AOPEN 32HC1QUR

amazon AOPEN 32HC1QUR reviews

Plenty of gaming monitors boast fast refresh rates and response times; a few come with an affordable price tag. At $300, our AOPEN 32HC1QUR review unit is a slightly curved gaming monitor with AMD FreeSync support, a fast 144Hz refresh rate, and a simple design that makes it look natural in a gaming room or desk. With a range of compelling specs and features, AOPEN holds its ground against more expensive competitors, such as Asus’ 7-inch 35-inch FreeSync-capable ultra-wide curved monitor, gaming console Alienware’s 700-inch ultra-curved game console, and even its counterpart Predator Gaming X34’s 7W Curved UWQHD Panel.

The Power of Invisibility

With its gaming pedigree, the AOPEN 32HC1 is one of the most underrated gaming monitors we’ve come across. Like a stealth bomber, this display doesn’t have the vibrant flourishes found on many competitors.

While the last generation Alienware 34 curved monitor – based on Dell’s Epic design language – felt plain with a muted black finish, AOPEN takes it further and removes the LED backlight panel. The harsh contours and angles characterize the aggressive game design, and flashy color accents favor a monochrome, all-black finish with a smoothly curved rear.

This underrated aesthetic found on AOPEN is more typical for business monitors, like Dell’s UltraSharp and Samsung’s CHG90, and panels that cater to creatives, like the LG Ultrafine 4K and 5K display.

However, do not mistake simplicity for basic. The thin 0.38-inch black bezels still give this monitor a very modern look. Although minimal, the black bezels serve to frame the content on your screen, allowing you to focus on your spreadsheet, Office document, or game in hand – without being distracted by the LED backlighting or flashy red accents.

Buying into AOPEN’s technological packaging design requires a bit of assembly. Out of the box, the display, plastic stand, and metal base come in separate pieces, possibly part of an effort to keep the packaging compact. You will need a screwdriver to turn the large screw pre-mounted on the bottom of the base to attach the stand.

The high-gloss back helps make up for the monochrome design, but the finish is a magnet for dust and fingerprints.

We wanted AOPEN to use thumbs to make this assembly as tool-free as possible, but it was a simple enough task. Once the stand is assembled, the monitor snaps onto the stand, or you can also use your own VESA mount.

While the largely plastic construction feels sturdy enough – the metal base helps keep the whole setup firmly seated on our desk – we would love to see more metal used in the construction erect the stand to give the display some force. ALTHOUGH THE LATTER HAS A SLIGHTLY LARGER DISPLAY, the AOPEN weighs just 13.45 pounds or half the weight of Alienware’s 34-inch curved panel.

The high-gloss back helps make up for the monochrome design, but the finish is a magnet for dust and fingerprints. Since the stand doesn’t offer an option to rotate the display, you’ll need to physically move the monitor if you want to adjust the monitor. Luckily, the panel is light enough that moving the screen shouldn’t be a challenge, but you’ll want to keep a microfiber cloth handy to wipe the back if you plan on rearranging your desk.

A role-playing window into your game

The highlight of the AOPEN 32HC1 is the 31.5-inch QHD panel, which supports a resolution of 2,560 x 1,440 pixels. While it comes with a standard 16:9 aspect ratio and isn’t super wide, like many competing curved consoles, the AOPEN is still immersive thanks to its 1800R curvature. The curvature feels more subtle than on the Alienware 34, which has a 1900 radius of curvature.

AOPEN is based on in-line LED (VA) display technology instead of the IPS panels found on most consumer monitors, providing contrast and deeper blacks, features gamers will appreciate. Like IPS, the VA panel on the AOPEN supports wide viewing angles of 178 degrees, although, given the screen’s curvature, most gamers will probably want to be centered on the screen.

With FreeSync technology and a 4ms gray-to-gray response time, and a 144Hz refresh rate, AOPEN quickly surpassed last year’s G-Sync panels – our Alienware 34 Curved AW3418 review unit only managed to hit up to 120Hz with overclocking technology. It doesn’t come close to the 240Hz refresh rate on this year’s G-Sync monitors, like the new-for-2019 Alienware 34 Curved.

We tested AOPEN with systems with AMD’s Radeon graphics cards, and performance was smooth as advertised. By allowing AMD graphics card control over monitor refresh rate, tearing and stuttering – often caused by deviations from game framerates – was significantly reduced on the AOPEN 32HC1.

While the level of blacks can’t match more expensive panels that support AMOLED or QLED technologies, the AOPEN is a very responsive display that won’t leave AMD gamers wanting more. Despite being advertised with FreeSync support, Nvidia gamers are not left out – the recently released driver helps GeForce gamers take advantage of FreeSync monitors. In titles like Battlefield V, the display was able to keep up with the game, and ghosting and screen tearing was minimal, and users with more modern Radeon graphics cards would be pleased with the performance.

