[TFTCentral] Acer Predator Z35 Review

[4K_shmoorK]

Intriguing, but does the 200Hz refresh rate even matter when response times can't keep up? VA is nice, but 2560x1080 on 35" is a bit low.

Absolutely love the 2000R curvature though. The new 1900R panels should be awesome in terms of immersion.

http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/acer_predator_z35.htm

Conclusion

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The Z35 is certainly an interesting screen to consider, and with its massive 35" ultra-wide screen size it is a real beast of a monitor. Being as big as it is, and with a considerable curve it is very immersive for gaming and multimedia and these are certainly the screens primary target uses. We were impressed by the decent range of features and extras offered by this model. NVIDIA G-sync and ULMB are of course very welcome and offers great benefits for gaming. Added features like the ambient light system were also nice extra touches we felt. Performance wise it's quite interesting as VA panels are rarely used in gaming screens and this is one of the few available. The high refresh rate offers a big bump in frame rates and performance over the wide range of 60Hz-only VA panels available so far, so that's an obvious selling point here. Thanks to the G-sync module the lag was basically non-existent as well which was positive. VA technology certainly has it's advantages when it comes to contrast ratio, offering deep blacks and also the freedom from the pale glow you see from IPS panels in darker content.

In other aspects of gaming the screen struggled a bit though. The response times were ok overall but some transitions caused problems and were very slow. You end up with obvious dark smearing and blurring in certain circumstances which is a shame, and at the moment a limitation of VA technology it seems. The additional ULMB was very good at improving motion clarity and did help cut back some of that smearing if you want to use that feature. The very high refresh rates enabled by the overclocking feature couldn't really be fully realised though sadly, as we felt that response times were just not fast enough to handle the frame rate demands, and the overshoot introduced by the aggressive overdrive circuit was too obvious. It's still very capable as a VA option with a high refresh rate of 120Hz, with G-sync and ULMB support but the 200Hz overclocking feature couldn't quite keep up sadly.

In other non-gaming areas the low resolution and large font size aren't great for office work, unless maybe you're used to low DPI already. However, the backlight offered a good range of adjustment and the flicker free operation was definitely pleasing. Default setup was also decent and required little change to achieve a reliable performance. Viewing angles were not as good as we were expecting sadly. The feature set was reasonable, with a fair set of connectivity options and stand adjustments provided and in line with other modern G-sync screens.

Overall if you are after a VA screen for gaming this is certainly one of the best options available. VA technology isn't quite there it seems to keep up with some of the impressive specs and features available, but it's still very capable and provides plenty of performance power in many areas

 

[Madpacket]

Interesting monitor but VA has too many drawbacks to make this a useful product.

 

[moonbogg]

People were looking forward to this monitor. They said VA was better than IPS. Now this thing kind of sucks really. Oh well. I saw an OLED 4K TV today and it was like looking through a window. Actually, it was like looking through nothing. The image could have passed for reality.

 

[Madpacket]

Edit: VA tech is also used for high end TV's, ignore my comment below.

VA is good for cheap televisions but that's about it. The transitions from blacks to greys are too slow for gaming and ruin the experience (IMO anyway).

OLED can't come soon enough.

 

[Puffnstuff]

VA makes for some excellent monitors with superior color characteristics and fast response times without light bleed through issues. I've always preferred it to IPS although my last monitor purchase and portables are IPS.

 

[VashHT]

Meh there's a trade off whichever way you go imo. I tried a few newer gaming monitors after getting an XR3501 which uses the same panel as this monitor. Aside from that one slow transition it's quite a nice screen. The glow and blb on the ips/tn monitors was bad enough to be distracting in game so I guess you have to make a decision either way what shortcomings you want to live with.

 

[Madpacket]

Meh there's a trade off whichever way you go imo. I tried a few newer gaming monitors after getting an XR3501 which uses the same panel as this monitor. Aside from that one slow transition it's quite a nice screen. The glow and blb on the ips/tn monitors was bad enough to be distracting in game so I guess you have to make a decision either way what shortcomings you want to live with.

True. It's really about picking the tradeoff that least bothers you. For me I guess for casual gaming these VA panels would be fine but if you want a panel that allows you to still play competitively and also still give you excellent image quality and a viewing angles IPS is the way to go. I still think TN is the worst of the three with the crappy viewing angles.

We need fast OLED panels ASAP

 

[hawtdawg]

Interesting monitor but VA has too many drawbacks to make this a useful product.

