msi Optix MAG342CQR 34" Curved Gaming Monitor - 3440 x 1440 (UWQHD), 1500R Curvature, 144Hz Refresh Rate, 1ms Response Time, AMD Freesync, Tilt/Swivel/Height/Pivot Adjustment - Black

This monitor delivers excellent value for the price. It arrived securely packaged: an Amazon box enclosing the original MSI box. The build quality is solid and surprisingly heavy (in a good way), with a sturdy metal and plastic stand that feels premium. Setup was a breeze. It’s mostly plug-and-play, but I recommend downloading the correct drivers from MSI’s website to unlock the best color accuracy. One pleasant surprise was the RGB ring on the back; it adds a nice touch to the overall aesthetic. Just be aware that the base is quite large, so make sure you have enough desk space. The screen is bright enough to remain clear even next to a window with natural light pouring in. Once you bump the refresh rate up in Windows Display Settings (it defaults to 60Hz), everything feels incredibly smooth. And the HDR makes content that supports HDR look vibrant and immersive, with deep contrast and rich colors that really pop. Overall, this monitor is easy to set up, looks great, and performs even better. Whether you're gaming, working, or watching movies, it’s a fantastic choice.

Great monitor for general productivity use. Colors are sharp. Text is clear. The vast amount of display area is amazing. The curve seems just right: the whole screen stays clear at normal working distance. Many 3440x1440 (UWQHD) monitors are available. I chose this one in part because it is a good value, but also for the adjustable stand. The stand is a triangle with widely spread legs: it is very sturdy. I've used large monitors with tiny stands and they tend to bounce around. The stand is fully adjustable: I was able to get the height and tilt exactly right -- without using packs of printer paper as for other monitors. The 3440x1440 resolution and 34" size is the sweet spot for everyday, boring text-based apps such as text editors, IDEs, the command line and so on. I use Linux Mint which is a great Linux distro. However, support for high resolution monitors is limited. I tried using a 27" 4K monitor. While that monitor worked great with a Mac, Linux Mint just can't use it correctly. Scaling is either normal (text far too small) or 2x, which makes text blocky and provides no more space than the 1080p monitor. So, a better solution is this monitor. The larger size, coupled with greater resolution, gives about the same dot pitch as the 1080p monitor, so no need to mess with scaling. Text is clear at normal scaling, if just a bit smaller than with the old monitor. To see how this will work for you, measure your old monitor's height and divide by 1080. Compare that to the specs of your new choice. Confusingly, some specs list dpi (dots-per-inch), some list "ipd" (inches per dot). One is just the inverse of the other. I've not used newer OLED monitors, so I can't compare colors with one of those. On the other hand, unless you are watching movies or playing games, it hardly matters. On this monitor, web pages are amazingly crisp. There is more space for my development tools. PDFs now display full page large enough to read without having to zoom in and scroll each page. There is plenty of space to display two apps side-by-side to minimize Alt-Tab window switching. Display technology has come a long way: this monitor is amazing when compared with the five-yer-old one it replaces. The monitor is rated at 144Hz refresh. My poor old hardware delivers only 50Hz at this resolution. Perhaps it would be higher if I used display port rather than HDMI. This seems to not be a problem for development work: I can't type that fast anyway. Videos seem fine. Perhaps the higher refresh rates are most important for gamers. In short, this is a cost-effective upgrade for work use when coming from an old-school 1080p monitor. I'm very pleased so far. Just make sure your graphics can handle the resolution.

