32 inch for DCI P3 and RGB work with good text clarity

Hi ruimarto,

Given your uses and the fact you’re mainly focused on publication on the web, I do feel it’s probably best to simply stick with a monitor that offers good sRGB output. The PD3200U will offer this for you and actually with sRGB emulation the wide gamut options should give you decent results as well. This is assuming you don’t have a colorimeter or other calibration device – if you do this is much less of a concern, you’ll just want at least 100% sRGB coverage and you’ll be good to go. Quite a few of the wide gamut models including the EW3280U offer sRGB emulation as well, but it is still restrictive in most cases as it can provide sRGB under coverage and lock out colour channel and gamma adjustments. The PD3200U is solidly built and offers an intuitive and feature-rich OSD. I wouldn’t be put off by the age of the monitor – it’s still a good one and a model I continue to get good solid feedback on. 🙂

The ASUS PA329CV could be a nice alternative if you prefer the modern styling or could make use of the USB-C functionality. I’ve only been given limited feedback on that model though I did request a sample from ASUS here in the UK and was told they don’t currently offer samples for any of the 32″ ProArt models. I would reiterate that you shouldn’t be lured in by the cheaper cost of the 32UN88A – it is just a re-designation of the 32UN880 and uses the same BOE panel. Based on my usage of other BOE panels and feedback people have shared with me, the screen surface is not as light and is grainer, whilst colour consistency isn’t quite as good. There’s some saturation loss (not extreme) towards the edges for some shades that you wouldn’t get from the others.

You can see from the bezel design the PA329CV doesn’t use the same panel as the PD3200U. One is dual-stage with a slim panel border, the other is not and this is due to panel differences not just external housing. It most likely uses an AUO panel and that could even be from the M320QAN01 series, but it won’t be the exact same panel as the PD3200U. I think it’s more likely it uses the M320QAN02.0 🙂

I’ve shared some thoughts on the ViewSonic VP3268-4K in this thread. But I don’t really have any more recent feedback to share and it isn’t a model I can strongly recommend myself. People are generally satisfied with it and the factory calibration seems solid. As you own a colorimeter you shouldn’t really concern yourself too much with certain monitor presets locking brightness. It’s only a standard gamut monitor, though, as it’s much closer to sRGB than any other reference space. So I’m not sure what your reference is to modes which “achieve wide gamut” on that one. The LUT should be addressable (i.e. hardware calibration supported) using their ‘Colorbration’ software and that includes with the Spyder X. I haven’t used the software myself and frankly for your uses and based on the results achieved with regular software calibration on the other models I don’t see this as a big selling point either way.

Hi kaneda,

I’ve merged your thread with this one as it’s a suitable place and includes some recommendations. I don’t specifically recommend either model you’ve listed there for photography or similar purposes, though the LG 32UN650 is certainly still decent for such uses and it is one I recommend for productivity due to its size, resolution and price primarily. I’d certainly recommend it over the EW3270U for colour critical work (highly advise reading the ‘colour consistency’ section of that article). For displaying your work on the internet you’ll want to stick to the sRGB colour space, but for outputting content on the TV you could ‘enjoy’ a wider colour gamut. For the sake of accuracy you’d need to calibrate the TV as well as the monitor, but in theory you would get a visually pleasing representation on the TV if it offers decent DCI-P3 coverage and the gamma is in-line with the monitor even without full calibration. Luckily this thread covers options that offer both good sRGB and DCI-P3 performance.

Now with all of that said, I’d keep your eye on some of the models listed over the Black Friday weekend we recommend such as the BenQ EW3280U to see if they slip into your budget. The 32UN650 isn’t a bad fallback option if needs be, but the BOE panel it uses isn’t as good as the panel used in the EW3280U or some of the other options for reasons explained in my previous post (colour consistency and screen surface primarily). It doesn’t seem to offer an sRGB emulation mode, either, so that colorimeter will be a nice investment as well! The LG would remain a better choice than the EW3270U, that’s for sure. You can’t calibrate your way out of weak colour consistency.

Yes, both LG models use the same BOE panel. As covered in the sRGB emulation article, if you calibrate the monitor using a colorimeter and therefore use ICC profiles, the gamut is mapped correctly in ‘colour-aware’ applications (e.g. photo editing applications, most modern web browsers etc.) For non ‘colour-aware’ applications such as the general Windows desktop environment, games and various other applications that aren’t exclusively colour-managed this does not occur and you will see oversaturation unless sRGB emulation is used.

I haven’t given any feedback on the MSI PS321URV so far simply as I don’t have any to give; that’s still the case (or not – see edit below). As a general point I’m a bit annoyed with MSI as I was in communication with them (they actually reached out to me) to arrange some samples but then they fell silent when they learnt I was from the UK. This is part of the reason I had a bit of a gap in reviewing recently that wasn’t filled. I don’t much like their general attitude on the PR side, at least. This won’t affect what I recommend when they have good solid products and I do recommend some of their gaming models from time to time. But a lot of the time they seem to miss the mark on basic areas such as gamma whilst providing little to no flexibility there, which is a pet hate of mine. Not saying it applies in this particular case, but they can be pretty adventurous with their colour gamut claims which confuses people and they can also do the same with bit-depth claims – most manufacturers strictly stick to the panel there rather than including any additional processing (including dithering) added by the scaler or GPU. They’ve got some genuinely interesting products at good prices, but given lack of feedback on the PS321URV I can’t really advise on it.

