This is a 28″ monitor that I have not seen reviewed anywhere except Amazon. So, I want to give it sort of a full review.
The Specs
28″ IPS Panel
4K (3840 x 2160) Resolution
60 Hz/4 ms GtG Response Rate
VESA HDR 400 Certified
300 Nits (Standard)/4000 Nits (HDR)
1x Display Port
1x HDMI Port
Contrast Ratio 1000:1
Dynamic Contrast Range 100000000:1
Adobe Color Gamut – 93.1%
DCI-P3 Wide Color Gamut – 94.91%
sRGB Color Gamut – 122.54%
10-bit panel with 1.07B Colors
The Good
The size. It is great for a desktop monitor. I know there are larger and some ultra-wide monitors, but for the average consumer, 28″ is very large. My iMac was 27″ but this feel much larger not just an inch.
The thin bezels. I am glad I didn’t get a white monitor because at night, when I do the most work on my Mac mini, the white bezels would have stood out. These thin black bezels get lost in the darkness of my office.
The colors. The colors really shine on this monitor. My iMac couldn’t compare to this display. Watching 4K content from You Tube or my movie library is a treat on this monitor.
The price. I got this off of Amazon for $275, prime shipping. Amazing price.
So/So
The OSD. It’s good but like most of them, it takes a lot of getting used to the joystick controller on the back of the monitor. If this was attached to a PC, you could download software that mimics the OSD and allows the use of a mouse. But, I am using on a Mac and that software is not available on macOS.
The Bad
The back lighting. From the backlight pattern, this seems to be an edge lit IPS panel. Dark scenes have a noticeable backlight in all 4 corners. It’s there. It’s not seen when there are any colors on the screen. I don’t know about dimming zones or anything like TV’s.
Contrast Ratio. I looked at a number of IPS panels, so the contrast ration of 1000:1 is quite standard for an IPS display. I looked at ones that were slightly more expensive and ones there were 3 times as expensive, and the contrast ratio was consistent among all of these monitors. IPS is known for having the worst contrast ratio among the panel types (TN, IPS, and VA).
You can see in this picture that there is some backlighting issues with this picture but you can see the colors… The picture doesn’t do the colors justice. So, it’s hard to see the bezels as they are barely noticeable at night.
Final Thoughts
This monitor really does have a lot going for it. The good does outweigh the bad in most situations. I don’t know if the backlight issue I have is just my model or is it all of them. Is it just MSi or do all brands have similar issues. I am sure that the more expensive monitors may have more and better backlighting. But, for the price, it IMHO cannot be beat. Unless contrast ratio and black levels are important to you. If that is the case, avoid any IPS monitor. Instead, look for a good VA monitor. TN monitors the worst of everything except contrast ratio. VA monitors are closer to IPS than TN, so that’s why go with one of those if black levels/contrast ratio is important to you.
