Hey,
So been using the monitor for about 2 weeks now and largely been an enjoyable experience.
It’s my first high hz monitor and honestly just using Windows at 144Hz feels great for that alone ha. Also can play Doom Eternal at 4K/144Hz/RT/HDR and its great ha.
HDR was something I was a little worried about with having only 16 dimming zones, which is a downgrade from my old monitor (But that wasn’t >60Hz and HDMI 2.1 and etc.), and while it is noticeable at certain points and probably looks worse if you examined the whole screen… I think it’s less distracting than the older one actually which had a large glow around bright objects on a dark background which your eyes are focused on, while with this approach most of the background behind is brighter so in practice it doesn’t seem as noticeable. Sure it’d be nicer to have more zones, but it doesn’t seem the effect can be completely eliminated… even with £3k+ monitors it only seems lessened which isn’t enough for me at that price.
One problem with my old monitor too, which was particularly more noticeable this hot summer, was the fans would kick in and they’re by far the loudest thing in the room when they do, and honestly don’t even seem to do much of a job to cool it down as they’d never go off until you powered it down.
Thankfully with the spectrum, no fans! I do feel it can feel quite hot to the touch on the bottom and top of the monitor but still a massive improvement compared to my older one, again thankful for that alone ha.
For some other points of praise I feel should be mentioned. Packaging for the monitor was very nice, (also nice touch with the eve tape) it feels they pretty much went all out here. Also nice touch with the poster with all the backer names.
The look of the monitor is of course great, virtually bezel-less. The stand is also very nice, just one screw needed and super simple to just snap into the monitor. Again simplistic but functional stand.
Now for the issues I’ve had:
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Sometimes when changing to my PC input from my PS5, I notice the screen will seem quite dim compared to how it usually is. This seems either because of switching from another input or because Windows is in “inactive” mode and you have to move kb/m to wake it up. To fix this I’d have to switch input to something else and back to PC.
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Also sometimes, when switching to another input, sound will not come out of my connected speakers which are connected to the earphone jack and powered by monitor USB. Again to fix this, switching inputs or rebooting monitor fixes this. There is a bit of a delay for sound to kick in too, which seems normal but would be nice if it was a little quicker.
As for some suggestions…
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Being able to customise shortcuts would be great! I’m not likely to use crosshair or fps counter regularly and would much rather they be set for changing inputs.
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Auto detect doesn’t seem to work if you disconnect/shutdown a device and expect it to switch to another connected/on device. This being improved would be great.
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Not sure how much this can be improved, and seen similar on other monitors honestly so not as big of a deal, but when disconnecting/shutting down an input, there is a bit of a delay before you’re able to open the menu such as to switch inputs. Also as mentioned above there is a bit of a delay when switching to another input before sound kicks in. Improving both of these would be nice.
That’s pretty much my thoughts at this point. Definitely overall I’m mostly just happy to finally have this and been enjoying making use of it and looking forward to my future adventures with it! Definitely recommended!