Hands on: ViewSonic VG3456C review
This review first appeared in Issue 357 PC Professional Edition.
A letter can make a big difference monitor Nowhere is the name more important than here. this ViewSonic VG3456 is a very affordable flat panel monitor that you can buy now for around £250, while the VG3456C is a curved monitor, identical to the AOC CU34P3CV and Philips 34B1U5600CH. They also share the same 3,440 x 1,440 resolution, giving you huge space to expand your windows and VA technology.
The ViewSonic is the sleekest of the three, with slim bezels and a vague speaker-like finish on the bottom edge of the display. We only want a pair of 5W speaker Can live up to the bill, but like many others here, they’re better suited for voice radio and internet calling than listening to music or enjoying movies.
We’re also blown away by this monitor’s tilt trick: You can push it back 40°, which can be a killer feature in some situations. While its height adjustment range is limited to 110mm, that should be enough for most setups, and we’d give its overall stand quality a solid mark: you feel like you’re buying a high-quality piece of kit.
The panel is more average. This is a 6-bit+ FRC affair rather than true 8-bit color, which is one of the reasons its color gamut is more limited than its curved 34-inch rivals. In native mode, it covers 74% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, compared to 88% and 85% for AOC and Philips. But if you’re happy with the sRGB color gamut, then you can cover 97% of the 104% volume. Accuracy is also high, with an average Delta E of 0.69.
Nominal peak brightness is 400cd/m22we were surprised to find that the display’s maximum brightness is 280cd/m2in our initial testing. But then we got into the (excellent) OSD and discovered that ViewSonic had enabled energy-saving mode from the factory; disabling this pushed the panel to 435cd/m2. This also improves the whiteness of whites, but at a cost in terms of power consumption: 48W at 200cd/m2 compared to 31W2.
ViewSonic does not load additional content for this display, so if you wish to get Camera or KVM switch, then you’ll be disappointed (there’s no USB-B input either). But it does cover the basics of docking Ethernet port and a USB-C video input that delivers 98W of power. All four USB-A ports are 3.2 Gen 1, or 5Gbits/second, and two of them are on the left side.
It’s a solid 34-inch curved monitor, even if we prefer the more punchy colors from the AOC and Philips. If the price drops, it will become a strong option.