Don't be ridiculous. The best LCD televisions on the market are all VA panels. IPS is actually the technology that will be obsolete moving forward; the best IPS monitors in existence can only do a 1000:1 contrast ratio, meaning that HDR can not be done properly (it calls for 2000:1 at a minimum)

 

[hawtdawg]

VA is good for cheap televisions but that's about it. The transitions from blacks to greys are too slow for gaming and ruin the experience (IMO anyway).

OLED can't come soon enough.

By "cheap" televisions, I assume you mean the flagship model from every major manufacturer?

 

[digitaldurandal]

Meh there's a trade off whichever way you go imo. I tried a few newer gaming monitors after getting an XR3501 which uses the same panel as this monitor. Aside from that one slow transition it's quite a nice screen. The glow and blb on the ips/tn monitors was bad enough to be distracting in game so I guess you have to make a decision either way what shortcomings you want to live with.

I would be interested to see the transitions on video. I prefer TN from IPS as my IPS has the glow in the bottom. I find a lot of the games I play have dark scenes that this detracts from. Unfortunately I doubt any of the stores around here will have one on display to try out.

I was really looking forward to this monitor too.

 

[VashHT]

I'll see if I can capture it on video tonight. I've been going back and forth on whether I want to keep it or not due to that problem, but after trying a bunch of TN and IPS gaming panels that all had more annoying problems I think I'm just going to keep it and wait a few years for something really good to come out.

 

[moonbogg]

I just think its funny how people always want what they can't have. IPS was the holy grail, so we got that and suddenly it sucks. Then they said VA was where its at. Well, that sucks too. I can't WAIT to find out why OLED sucks, because surely it will for some reason.

 

[4K_shmoorK]

Every panel type has its strengths and weaknesses. I think panel tech has gotten much better in terms of pixel response over the last 5 years. I'm not sure there is a mid to high ($200-600+) range panel available right now that has ghosting issues like the IPS/VA panels of ~2010.

Even the large-format/cheap/high res korean panels out (Wasabi Mango/Microboard/Crossover) have pretty excellent avg response times between 10 and 20ms. There isn't any motion blur due to pixel response.

I think it is inevitable, OLED is everything an enthusiast wants in a gaming/professional monitor. Until manufacturing costs of OLED come down, IPS and VA panels will continue to get better.

TN has gotta go though. Time to join the ol' CRT, way of the dodo.

 

[hawtdawg]

I just think its funny how people always want what they can't have. IPS was the holy grail, so we got that and suddenly it sucks. Then they said VA was where its at. Well, that sucks too. I can't WAIT to find out why OLED sucks, because surely it will for some reason.

LCD has always been fundamentally lacking. IPS has awful contrast that's effectively made even worse by IPS glow. It's the best for general desktop usage, but throw something with a low APL on it in a dark room, and it looks awful. This is why it's not used in even the most high-end televisions. TN has bad colorshifting. VA has slower pixel response and gamma shifting.

OLED has burn-in and longevity issues that can be improved with manufacturing techniques, it is not a fundamental issue with the technology.

 

[Puffnstuff]

My first IPS panel had a 25ms response rate and under the right conditions ghosting was an issue not to mention the fact that it was only 20" and cost almost $900 in 2003.

 

[Madpacket]

Makes you wonder why they got rid of Plasma TV's.

 

[Madpacket]

Don't be ridiculous. The best LCD televisions on the market are all VA panels. IPS is actually the technology that will be obsolete moving forward; the best IPS monitors in existence can only do a 1000:1 contrast ratio, meaning that HDR can not be done properly (it calls for 2000:1 at a minimum)

Sigh...

http://m.tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/ces-2016-lg-showcases-hdr-enabled-4k-tvs-293780.html

 

[Madpacket]

VA makes for some excellent monitors with superior color characteristics and fast response times without light bleed through issues. I've always preferred it to IPS although my last monitor purchase and portables are IPS.

Companies like LG are improving IPS. Note their new HDR 4K TV's are IPS and not VA. VA is worse than IPS overall, especially for gaming monitors.

Even with Acer sourcing a panel that can overclock to 200Hz it's pointless when you have specific colour transitions that are up to 10x slower than other parts of the panel. What a silly and unbalanced design.

 

[Madpacket]

LCD has always been fundamentally lacking. IPS has awful contrast that's effectively made even worse by IPS glow. It's the best for general desktop usage, but throw something with a low APL on it in a dark room, and it looks awful. This is why it's not used in even the most high-end televisions. TN has bad colorshifting. VA has slower pixel response and gamma shifting.

OLED has burn-in and longevity issues that can be improved with manufacturing techniques, it is not a fundamental issue with the technology.