Rated at 250 nits of peak brightness, the AOPEN isn’t the brightest panel we’ve come across, but screen visibility isn’t a challenge at all.

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AOPEN by Acer 32HC1QUR Pbidpx 31.5-inch 1800R Curved WQHD (2560 x 1440) Gaming Monitor with AMD Radeon FreeS: Buy it now

Ports are messy

The AOPEN has a recess at the bottom to accommodate the basic ports to keep the design clean. Since the panel doesn’t rotate 90 degrees to give you portrait orientation, the ports facing the bottom make it difficult to reach.

Of course, you’ll only require access to the ports once you first set up the monitor, as AOPEN doesn’t come with the typical USB hub of most high-end monitors for convenient access USB flash drive. If your gaming setup includes AOPEN, be prepared to reach out to your desktop tower to connect all your USB peripherals.

At the bottom of the screen, you’ll find DVI, HDMI 1.4, and DisplayPort 1.2a ports, along with a connector for the power cable. Luckily, the power supply is built into the display, so at least you won’t have to endure a large power brick hanging from your desk with this setup.

Typical of the stand on most modern monitors, the stand on the AOPEN comes with a long oval cutout. If you’re obsessed with keeping your space tidy, you can feed the cord through the slot to help with cable management. Given that there’s no USB hub built into the AOPEN, you’ll likely only have two wires to feed through the opening – your display wire connects the console to your AMD-powered gaming PC and the power cord.

AOPEN doesn’t come with built-in speakers to keep costs down, so you’ll need to bring your speakers or gaming headset to play the sound.

Instead of a series of buttons, AOPEN relies on a single joystick to power on display and toggle various settings. Pressing the joystick turns the control panel on and off. Flicking the joystick in any direction activates the OSD menu, allowing you to enter any preset modes or adjust the contrast and Brightness.

In addition to the detailed controls: custom user mode, standard mode, eco mode, picture mode, and video mode. Gaming presets tuned for action, racing, and sports.

Made for gaming, but better

Although the AOPEN 32HC1 is made for gaming, it can also easily fill in basic creative work in a pinch. If you’re a designer and need extra finishing touches to a creative project, AOPEN’s color-accurate control panel can take this monitor beyond gaming. According to our display analysis performed with Datacolor’s SpyderX Pro color correction tool, AOPEN benefits from a panel that supports a wide color gamut.

The monitor supports 99% of the sRGB color space, 86% of the Adobe RGB space, and 92% of the P3 color space. Screen contrast is similarly good, reaching 1070:1, placing it within the 1140:1 contrast ratio range of the iMac 5K and Surface Studio 2. For comparison, last year’s more premium Alienware 34 Curved came out. With a lower contrast ratio at 730:1 but it has a higher brightness of 326 nits.

In games with large patches of darkness on the screen, you’ll notice some light flowing around the edges of the screen.

For color accuracy and color uniformity, Datacolor’s Spyder5 Elite monitor analysis gave AOPEN a rating of at least four out of five. Regarding color accuracy, AOPEN’s average delta score is 2.40, making it more suitable for creative workflows than the built-in AMOLED panel on the Alienware m15 laptop, which has a 6, thirty-first delta. Regarding color accuracy, lower delta is better, and innovative displays like the LG Ultrafine 4K built for Mac users only score better at 2.39. Dell’s high-end Ultrasharp U3818DW has a delta of 0.97, but that monitor comes with a price tag of over $1,000.

Where AOPEN can improve is its luminance uniformity. Working on general computing tasks – like browsing the web or Office documents – you won’t notice areas of different screen brightness, but in games with large areas of darkness on the screen, you will see some light flowing around the edges of the screen. Our Datacolor Spyder5 Elite has found that the display’s top center, bottom edge, and bottom right are brighter than the center of the screen.

If you’re playing games with dark scenes, doing creative work, or are a frequent user of night mode with a black background, the uneven screen brightness can be distracting. However, this is not noticeable for general productivity tasks.

Another average score for AOPEN lies in the display’s white point rating. While brightness uniformity effects are enhanced with darker contents on the screen, the white point, also known as the monitor’s color temperature, affects how white is displayed.

The effect of a white point on AOPEN was noticeable after the display was calibrated using Datacolor’s calibration utility. Out of the box, the panel appears warmer, exhibiting a subtle yellow or reddish tint, unlike some vivid AMOLED panels on smartphones. Calibrate the display’s overall saturation dial, and skin tones look cooler. I prefer sharper colors when gaming on a pre-calibrated screen and only apply Datacolor’s correction settings here when I need to perform tasks that require more accurate colors, like editing Photo.