This review is from the perspective of a software engineer and programmer in hope that it may help others coming from a similar position. For perspective, I was previously using two 1080p TN panel displays at 27 inches each (one landscape and one in portrait).
This monitor is a dramatic improvement for me in multiple aspects:
1.) First and most obvious is the upgrade in resolution from 1080p to 4k. The text/image clarity is amazing compared to 1080p! It's a night and day difference...especially when I still have 1 of my old 27 inch 1080p panels in portrait right next to this 4k monitor. All of the code in my IDEs look beautiful and crisp with perfect clarify. I'm on Windows 10 and applied 175% scaling. While 1080p is perfectly acceptable at 27 inches, the 4k display is a very noticeable difference and has made my coding experience more enjoyable.
2.) Next was the transition from a TN panel to an IPS panel. This is also a major difference in the colors displayed. Since I use most of my IDEs in a dark theme I can really see the difference comparing to my old TN panel where the darker colors seemed washed out and on the IPS panel they seem more "true" to what you'd think it would be. However, it's not just the darker colors, all the colors are much better. There's a clear improvement on the IPS panel.
3.) Lastly, the physical design of this monitor is nice. This has very sleek bezels and while this is subjective I think the monitor has a beautiful style that is clean and professional. The stand is also very sturdy. The monitor allows for tilt and swivel to find your desired angle and position. Eventually I might vesa mount it and it is compatible.
My concerns prior to buying:
Some people complained about backlight bleed on this monitor. Although I'm still using the default color configuration and settings from the factory (had no reason to change it) I don't notice any backlight bleed during regular use at all. The only time when it's slightly noticeable is when the monitor is going to sleep after I turn off my PC, basically when the entire screen is black, I can see a little light from the corners. That's literally the only time I've noticed it. As I mentioned above, I run almost all my IDEs in dark theme. I don't notice any backlight bleed against my dark background environments at all.
Some people also mentioned problems with green colors on this display when using display port. This was apparently an issue earlier in the monitors life which has been resolved by a firmware update. The firmware on my monitor is M2B103, which I haven't yet verified is the very newest, but I have absolutely no problems with any weird colors using display port for my connection.
Other thoughts:
While this monitor has an anti-reflective coating I do notice a little light glare when there's a lot of bright light coming from a window. I believe compared to many other monitors I've used in the past this one seems to glare a bit more, but this is not a problem for me. I definitely wouldn't remove a star for it. But this may be something to keep in mind if you plan to use this around of ton of windows during the day.
Lastly, a small side note about gaming. Although I bought this for work purposes I have gamed on it a bit. It looks great but of course you'll need a beefy graphics card to run games at 4k. I have needed to bump a few games down to 1440p to run smoothly on this display and they still looked good. This monitor is only 60hz but for a little casual gaming it's pretty good. I'd definitely recommend turning on the "fast" response time which I do believe made a difference for me.
Conclusion:
For programming I think this is a great monitor. Coming from a 1080p TN panel display, the image clarity and colors displayed on this 4k IPS panel are truly a night and day difference. After using this monitor side by side with one of my old 1080p displays for about a week now I'm convinced I'll eventually need to purchase a second one as my 1080p display is so lacking next to this one. Overall, this has made my programming experience much more enjoyable which makes it a winner in my book.
| Standing screen display size | 27 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 3840x2160 |
| Max Screen Resolution | 3840 x 2160 Pixels |
| RAM | 8 GB |
| Hard Drive | 1 TB |