Overview/ Display - Let me first start off by saying this monitor is really one of the best things I've seen in a while. Moving up from a Macbook pro-2015 15.4 to this display the difference is night and day. This screen is accurate when it comes to colors from what I can tell and it is bright, vivid, and best of all there is absolutely no backlight bleed on my panel or at least very minimal. At 34 inches this is massive, it dwarfs my laptop in comparison. But for productivity and media consumption it rocks. I'm assuming gaming performance is good too BUT when I'm able to test with an actual PC (currently inc a graphics card queue(-_-) ) I have yet to say. -Stand While I'm not using the included stand it is heavy and seems to have great adjustability from what I can tell. The Menu- The menu is intuitive on this display, While it might not be super crazy like some Samsung monitors with literal joysticks it does have a streamlined menu that is easy to change any of the settings that come baked in. The LED ring on the back is a nice touch and has the option to turn it off. -Vesa mount- THIS DISPLAY WORKS WITH VESA, it comes with standoff screws to clear the back plastic and mounts securely to any wall or arm mount. I didn't know this at first but it does come with all the hardware needed to wall mount this. -Price For the price of $420 at the time of purchase, this monitor is outstanding and I highly recommend that anyone pick one up -Final thoughts While I can't say anything about gaming on this just yet I will come back and give my final thoughts on it in the next following months. AND TO NOTE: my computer is only outputting at 2560x1080 to this I cannot wait to see what this thing actually can do!!

I have only had the monitor for one day so this review will reflect that. I plan on updating this review in a month or so after some decent time has been put on it. Firstly, this is my first monitor upgrade in nearly ten years since I purchased dual Dell 22" P2211ht monitors-- and it's astounding to see first hand, not just on YouTube reviews, just how far diplays have come in that time even on the low end of spectrum. The wow factor here is 10/10. 34" of screen space is much more impressive when it is on your desk. I have a sizeable desk, and I'm now looking at side tables to put my full tower PC on. At the same time though, not having to swing my 22" forward on the vesa arm it was mounted on is saving valuable real estate and now it's not as cramped feeling when I have my hotas or wheel out for sim racing/flight sims. I was concerned about the curvature coming from a flat panel but it's actually very nice, feels natural and took less than an hour for it to feel like the new normal. Zero dead pixels on the display from what I can tell, no manufacturing defects-- a big relief after seeing some other reviews complain of those things. Ghosting/smearing is not really noticeable in my use case (sim racing) but is present. I got used to it pretty quickly and it doesn't bother me. Once I'm in game I don't notice it. I don't notice any blacklight bleed but I don't play in pitch darkness, either. Other games can produce more noticeable effects. The color needed some adjusting. The OSD is functional and I had no issues adjusting contrast and brightness to tone down the oversaturation that was present out of the box. It does seem a bit washed out but still looks nice. I don't have a real need for HDR so I can't comment on that yet. The display is plenty bright, brighter than my old monitors. USB ports would be nice but this isn't a dealbreaker, my PC has plenty for my needs. Wish the RGB worked with mystic light or was at least adjustable since I don't really care for rainbow RGB. As far as build quality, it doesn't seem terrible but isn't premium. The stand is sturdy and while the plastic gives off flimsy vibes I was adjusting tilt and height just fine without anything other than plastic-y creaks and pops that seem slightly more pronounced than my previous Dells. I have a GTX 1070 (thanks, cryptominers!) so not too many games I play can make full use of the refresh rate but the ones that I could push there felt great. Very fluid and smooth. All in all, first impressions are very positive. A pretty big leap in technology for myself and I feel the price is fair. I can easily recommend it at the sub $500 price point and have zero regrets so far.

This monitor is absolutely perfect. I've had no issues with picture quality, any dead pixels or anything. It's ultra wide and has crisp picture quality. It is 100% worth every penny. I will be buying again they day I need a new one.