It looks like you're basing your IPS experience off the recent AU Optronics AHVA (IPS-type) Freesync and Gsync 4ms 144Hz panels. Sure these specific panels have some minor glow (if you get a good one) but the contrast ratios are pretty good at over 1000:1. They look a lot better than the ROG Swift TN panels everyone was tripping over to get last year. Not all IPS type panels have major glow and at least with the MG279Q, mid game it's mostly unnoticeable. What is noticeable is how good the colour looks and how solid the image is without overshoot issues.

For slower paced games PVA may have a place but as a general single purpose gaming monitor IPS is still superior IMO.

 

[Headfoot]

All I know is I'm never buying another IPS gaming panel again until IPS glow is quantifiably minimized. It's nearly impossible to play survival games since nearly all of them feature dark nights. I'll take slower G2G in VA for the good contrast (on modern VA, with 120hz refresh+) over IPS glow every day of the week. I dont do any color sensitive work on my gaming machine. VA obviously isnt a panacea, but its getting markedly better in the past few years as gaming monitors as a whole have gotten better. IMO with pixel transition blurring, you either go all the way to pulsed light low-persistence style modes that are near CRT, or you dont bother. I can't tell the difference at all between a medium blurring 120hz monitor and a high blurring 120hz monitor, I can just tell that both blur more than a low-blur monitor (barring horrible overdrive artifacts). If you want near-CRT levels of low blur you still have to go TN + strobing tech

 

[hawtdawg]

Sigh...

http://m.tech.firstpost.com/news-analysis/ces-2016-lg-showcases-hdr-enabled-4k-tvs-293780.html

Thanks for making my point, LG makes the worst LCD sets in the industry.

lets take a look at their best LCD from 2015, with its incredible 880:1 contrast ratio.

http://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/lg/uf8500

Or we could look at their bottom of the barrel TV, which is also IPS, destroying the notion that VA is for the cheap TV's.

http://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/lg/lf5500


Samsung and Sony TV's are much much better, and they use VA panels.

 

[VashHT]

All I know is I'm never buying another IPS gaming panel again until IPS glow is quantifiably minimized. It's nearly impossible to play survival games since nearly all of them feature dark nights. I'll take slower G2G in VA for the good contrast (on modern VA, with 120hz refresh+) over IPS glow every day of the week. I dont do any color sensitive work on my gaming machine. VA obviously isnt a panacea, but its getting markedly better in the past few years as gaming monitors as a whole have gotten better. IMO with pixel transition blurring, you either go all the way to pulsed light low-persistence style modes that are near CRT, or you dont bother. I can't tell the difference at all between a medium blurring 120hz monitor and a high blurring 120hz monitor, I can just tell that both blur more than a low-blur monitor (barring horrible overdrive artifacts). If you want near-CRT levels of low blur you still have to go TN + strobing tech

Yeah I'm totally with you, I tried several of these new IPS monitors trying to get one without a ton of glow to no avail. At this point I don't think they exist, I think the people saying their monitors don't have glow are just not bothered by it. Some of the monitors I got had less than others but it was there on all of them. Running through dungeons or mines or one of the tons of dark areas in games makes it instantly noticeable, and even in brightly lit areas the yellowish color of the glow tinted the color on the screen noticeably for me.

I couldn't find this acceptable, sure these VA panels have some blur but to me that's not as noticeable as the glow, not to mention the much higher contrast ratio looks great in games.

 

[Madpacket]

Thanks for making my point, LG makes the worst LCD sets in the industry.

lets take a look at their best LCD from 2015, with its incredible 880:1 contrast ratio.

http://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/lg/uf8500

Or we could look at their bottom of the barrel TV, which is also IPS, destroying the notion that VA is for the cheap TV's.

http://www.rtings.com/tv/reviews/lg/lf5500


Samsung and Sony TV's are much much better, and they use VA panels.

Okay change the goalposts when given evidence, nice...

You stated the following incorrect points:

"...the best IPS monitors in existence can only do a 1000:1 contrast ratio, meaning that HDR can not be done properly (it calls for 2000:1 at a minimum)"

And

"By "cheap" televisions, I assume you mean the flagship model from every major manufacturer?"

To which I supplied you a link that disproves both of your statements.

Here's the important part of the article that you conveniently ignored.

"LG will showcase the company’s IPS TV offerings which include the 65-inch UH9500, 86-inch UH9550, SUPER UHD TV 65-inch UH8500 and 75-inch UH8550. The SUPER UHD TV models are said to offer higher color reproduction rate, advanced picture and sound-enhancing features including HDR (high dynamic range) and the company’s slim design."

