supports two cool modes:
Picture-in-picture and picture-by-picture, with these modes you are able to plug in secondary PC/laptop or console and display it over the top of the existing screen or side by side. This is pretty useful for those who may be using two different operating systems or possibly while working from home during “lunch” playing some games and maintaining some sort of monitoring. I have it set up with a little USB switcher so I can control both my PC and laptop using the same USB devices, just need to click a button and switch between them.
We find this monitor incredibly useful for editing videos as having the ability to see the whole timeline helps with our workflow. It seems like it’s not that big of a change since we were already using a large flat screen. but the curvature of X340 Pro and ability to see longer timeline saves a lot of time, eliminating the need to scrub back and forth.
It’s a massive productivity gamechanger in basically every single software you use:
wide Excel sheets are no longer an issue,
researching and typing a text for a project feels like a breeze,
having a tutorial on one side and working in photoshop on the other -great!
The list just goes on and on and ultimately it’s like having an extra screen without that ugly bezel.
As this is a VA panel, the viewing angles are great and it delivers 125% sRGB coverage. It is not the most accurate out of the box, but after running our calibrator tool it gets pretty close. For professional colour work I’d still recommend a more specialised monitor.
Let’s talk about gaming! This monitor has HDR support, but as it only has a maximum peak brightness of 350nits, it’s not the main reason to get it. A big plus side is that it rocks 100Hz refresh rate with AMD Freesync support, this will provide tearing-free gaming on both AMD and Nvidia graphics cards and smoother gameplay. Just make sure you enable it on the monitor and also on the PC. For those who are not gamers, the best way to explain it would probably be just a combination of fluidity and responsiveness in general – cursor moves, repositioning windows, scrolling through websites etc.
This panel does suffer from a little bit of ghosting, but it is reasonably managed. As far as visuals go, every game is very immersive, conveying the feeling like you are almost in the game. Certainly fits the bill for a casual gamer like me.
Saving the best to last – the price. This monitor is very often on offer for under S$600 which is very competitive. Where is the catch? In many cases companies get sub-optimal panels on the cheap and sell them off so I asked Prism+ about this and have been reassured that they are using only Grade A+ Samsung panels which gives me confidence.
Conclusion
As you can see, the Prism+ X340 Pro holds up rather well. It is not the best in gaming due to slightly slower response times and medium refresh rate, it is also not the best in colour accuracy out of the box. While you do sacrifice some things, you get an overall balanced unit for not that much money all things considered.
So the question is – should you buy it? If you have an unlimited budget and want the best for your set-up, there are more specialised monitors out there, but if you are a casual gamer or someone who needs a great monitor at a reasonable price, this is a solid choice.
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