I originally purchased this monitor in November of 2022. Initially, it met all my expectations, delivering excellent performance that justified its price. Unfortunately, it unexpectedly failed in June of 2023, refusing to power on without any preceding issues. To this day, I'm not sure what happened. MSI honored the warranty, but it costs a little over $100 on my end to ship it back for a replacement, which, to my disappointment, was a refurbished unit rather than a new one. While I understand this may be standard operating procedure for warranty claims, receiving a refurbished monitor within a year of purchasing is a little discouraging. Well, here it is late April of 2024, and the replacement has also failed to function, albeit more gradually than its predecessor. It began with flickering horizontal lines, which initially disappeared with a reboot, but eventually persisted. Not too long afterwards, it began to black out momentarily every few minutes, making it difficult to use for gaming. I've tried changing cables, ports on the video card, and even power supplies. but nothing I've tried has resolved the issue. I've decided it's no longer worth the investment, and I'm not going to spend $100 more to send it back to MSI for another refurbished monitor to show up at my door and history repeat itself. I've typically had positive experiences with MSI products, which makes this situation particularly disappointing. The failure of both monitors within such a short time has left me hesitant about the durability and reliability of MSI's products, and a recent issue with I experienced with an MSI motherboard has only added to my concerns. In the future, I will be very reluctant to purchase their products again, and will likely explore other brands that might offer greater reliability.

Purchased with an M4 mac mini during prime day. GOOD: Fills my entire view at normal distance. 21:9 movies fit perfect. Or fit multiple windows in view. Color and blacks look good and resolution is good. The stand works well for me. BAD: There's some black smearing with deep blacks and fast movement. This monitor has known issues with waking with an attached computer, needing a power off and on to connect. I made some recommended changes to the settings with no effect, then moved the computer to hdmi 2 and it started waking up just fine. (?) I don't like computer voodoo, it needs to work without me throwing chicken bones. The buttons are pretty cheap feeling. OVERALL: Well worth the sale price.

Monitor looks great especially for the price, considering it's panel type the viewing angles are not horrible. It's super bright for me and it was super easy to set up. Everything feels high quality. Only "issue" is that anti motion blur does not come pre enabled. Was super worried at first as blacks would smear really bad but after going into the monitors setting I turned on anti motion blur and it got rid of all smearing.

So far, the monitor has been really good and a big step up from previous dual-monitor 1080p setup. However, it does have some ghosting to it and the OSD is a bit difficult to navigate, but I still think it is a great deal regardless. Pros: -The display itself is fantastic, 1440p is extremely crisp and the brightness and colour is solid -144hz 1440p is super nice to work and game on, with low response time -This is my first ultrawide monitor and it is fantastic. I do miss the flexibility of dual screens a little bit, but ultrawide feels so much nicer for gaming and some workloads like having multiple documents open at once, that it feels hard to go back from this -The stand and adjustability is good, with lots of flexibility being able to go up/down a fair bit and left to right. -Adaptive sync and HDR are both also great additions and help prevent screen-tearing and HDR provides an even better viewing experience Cons: -Because it is a VA panel, there is some ghosting on it, specifically black smearing. This can kind of be fixed with the monitors Anti Motion Blur setting however, which is nice -The OSD is a bit hard to navigate, and would be made much easier if there was a joystick control like some other monitors. Overall, I think the monitor is a fantastic deal for the price. The display itself is fantastic and looks amazing. While the ghosting is there, the rest of the positives of the display more than make up for it. For the price, this is one of the best 1440p ultrawide monitors you can get and is amazing so far.

الشاشه اول شهر حلوه بس بعد ثاني شهر بدت تشوش عندي لا انضربت ولا خدشتها ولا شي نظيفه لكن ما ادري ذي المشكله من اين من الشاشه او السلك dp لاتشتري الشاشه ذي فيها عيب مصنعي ولا فيها ضمان العيب المصنعي يخرب عليك اشياء كثيره الشاشه بتسكر عليك كل خمس ثواني وتشوش حاولت احلها لكن طلعت مش انا بس في واحد زيي طلع عيب مصنعي حاولت اغير السلك لكن مافي فايده لا احد يشتريها نصيحه .

