[matthias]

@ PCM2 Thanks for tweaking the notifications! 🙂 Regarding the image retention, I feel like I need to add some background: I am a software engineer and security researcher, so I spent most time in source code and documentation… not doing anything nasty to the panel. But with my current monitor, having the browser open for two minutes with a page is enough to cause bad and very noticeable retention (not just some faint ghostly shadow somewhere that you can only see with certain types of grey background)… and it generally takes several minutes to fade away. It hasn’t been anything like that at all when the device was new, so I hope you can understand that I don’t want to take any risks with a new monitor if it already (again) shows the same problem (albeit less severe) which could get extreme over time like with my current monitor… especially with a device that costs as much as the X32FP.

Nevertheless, I have gone ahead and ordered it yesterday. I just hope I am lucky with the panel lottery, but sblantipodi has me very worried in that regard. Since I have been fighting a rare/unknown autoimmune disease for 8+ years now which left me disabled and my life a living nightmare, I don’t know if I have the strength, health and patience to go through several orders to get a good panel… sigh. I will probably give up, sent it back and call it a day then.

@ sblantipodi Out of all 7 orders, you only received one that was okay? o.O May I ask where you ordered them from? That is either really bad luck or speaks volumes with regard to what I can expect. Those things just don’t happen when you buy an Eizo but unfortunately their current line-up really misses some required features and they no longer make such good general purpose monitors (rather high input lag, no mini led or anything alike, no hdr, very limited supported frequencies, …). And the few times in recent years where I had to deal with their customer service, they were rather unfriendly and snobbish, to be quite frank. Real pity.

By the way, if you want to test for image retention, you can use the link I posted earlier that will reveal any problems pretty clearly.

[PCM2]

I have my fingers firmly crossed for you that you get a good X32 FP and that it works for you without annoying issues including image retention. I eagerly await your feedback when you’ve had a chance to test it. 🙂

[sblantipodi]

@ matthias I’m an Enterprise IT Architect and in my spare time I love to code various kind of software and firmware.
One of my open source software is very related to this forum since it’s a DIY Ambilight (PC software + Arduino firmware + open source PCB), it’s a good one, it has some very cool features that makes it better than other (more famous) alternatives.

One day I will present it to the community if there are some DIY/Arduino enthusiasts here and if PCM2 agrees with it. 🙂

I think that these monitors with a good ambilight (120 LEDs on my X32FP) completely changes the experience.
My eyes are pleased during the day and specially at night, and when you look at a film or play a videogames you have the WOW effect.

I can’t use this monitors now without my ambilight system.

Said that, I bought 7 monitors until I get the perfect unit (I hope that it will last), perfect unit for me is no bad pixels, no backlight bleed (not very visible at least).
Six monitors had bad pixels, this is a problem of mine, bad pixels are very difficult to be seen on this panels since they are very very small, but I can’t leave with bad pixels xD
3 monitors or so had orrendous backlight bleed but this depends on how much sensible you are with this problem.

I experienced a burnin problem with one panel but I haven’t tested them for long time before the return, three hours at most.

My current X32FP does not have burnin problems.
I often leave IntelliJ Idea IDE opened on the screen when I’m doing other things far away from my PC and there is no burin.

I have done your test for 10 minutes and no burn-in at all.

[PCM2]

Yes, you’d be very welcome to post a thread showing off your DIY Ambilight project when you’re ready. Sounds very cool. 🙂

[matthias]

@ PCM2 Thanks. Naturally I will report back– hopefully with positive news. Right now the delivery is scheduled for Tuesday while the monitor makes a 2 day sightseeing tour through Poland (from where it was sent) and I hope it will soon at least arrive here in Germany. Oh, by the way: Notifications work great now. Thanks again!