Edit – some useful information on the MSI PS321URV:

With the help of a friend on Twitter, I came across this review (Chinese) which confirms it uses the AUO M320QAN02.1 – same as PA329C. Pretty solid panel actually and quite similar to the EW3280U’s panel in some respects. They recorded 93% DCI-P3 with their Spyder, so a bit below gamut spec. alongside 84% Adobe RGB. This compares to the 96% DCI-P3 and 86% Adobe RGB I recorded with my Spyder on the BenQ EW3280U. Gamma tracking is very good and there are various gamma settings, so quite different to their gaming models in that respect. Their sample had a significant issue with colour temperature uniformity towards the left side of the screen – that can vary between units.

The sRGB emulation setting for what it’s worth only covered 95% sRGB on their sample. OK but not great. There’s also an Adobe RGB mode which cuts down overextension in the red to blue region of the gamut – but remember there’s only 84% coverage to play with. And a DCI-P3 mode which is pretty similar to the native gamut and overall ‘state’ of the monitor. It appears the monitor retains brightness control with these emulation settings but I’m not entirely sure what is locked and unlocked. Again, as you own a colorimeter I wouldn’t stress too much about any of this, you’d just use the native gamut and profile the monitor with that after making manual adjustments to colour channels, brightness etc. It seems like a decent monitor all things considered, though it would be good to see more data on it. It’s still not one I’d personally recommend as strongly as the EW3280U. Or PD3200U if you’re happy to stick with solid sRGB.

I’m also looking for similar monitors, but two of them to be precise.
Out of all 32″ displays, the ProArt PA329C from Asus seems the best on paper. But I’ve read tons of comments where people complain about dead and stuck pixels. So I’m kinda not 100% onboard with it.
The other option is to get two 27″ U2720Q from Dell.

Does anyone here have any experience with PA329C for UI design?

Hi everyone,
I have the PA329C since yesterday. Reading this topic helped me a lot making an decision. Thanks for that.
Already put a Spyder4 on the screen which shows it has full Adobe RGB coverage:

Already received the BenQ PD3200U, so far feels like a solid choice (although with Spyder software I got 4 deviation in the blues, even with 0,8 average, but switching to DisplayCal solved it with maximum deviation at 0.9 and and impressive Avg 0.17).

I’ve thought about sending it back since the PA329CV became available for similar price, which on paper would have the advantage of USB Type-C charging for my day job laptop and clamp to save space on my desk, more widely available brand support, better resale value around here, etc. For 100 more, it looked like a good deal.
However, after using the BenQ I’ve found serious disadvantages by comparison:

– The Asus has USB Hub but not KVM and only works through the Type-C port. This means that the PC connected to the Type-C port gets everything (picture, charging, USB hub, etc), all other PCs get picture only. This makes the Asus more suitable for people that have Type-C laptops as main computer, others are at disadvantage (in the sense that they will have to connect everything the traditional way: a cable for each thing and no switching the USB ports).
– All USB ports, both the ones facing down and the ones facing the side, are actually on the smaller panel behind the screen. On the BenQ they’re on the lower side edge of the actual screen, making them a lot more accessible (on a 32″ screen it makes a difference for me, on the BenQ I can reach them while sitting down).

Sidenote, BenQ announces the KVM but then only includes ONE USB B cable in the box. -.- One DP cable, one HDMI cable, so you can actually immediately connect two computers, but then they fail to include a second USB cable that costs 5€.

In the emulation modes the PA329C will only cover the colours within the selected gamut mode.
Also some settings are locked in the emulation modes. Depends on the mode:
In sRGB mode all colour setting are locked.
In aRGB only ‘Color Temp.’ and ‘Gamma’ are locked.
In DCI-P3 mode ‘Gamma’ is locked and in for the colour temperature you can choose between 6500K and something called P3-Theater (for people who like a green colour cast).

Black level is, as expected from a edge lit IPS display, not really good. didn’t measure it, but it looks the same as my Dell U2412M (set at the same brightness).
In all other aspects it is a big improvement over my old monitor.

One minor setback. My graphics card only has, next to a DVI and HDMI 1.4 port, two mini-DP ports. Mini-DP cable was of course not included in the box.
So until those cables are delivered I have to work with 30p.

I’m new to this either.
I assume it is possible. Can’t think of a reason why it shouldn’t. The Spyder 4 is not supported by the Asus calibration software, so I can’t try it.
Even if I could, my calibrater is probably too old (about 8 years) to get an accurate result. Colorimeters deteriorate over time.
The question is: Why do you want to make a software calibration on top of a bad hardware calibration?
If the result of the hardware calibration is not good, you should not use it. If you still want to make a software calibration I would go back to one of the factory presets in the OSD menu and start the calibration proces from there. Then at least you’ve got a better starting point.
Correct me if i’m wrong, but If I did understand the tutorials well, an hardware calibration is saved in of the two user modes in the OSD menu.