Un muy buen monitor ultrawide, lo ocupo para jugar y diseñar, Solo hay que saberlo configurar. El monitor es perfectamente compatible con Gsync, 144hz (por DP, por HDMI alcanza solo 100hz) antes de que lo devuelvan o vengan a comentar que tiene "flickering" al activar el Adaptative sync, aquí les va la solución, al menos para quien tenga win 11 y tarjeta de video Nvidia. (yo tengo una rtx 3050ti de laptop) Los 3 actores principales de culpabilidad son MSI ( al no poner una solución online), Microsoft (por tener a los mejores inges y programadores y que win 11 siga con errores ) y Nvidia ( el de mayor peso, como no paga MSI una royalitie a nvidia para que sea "Gsync compatible" desde el principio, lo dejan ahi descompuesto). Bajar e instalar los drivers desde el sitio oficial de MSI, no es un ejecutable, son archivos con perfil de color. Esto es para activar el gamut y perfil de color del mismo. Se instala desde "administrador de dispositivos" no es un ejecutable. Activar mediante el menu del monitor el "Adaptative Sync" Menu-Gaming-Adaptative Sync-ON El paso más importante ahora, en este punto sigue teniendo "Flickering" sobre todo al sobreponer ventanas detrás de una aplicación que ocupe pantalla completa. Al momento de activar Gsync es muy importante seleccionar la opción de activar SOLO en pantalla completa, si usamos la opción Pantalla completa y ventana no funciona, es un tema de windows 11 y Nvidia, hay que seleccionar solo Pantalla completa. Listo. 0 parpadeos blancos, replique de todas las formas para que aparecieran y no lo hicieron. Sobre la calidad del monitor, gran soporte metálico como se ve en las fotos, muy robusto para el peso del mismo, tiene 300 nits de brillo, que para exteriores o lugares muy soleados no sea lo más optimo, pero en mi caso funciona muy bien. De lo mejor el gamut de color, no sobresale en ninguno pero trae buena compatibilidad. Puedo trabajar y si puedo jugar. Muy satisfecho hasta el momento con la compra.

Very happy with the product. Have been using it for a few months and everything is still working well. The stand is minimal so allows for other things under the monitor on the desk. Was easy to switch it to a 3-monitor desk bracket. Colours are vivid and the response time is great. Having a narrow bezel allows for the other monitors to be very close giving an almost seamless visual field.

La verdad es un buen monitor y cumple con todo lo que describe. Tiene muy buena calidad de imagen y es muy util si usas multiples ventanas a la vez ya que tienes suficiente espacio para tener 4 ventanas abiertas simultaneamente. Pros: - Cumple con los 144hz que promociona y el adaptive sync funciona adecuadamente (si estas en PC tendras que cambiar los cuadros que da tu compu, no se configura automaticamente). - Buen rango de colores, a comparacion de otros monitores que he tenido siento que este ha tendio la mejor gama de colores (nota que nunca he tenido un monitor "premium"). - Todos los juegos que pongo en 1440p se ven maravillosos. No he tenido problemas. - Las patas de la base son de metal y los plasticos se sienten de buena calidad. - Se ve muy bien con un PS5 (aunque ten en cuenta que el PS5 no soporta Ultrawide asi que tendras dos barras negras a los costados). - Detecta el dispositivo que esta dando señal automaticamente. Contras: - El brillo es demasiado alto por default y no encontre la manera de ajustarlo sin apagar el adaptive sync y entre otras funciones. Pero te llegas a acostumbrar y con la Luz Nocturna de Windows no tengo problemas. - Si el brillo default es muy brillante para ti, ni intentes habilitar el HDR en Windows, te va a cegar. El HDR no lo detecta mi PS5. - No encontre la opcion de apagar el Halo de RGB trasero del monitor. Es un menor inconveniente, estaria tambien padre que se pudiese configurar a tu manera. - El menu de ajustes es algo complicado de configurar y navegar. Si hay que dedicarle su tiempo para ajustarlo a tu gusto. Es un buen monitor "Gamer" de entrada y realmente recomiendo que lo adquieras si no tienes el presupuesto de gastar mas de $6.5k (yo lo compre en $5.9k). Specs: I7-8700 32GB 500 NVMe M.2 Nvidia 4070