@ sblantipodi Your project sounds very interesting. Looking forward to reading about it once you feel ready! Generally, bias lighting is something that greatly benefits IPS panels and reduces some of their visual downsides. I also have some bias lighting behind my monitor but not nearly as nice and cool as yours. 🙂

I really hope your experience wasn’t with the official Acer store and you just had very bad luck and received a few devices others already returned for exactly the same reasons. Otherwise I am probably doomed and feel absolutely hopeless that I will be able to get a good panel on Tuesday with the chances you reported because I can’t go through all the trouble you went through… I just don’t have the health for that anymore. Although judging from what I have read, imperfect panels (specks of dust enclosed, dead pixels, etc.) are more common with AUO panels. Sigh.

[Degrader]

The X32 FP I had ordered from the Acer store (also delivered from Poland) was a good sample, no dead pixel, no excessive backlight bleed and great uniformity (besides the sides then, they are clearly cooler than the middle, but this is the case with all the X32 FP panels).

[sblantipodi]

@ matthias keep in mind that what I consider bad can be considered good for others.
two bad pixels does not hurt anyone and we all lived with a bit of backlight bleed. 😀

[EsaT]

Haven’t had any panel quality or image retention issues with mine.

[matthias]

@ sblantipodi Interesting that your direct order from Acer turned to be good sample. I will take that as good sign and keep my fingers crossed. 😉 And unfortunately I believe we are both very much alike when it comes to the tolerance level for defects / sub-par lighting of a panel. I am probably equally nitpicky as you… always been. But if you spent as much time in front of a screen as I (we?) do, it is better be good…

Mine arrived at my regional depot early this morning which should push up the delivery date from Tuesday to Monday, if DHL Express does not cause any trouble. Not a huge fan of that particular delivery service since we had a few negative incidents with them… so I would actually not have ordered from Acer’s store if I had known that they also send non-express orders by DHL Express instead of normal DHL or something even more trustworthy.

I will report back once it is on my desk and I had a chance to test it. Hopefully with mostly good things to say.

[matthias]

Quick question: Is eARC and 24/30/50 Hz 4k resolution supported? Has this maybe changed with newer firmware versions? For the former (or the general HDMI supported features) I found mostly nothing. And for the latter, conflicting reports.

Is eARC even a thing for PC monitors or is this generally never supported? For my setup, it would be useful to work around my AVR’s limited HDMI 2.0b ports (that though do support eARC). Such a stupid decision to make almost all HDMI features optional. Sigh.

[PCM2]

I hadn’t heard of eARC before you mentioned it, so I’m going to go with it’s not a thing for PC monitors and the X32 FP doesn’t support that. I’ve not come across ‘eARC’ when looking at the HDMI 2.x supported features in the EDID (via CRU) on monitors, either. Wow, just realised how many abbreviations were in this short post. 😀

[matthias]

Sorry for not posting earlier but with my health issues, every day is… let’s say… an adventure (and not a fun one). 🙁

I received the device on Monday but (for obvious reasons) could only start testing it yesterday. I did clearly not win the panel lottery (for which I was prepared and determined not to act like a Borg queen and expect perfection).

The panel has backlight bleeding, two noticeable hot spots left and right side (mirrored from each other) in the top half. Also there is clouding. And, at least for my panel, it most definitely is not a low glow panel, quite the opposite. All those things are near perfect with my current (old) LG monitor. But I was still considering keeping it, since the 32″ were amazing to have and for brighter content, the panel look stunning.

Unfortunately, during my testing, subpixels started to get stuck… one after another within an hour. I stopped testing once it reached three stuck subpixels. All of them around the center area of the screen. One of them flickers between red and blue… which is the strangest thing, considering those are different subpixels. Nevertheless, that is a no-go. If those would have been somewhere at the border of the screen or dead pixels, maybe even then I would have considered keeping it… but not at the center area.

Also, I can confirm, turning the screen off, really turns it off… it vanishes from the OS. That’s really annoying for various reasons. And no way to configure that.

Oh, and the Acer store makes returning things more difficult than necessary: The web page states you have to call their hotline, yet they cannot do anything for you there and you need to use their contact form to ask for a return. A reply took about a day. They offered me a 200 Euro discount and a free repair of the device. If I were to take that offer, I would also lose the right to return the device. Remember I already got a nice 10% off discount, so with the additional 200 Euros, that would be a really sweet deal. But I am not gonna take it, since after the “repair” (panel swap), there is no way to know for sure, if I would be better off or even worse… and if I got a worse panel, I would be stuck with it indefinitely.

