[Degrader]

Nice to have another X32 FP user here! As you do like the local dimming does that means that you don’t experience any flickering with the Fast and to some less extend with Average setting?

[4KGalaxy]

This is my first mini-LED monitor, although I have compared it with my local dimming TV and edge-lit HDR monitors which have been tested by Rtings and are known to follow the brightness curve accurately. It is much darker. I don’t doubt that when edge lit monitors show highlights it drags up the rest of the screen including all dark areas though. And I know a lot of screens inaccurately brighten HDR overall to make it pop more, so I’ve tried to keep comparisons to screens that are known to follow EOTF accurately.

The under-illumination on the X32FP is very noticeable in HDR games. The UI elements are very dark compared to both my local dimming TV and other HDR monitors I’ve tried. Dark enough where some aspects are hard to see. The Windows desktop is very dark when you first turn on HDR, significantly more than any other HDR monitor I’ve tried. You have to set the adjustment slider (which lets you set the base brightness for SDR in HDR) to max to get Windows to look even remotely normal. I normally have to adjust this a little bit to meet my preference but it is much worse on the X32FP.

I’ll keep testing it out. I should be able to test it with someone’s MacBook Pro with mini-led display this weekend, which are known to be very accurate. Obviously those laptops have higher peak brightness, but if I can find a HDR game or app that works on Mac I should be able to compare scene to scene.

I can’t dismiss the idea that I might just not be used to an accurate monitor, but some elements appear far too dark that I can’t imagine it is hitting the intended brightness accurately. I’ve seen some people testing the X32FP on other forums and finding it doesn’t follow the intended PQ curve for brightness, requiring calibration to bring it close to an accurate EOTF.

[4KGalaxy]

I do absolutely notice flicker on the fastest backlight setting, but it isn’t as noticeable when watching HDR content or playing games as it is in applications.

When I set it lower I don’t notice it much if at all.

The other odd thing is I notice an immediate, panel wide color temperature shift when local dimming is turned on.

[PCM2]

Thanks for sharing your thoughts and findings, great addition to this thread! 🙂

EOTF tracking can be considered overly simplistic and potentially misleading, particularly on Mini LED monitors with a local dimming algorithm in play. The actual EOTF behaviour would depend on the patch size you’re measuring and what exactly is being shown in the background. Either way, that certainly sounds like heavy dark biasing is being observed. HUD elements in a game as you described are a good example of this. The alternative would be for the zones containing such elements to brighten up significantly, which means any dark or even certain medium shades contained on the zone are much brighter than for zones with only those same medium-darker shades without the brighter shades mixed in. You’re therefore met with a clear ‘halo’ or blooming effect. If the local dimming algorithm chooses to heavily dark bias (as it seems to with the X32 FP) that’s minimised, but brighter shades are dragged down so they’re dimmer than ideal instead. Unless the bright shades cover a sufficiently large section of the screen, in which case they’ll be brightened up nicely.

Some may prefer more bright biasing and I again feel Acer should give the flexibility for users to adjust the local dimming a bit if they do, but having engaged with users that use a variety of monitors with different approaches to local dimming it tends to be that the ‘contrast-first’ experience with dark biasing is preferred. The Samsung Odyssey Neo G7 is a good example of a monitor which dark biases heavily and some people feel it does that too much but most appreciate the relative lack of ‘haloing’. It dark biases less than the Acer, it seems. On the other side you’ve got something like the ASUS PG32UQX which likes to bright bias a lot and will go for strong brightness even for relatively small bright elements surrounded by darkness (including HUD elements) – ‘haloing’ is far more common as a result. With a 32″ panel and 572 dimming zones, I feel it’s a good thing that the X32 FP heavily dark biases and it’s a good compromise to make – but would’ve again preferred to see some ability to ease that up a bit for those who want to.

Degrader also noticed the colour temperature shift (cooler look) with local dimming enabled and we discussed it here. It could be intentional to help maximise brightness capability.

[4KGalaxy]

Thanks for the explanation. I will keep trying it and see if I get used to the darker look. I just fear they may have gone a bit too far as some darker UI elements look really off, to the point where it is losing detail. But I’ll try out some additional games and HDR content and report back.

The color temperature shift with local dimming isn’t ideal, but it isn’t awful.

I haven’t even gotten to the settings issue where the monitor forgets settings. I’ll have to see how annoying that is as I really do need to switch back and forth for multiple use cases (different computers, SDR and HDR, etc).

