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ASUS TUF Gaming VG32VQ monitor review – Premium features at a mid-range price

The sweet spot is a term that often gets overused, but after spending time with the ASUS TUF Gaming VG32VQ monitor, we feel that if anything is deserving of that title it’s this display.

At 32inches with a native resolution of 2560x1440p and a refresh rate of 144Hz, this monitor may not appeal to the upper echelon of gamers, but those playing in the mid-tier will find it especially glorious.

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Let’s take a closer look at what makes this monitor so great.

Adaptive

Weighing in at 13.39kg, the VG32VQ is best described as hefty. Physically it will stretch across 700mm of your desk and stand 425mm tall.

Simply put this monitor grabs your attention when it’s off and once it’s on your jaw will drop.

With the included stand the monitor can tilt and swivel while height can be adjusted as well. Unfortunately you can’t rotate the display into portrait mode, although the mounting system is VESA approved (100x100mm) so you can switch out stands.

Onward to the tech inside this monitor because this is where things get tantalising.

The 31.5inch panel is of the VA variety which means you have the benefit of fast refresh rates often found in TN panels as well as the wider viewing angles associated with IPS panels. The other benefit of the VA panel is that it has a high contrast ratio.

Even with HDR turned off this monitor’s blacks are endlessly deep and the colours are immaculate, to the untrained eye. Unfortunately, the colour gamut of this monitor is rated at 92 percent in the sRGB colour space, but only covers 72 percent of the Adobe RGB colour space.

Once HDR is enabled, however, this monitor becomes a delight for watching movies. It might not have the guts for content creation but consuming content on the VG32VQ is one of the best experiences we’ve had.

The VG32VQ has a maximum refresh rate of 144Hz as well as Freesync Premium support for those who have GPUs that support the technology.

While the RX 5600 XT in our machine is capable of hitting that frame rate at FullHD, when it comes to 2K it does struggle.

We’re still seeing average frame rates of 100fps in Destiny and 97fps in Outriders (though the demo isn’t all that well optimised) but in normal usage where we aren’t trying to kill our GPU, the monitor is comfortably hitting the 144Hz mark.

But, ASUS has a trick up its sleeve with something called Extreme Low Motion Blurring (ELMB). This tech switches the backlight off between refreshes to shorten the time a frame is on screen. This feature only works at fixed framerates such as 120Hz but when it’s enabled the difference is extreme.

With ELMB turned on you might never go back to another monitor. Sure, we lost 24 frames per second using ELMB at 120Hz but the gains we had in smoothness were more than enough to make up for it.

Something we do want to make note of is that the display gets very warm and while this is to be expected, it’s worth pointing it out considering how close the thing sits to your face.

Physical

With its 1800R curve the 31.5inch panel is actually rather comfortable to look at compared to a flat panel of the same size. We never found ourselves craning our heads to see content on the far right or left of the screen and while the curve is subtle it works well in this application.

One thing that may put some folks off of this monitor is its weight. As we mentioned, the VG32VQ clocks in at a staggering 13.39kg once the stand and sundry is attached. Thankfully we have a thick wooden desk, but if you have something more delicate you might need to opt for something with more support.

In terms of the on-screen menu you will be using a joystick and four buttons though if we’re honest we never really found ourselves using the buttons. These buttons act as shortcuts to features such as colour profile, brightness and more but as mentioned, it’s often easier to navigate to these options using the main menu and joystick.

There are two HDMI 2.0 ports, one DisplayPort 1.2 and earphone jack. We’d also like to mention that ASUS ships this monitor with both an HDMI cable and a DisplayPort cable.

There are also two 2W speakers inside the monitor and while they are decent, they aren’t very loud. They’ll do in a pinch but you will likely be using the earphone jack to connect a set of speakers.

Conclusion

Let’s not mince our words, the ASUS TUF Gaming VG32VQ is a very good monitor. So good in fact that once it arrives in South Africa later this month we’re considering an upgrade.

That leads to the obvious question – How much does the VG32VQ cost?

As mentioned the monitor isn’t currently available in South Africa due to the fact that there simply isn’t stock. When it does arrive, however, ASUS tells us it will have an RRP of R9 999.

Now, when we received this monitor that price was rather competitive, but another monitor we have in for review, the LG UltraGear 32GN600 is currently retailing for R6 499 and while it doesn’t have a curve, it matches the VG32VQ in specs.

This is tricky because ASUS has created a really good monitor here and if you’re in need of a curved display, then we can recommend this monitor to you today without having to think about it.

If you don’t need a curve however, then you might want to wait for our review of the LG UltraGear monitor.

All of that said, the ASUS TUF Gaming VG32VQ is an excellent choice for gamers whether you’re on PC or a console.

It might be pricey compared to other brands but we’ve been so happy with the VG32VQ we didn’t want to give it back to ASUS.

The refresh rate is perfect for most mid-range PC gamers, ELMB is a fantastic solution to motion blur and HDR10 support will quite frankly upgrade your movie watching experience.

Disclaimer: The ASUS TUF Gaming VG32VQ was sent to Hypertext for review by ASUS South Africa. The monitor was sanitised and returned to ASUS South Africa.

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