One more thing, with FALD off, a black screen looks better on my old monitor. On the X32FP, there is a distinct blue tint to it, that is, imho, a bit distracting. Also the viewing angles are, like I already read, somewhat worse than my old IPS panel. Naturally I know that with 32″ you are more bound to look at steeper angles at certain areas than with 27″… but I was still seeing that the viewing angles weren’t as good.

Suffice to say, I am sad and disappointed that not for once things could go smoothly for me. I will not be ordering another one since the chances of getting a better panel are clearly set against me and I cannot have that stress with my health. So I am stuck with my old monitor… since there seems to be no alternative right now on the market. Or maybe I should start considering OLED but with my usage, I fear I have a realistic burn-in risk.

Thanks for helping me out with my questions! It was really appreciated…!

[PCM2]

Thanks for sharing your experiences with the X32 FP, matthias. I’m sorry that it didn’t work out for you and your unit was sub-par. I’m also sorry to hear of your health issues – which as you say, much come first.

[sblantipodi]

bad pixels on this monitors is a real problem… as I said, I received six monitors with bad pixels and this is a real shame for such an expensive product.

I hope you all the best matthias.

[spiroh]

I purchased two of these to use in tandem and decided to keep 1 and return the other. I got lucky with the panel lottery and this monitor is great for gaming as long as you can live with the quirks. I just got too good of a deal for the dell 4k monitor to use as secondary. I will most likely jump ship if a real oled competitor comes out at this size.

[PCM2]

Glad you’re enjoying the X32 FP experience with your good unit, spiroh. 🙂

[PCM2]

Finally received our Acer X32 FP for review – https://twitter.com/pcmonitors/status/1651585057537118208.

It also hasn’t escaped my notice, sblantipodi, that Acer told you that a new firmware revision should be released in 3 weeks. It was exactly 3 weeks since you posted that, though no new firmware yet.

[spiroh]

That was another concern of mine with this monitor. Acer isn’t really know for quick updates on issues.

[sblantipodi]

Hi, I don’t want to bother Acer too soon but I will ping them to have some news on the new firmware next week.

Can’t wait to see your review.

[Abstrakcja]

I bought the X32 FP. First one had dead pixels in the center of the screen so it went back. Second one has been flawless.

The HDR in windows out of the box is dim. With my Spider X colorimeter, I measured about 350-375nits in HDR mode on a white screen. SDR mode easily hits 517nits or so. What I did do was take a suggestion from a user on another forum and start playing with the Nvidia Control Panel brightness and contrast settings in HDR. For whatever reason, increasing the brightness in the control panel IN HDR MODE boosts the baseline nits level of the monitor and unexpectedly DOES NOT blow out the colors. You can get a really good 600-1000nits imagine on the windows desktop by tweaking these values. 65% brightness and 65% contrast yields about a 700 nit image that pops with a 2000 or so contrast rating and about 6500k-6700K white point according to my Spyder X. This monitor gets BRIGHT with the nvidia control panel tweaks. I just wish I knew what the nvidia control panel tweaks exactly do as I’ve looked through the entirety of the internet and no one seems to know what it exactly does in HDR mode.

This also carries over in games. The problem is the nits level is so high that the white point calibration in game will be off. For example, in Dead Rising 2 with HDR and everything on default, I can get the white point to about 1200 before the static image disappears which matches the HDR 1200 spec of the monitor. With brightness and contrast boosted, I can only get it to about 780 before the image is completely white and unreadable. I have no idea if I should calibrate to the lower white point in game with brightness boosted, or default calibrate to 1200, then brightness boost and leave the white point calibration alone.

Can anyone chime in on what exactly the nvidia control panel brightness and contrast settings do in HDR mode? Tweaking these settings made the monitor go from “meh” to absolutely amazing for me.

[Author]

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