[Degrader]

With the local dimming set to Fast the overall brightness is a little higher compared to Average and Low, though. I’m still in contact with Acer regarding the flickering and they hope to know more next week. So when it is solved Fast will be the setting to go for.

[Degrader]

A few weeks ago I’ve measured the peak brightness with the following which PCM is also using for their reviews.

Adaptive dimming Low
1% 580
4% 890
9% 1070
25% 1200
49% 1206
100% 1150 – not very accurate as peak brightness immediately decreases with a white full screen

Adaptive dimming Average
1% 645
4% 870
9% 1058
25% 1204
49% 1200
100% 1150 – not very accurate as peak brightness immediately decreases with a white full screen

Adaptive dimming Fast
1% 645
4% 920
9% 1085
25% 1206
49% 1208
100% 1150 – not very accurate as peak brightness immediately decreases with a white full screen

[PCM2]

Thanks for sharing that data, Degrader! This certainly reinforces the idea of the Acer heavily dark biasing. It’s strongest with the ‘Low’ setting but significant for all settings, which is why close to peak brightness isn’t recorded until ~25% white patch (and >1000 cd/m² only by a 9% white patch – which put another way is ~750K pixels of the screen). Nice to see you recorded a peak of ~1200 cd/m² as well, which is exactly what Acer specifies.

[EsaT]

Darn “life” disturbs hobbies… and northern lights lunar observing.
Good thing that I happened to have taken day off for today. Would have been “long” 2½h sleep.

Haven’t noticed any dead/stuck pixels yet in any test and uniformity seems pretty good.
And 2560×1600 wasn’t any slouch, but text sharpness is major amount improved.

Can confirrm lack of/low IPS glow, which is definitely very nice…
It’s actually toward the opposite with dimming down of white in corners just where you would have glow rising black.
And local dimming helps very nicely with contrast limit of IPS.
That and higher brightness makes SDR content look much more alive.

But menu/profile system would need major improvement.
Now many settings of profiles seem to be locked, and at least some settings seem to suddenly overrides user profile with that adjustment.
Also local dimming setting doesn’t seem to be among the ones saved on profile, or at least remembered for User and Standard profiles.

[PCM2]

Well, sounds like you’re enjoying the ‘core’ parts of the experience on the X32 FP so far which is good. It’s a shame about the lack of polish when it comes to seemingly basic things like the OSD (honestly, I’ve noticed various OSD ‘quirks’ with so many monitors I’ve reviewed recently – it’s very frustrating and odd!)

I’m not sure if this will help, but the way OSDs usually work on Acer models is that if you make changes to any preset it then throws you into the ‘User’ preset. You can specifically ‘Save Settings to’ (an option should appear in the OSD) either ‘Action (G1),’ ,’Racing (G2)’ or ‘Sports (G3)’. They should really call them ‘Custom 1’, ‘Custom 2’ and ‘Custom 3’ to be clearer. Some settings are set universally and can’t be saved to specific presets – even these more flexible ‘G’ presets. And that usually includes ‘Adaptive Dimming’, unfortunately.

[EsaT]

Probably too many high salary bean counters and marketing scums in “adminisphere” eating budget from actual product development and testing. (just like Boeing)
It doesn’t only throw to User preset, but also overrides existing settings of it like brightness etc.

And any above Low adaptive/local dimming is certainly very noticeable in desktop use.
So along with brightness that should be changeable by simple profile change for fast changing between desktop use and gaming/media.

[4KGalaxy]

The OSD usability is what I’ll be trying out next (along with continued HDR testing). I am still on the fence with the X32FP, it has so much potential but has a lot of quirks. I need to switch between different modes a lot so this might be a deal breaker. Honestly if it is too complicated I may go the route of a cheaper 32-inch display for desktop use now and a small OLED for HDR gaming in the future and split up the two use cases. I can’t quite do an OLED for desktop use because burn in really bothers me once I notice it.

[PCM2]

Hopefully you can get used to frequent OSD adjustment – as a reviewer I’m always adjusting things in the OSD, but I can definitely appreciate that this isn’t something you should ‘have to do’ as a normal user. Acer’s ‘Display Widget’ software is very limited but some people find it a little more convenient for some things such as assigning different profiles to different applications or changing some basic settings without having to reach out and use the OSD joystick.