If you read the rest of the article it goes on to say these new IPS displays along with their new OLED lineup are LG's high end offerings that offer HDR and 4K.

Anyways I don't disagree LCD tech in general is pretty crappy hence my comment earlier about Plasma TV's but the tech is improving, yes even these horrible IPS screens are as well

I was wrong about VA being used for only cheap LCD TV's. A quick looks shows it's used in both low and high end TV's however so is IPS technology.

 

[4K_shmoorK]

Okay change the goalposts when given evidence, nice...

You stated the following incorrect points:

"...the best IPS monitors in existence can only do a 1000:1 contrast ratio, meaning that HDR can not be done properly (it calls for 2000:1 at a minimum)"

And

"By "cheap" televisions, I assume you mean the flagship model from every major manufacturer?"

To which I supplied you a link that disproves both of your statements.

Here's the important part of the article that you conveniently ignored.

"LG will showcase the company’s IPS TV offerings which include the 65-inch UH9500, 86-inch UH9550, SUPER UHD TV 65-inch UH8500 and 75-inch UH8550. The SUPER UHD TV models are said to offer higher color reproduction rate, advanced picture and sound-enhancing features including HDR (high dynamic range) and the company’s slim design."

If you read the rest of the article it goes on to say these new IPS displays along with their new OLED lineup are LG's high end offerings that offer HDR and 4K.

Anyways I don't disagree LCD tech in general is pretty crappy hence my comment earlier about Plasma TV's but the tech is improving, yes even these horrible IPS screens are as well

I was wrong about VA being used for only cheap LCD TV's. A quick looks shows it's used in both low and high end TV's however so is IPS technology.

Well with all do respect, manufacturers claim alot of things. We've yet to see any measured static contrast ratios or luminance from panels that claim to be 'HDR' capable. No manufacturer has come out saying they will strive towards something like 500cd/m^2 of maximum white luminance or .1 or .01cd/m^2 maximum black levels which would allow for greater contrast.

Some of the best IPS panels out there allow 3x as much light as a PVA or MVA panel at around .315cd/m^2 max black luminance.

All panels were measure from uncalibrated (out of the box) panels.

From a recent review of the BenQ SW2700PT, one of the best performing IPS panels Tom's has ever reviewed with a measured 1121.7:1 contrast ratio and superb color accuracy.
White

Black

Compared to the Philips BDM4065UC 40" VA (measured contrast of 6259.4:1):
White

Black

IPS is limited by its own tech in terms of black detail, I'm not so sure new panels will magically overcome the problem in the next year and be able to provide a true 'HDR' experience.

I think VA is much more suited to the task, at least until OLED is ready for prime time.

 

[hawtdawg]

Okay change the goalposts when given evidence, nice...

You stated the following incorrect points:

"...the best IPS monitors in existence can only do a 1000:1 contrast ratio, meaning that HDR can not be done properly (it calls for 2000:1 at a minimum)"

And

"By "cheap" televisions, I assume you mean the flagship model from every major manufacturer?"

To which I supplied you a link that disproves both of your statements.

Here's the important part of the article that you conveniently ignored.

"LG will showcase the company’s IPS TV offerings which include the 65-inch UH9500, 86-inch UH9550, SUPER UHD TV 65-inch UH8500 and 75-inch UH8550. The SUPER UHD TV models are said to offer higher color reproduction rate, advanced picture and sound-enhancing features including HDR (high dynamic range) and the company’s slim design."

If you read the rest of the article it goes on to say these new IPS displays along with their new OLED lineup are LG's high end offerings that offer HDR and 4K.

Anyways I don't disagree LCD tech in general is pretty crappy hence my comment earlier about Plasma TV's but the tech is improving, yes even these horrible IPS screens are as well

I was wrong about VA being used for only cheap LCD TV's. A quick looks shows it's used in both low and high end TV's however so is IPS technology.

Ok i think we were talking about different things. I meant that in the PC monitor market, IPS won't work. LG can only pull off HDR on an IPS panel by using local dimming. Local dimming works for TV's as you're sitting a good distance from them (but you'll still see blooming anyway). For a PC monitor, you would need a ridiculous amount of dimming zones to pull it off. An IPS without local dimming cant break 1000:1 contrast, which is too low for HDR.

LG and Panasonic are the only ones who use IPS in higher end sets, but Panasonic only pulls it off with a very high-end FALD setup, and LG sets just plain suck.

My main point was that VA panels are certainly not low-end by nature and are preferable in a HT environment due to their native contrast. LG uses IPS because making IPS screens is what LG does. Their LCD sets are routinely rated below the VA competition.