Regarding ‘burn in’ on OLEDs, I’ve been using a QD-OLED (AW3423DW) for nearly a year now – including thousands of hours of desktop usage. I don’t take any particular precautions, outside of making sure Windows turns the monitor off after 20 minutes of inactivity and it completes its prescribed pixel and panel refresh cycles. I’m purposefully trying to use it as I would an LCD as much as possible and haven’t experienced even mild image retention – I will update the review if I do spot some and maybe just give annual updates either way. According to Samsung QD-OLED is possibly more resistant to image retention and burn-in than alternative OLED technologies (but there is evidence that’s not the case) and either way OLED options are available in formats which simply won’t suit everyone and is not directly comparable to a 32″ UHD model like the X32 FP. Plus they have their own quirks. My partner used an Alienware laptop with OLED screen for ~3 years and didn’t have any issues either – a lot of time on the desktop without any particular precautions. Although it did have a Tobii eye-tracker which dimmed the screen when you weren’t looking at it. Ultimately it was the rubbish expanding battery that killed that system off rather than the screen. 😉

[Degrader]

I was adjusting the RGB settings in HDR mode to get rid of coolish color temperature, especially in dark areas. When set to User and for my sample turning Blue from 50 to 44 helped a lot. It brought the RGB in balance so with a low Delta E <1 and a color temperature of around the 6500K for bright parts and around 6800K for darker parts. And the peak brightness only decreased a small 12 nits due to the lower value of blue.

[PCM2]

That’s good – that’s not a major adjustment to have to make and they leave the colour channels unlocked for exactly this reason (after the firmware update, at least). It does make you wonder why, in this case, they decided to go for the cooler colour temperature by default for HDR with local dimming active. As well as actually physically increasing brightness (marginally in this case), a cooler colour temperature can increase perceived brightness so perhaps that’s part of it. Maybe the same people who decided the OSD was intuitive and user-friendly made that decision. 😉

[4KGalaxy]

One screen that can do it all would be nice, so I’ll give the X32FP some more time. Ultimately I really like the 32-inch 4K format for photography and general desktop usage. So if the X32FP doesn’t work out I’ll probably still get a lower cost monitor at the same size and resolution. For gaming I wouldn’t mind a dedicated 42 or 48 inch OLED. There are pros and cons. I could get something larger for more immersive gaming and I love the look of OLEDs for HDR. But it is another screen to have in the room which brings some logistical issues.

I know someone with an OLED laptop who had minor burn in after a few years, but very minor. I could see the windows start button on a 50% grey screen and some minor task bar items, but you REALLY had to look for it.

[Degrader]

I’ve send another message to Acer asking them when they expecting to deliver a firmware update for the flickering issue with local dimming. If they don’t expect to deliver it this week then I’m thinking of returning it and go for the Viewsonic XG321UG instead (which should have a similar HDR experience as the PG32UQX).

[PCM2]

Hmm… That’s significantly more expensive than the Acer and offers significantly worse pixel responsiveness. I thought you felt the flickering was perfectly tolerable or difficult enough to notice using the ‘Average’ local dimming setting? Even if the ‘Fast’ setting were usable it wouldn’t dramatically change the experience in most scenes, so I don’t feel you’re missing out on much there.

[Degrader]

Even on ‘Average’ the flickering is still clearly visible for me unfortunately. ‘Fast’ is even worse.

Worse pixel responsiveness? I thought it would be similar to the Acer, maybe even a bit better. Do you feel it is worse? You have reviewed the Asus PG32UQX, was the OD that bad?

[PCM2]

It sounds like you’re pretty sensitive to that flickering then and to be honest you’ll probably come across annoying quirks with the ViewSonic‘s local dimming as well. Including apparent ‘flickering’ (or ‘halos’ on medium backgrounds which can appear as such) depending on the local dimming setting used. This occurred on the ASUS if using the strongest local dimming setting and to some extent its middle setting, in some scenarios. The ViewSonic’s algorithm might be slightly different, the ASUS had made some odd gamma changes sometimes which I don’t think the ViewSonic makes. Hopefully Acer can fix this up quickly with firmware for their model, but I’m not sure the ViewSonic would hit the spot for you if you find this kind of issue problematic.

You can see (and literally see – with the pursuit photos) what I thought of the PG32UQX’s pixel responsiveness in the review. I feel I made it quite clear in the review that I wasn’t particularly impressed with that aspect, there are distinct weaknesses that you wouldn’t expect from a modern IPS panel, but it’s not as bad as most VA models. I wouldn’t expect to see these to the same extent on the Acer. And yes, the ViewSonic is very similar to the ASUS. The beauty of pursuit photos is you can look at those taken by somebody else (such as the ones in the PG32UQX review) and compare to what you see, in person, on your monitor (the Acer). But as noted in the review, it was where very bright shades were involved (not shown with Test UFO) that the most significant weaknesses were present.

[Author]

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