ASUS Announces ROG SWIFT PG278Q Premium Gaming Monitor

Eh, well. I got my 4th Swift from Newegg this time. As expected, this one isn't perfect either. I have two pixels right beside each other that have dead subcolors (obvious manufacturing fault) in the lower left (thankfully not in the center area...). One of them is dead on Red and Blue. The other one is dead on just blue. Considering it's pretty much unnoticeable on anything but very blue backgrounds and I have to look pretty friggin hard to see it in any day to day use, I guess it's alright. This one also seems to have one (though only one) of those messed up pixels on straight black backgrounds. Since it's pretty much right beside the bezel, again I guess it's alright. The backlight uniformity is somewhat mediocre but with the brightness turned down to the norm it's pretty much straight black, so I guess that's fine.

I'll just leave a low rating on Newegg (it deserves every bit of it, after 4 tries), too, and then keep using it I guess. I'm very weary of returning these and getting another one, so considering the imperfections this time don't get in my way in day to day use at all, I'll probably keep it. At least it works... for now. I'll be burning it in as usual by leaving a game going.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
Eh, well. I got my 4th Swift from Newegg this time. As expected, this one isn't perfect either. I have two pixels right beside each other that have dead subcolors (obvious manufacturing fault) in the lower left (thankfully not in the center area...). One of them is dead on Red and Blue. The other one is dead on just blue. Considering it's pretty much unnoticeable on anything but very blue backgrounds and I have to look pretty friggin hard to see it in any day to day use, I guess it's alright. This one also seems to have one (though only one) of those messed up pixels on straight black backgrounds. Since it's pretty much right beside the bezel, again I guess it's alright. The backlight uniformity is somewhat mediocre but with the brightness turned down to the norm it's pretty much straight black, so I guess that's fine.

I'll just leave a low rating on Newegg (it deserves every bit of it, after 4 tries), too, and then keep using it I guess. I'm very weary of returning these and getting another one, so considering the imperfections this time don't get in my way in day to day use at all, I'll probably keep it. At least it works... for now. I'll be burning it in as usual by leaving a game going.
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Frankly I'd probably return even that one and try to get one from another vendor if you want this model. After reading all this mess people are having I'm really glad mine is without a single dead pixel.
 
Probably not... I'm really weary of doing this by now. I was willing to put up with the first one I had despite its flaws, but it just crapped out horribly on me. This one isn't as bad as my first one, so as long as it keeps working I'm just going to keep it to avoid any further annoyance.

Frankly I just have terrible luck with monitors. I've never gotten a single perfect LCD. Maybe my eyes are simply too sharp for my own good. I remember when I was first looking for 1440p, I went through 8 mainstream brand monitors without a single one of them being flawless. Qnix was better than them, though it's still not perfect either.

Sigh. I really wish LCD/OLED/whatever would die down and get replaced by something better. It's just a statistically inferior type of monitor. It's a huge number of individual possible points of failure, which means that no matter how low the defect rate, it's going to happen simply due to the absurd number of trials.
 
My best friend just got this monitor yesterday. I dont know how anyone could buy this thing. The colors are awful. I guess people want monitors for different reasons but I could never use this. My Korean 1440p blows this thing away by miles with the picture. My new Benq 32 does the same.
 
Scottyl39 said:
My best friend just got this monitor yesterday. I dont know how anyone could buy this thing. The colors are awful. I guess people want monitors for different reasons but I could never use this. My Korean 1440p blows this thing away by miles with the picture. My new Benq 32 does the same.
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That's strange, every review I have read said that the color reproduction is exceptional (for a TN panel.) The TFTcentral review had a pretty in depth analysis of color accuracy and it rated highly. http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/asus_rog_swift_pg278q.htm

Obviously we all know a TN is never going to be as good as a high quality IPS/VA but this is the tradeoff for the lowest possible input delay and minimal ghosting.
 
Scottyl39 said:
My best friend just got this monitor yesterday. I dont know how anyone could buy this thing. The colors are awful. I guess people want monitors for different reasons but I could never use this. My Korean 1440p blows this thing away by miles with the picture. My new Benq 32 does the same.
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my vg236 has similar color accuracy to the swift, and i also have a korean panel, and the only real difference is that the vg236 looks washed out. the colors are definitely not awful.
 
Scottyl39 said:
My best friend just got this monitor yesterday. I dont know how anyone could buy this thing. The colors are awful. I guess people want monitors for different reasons but I could never use this. My Korean 1440p blows this thing away by miles with the picture. My new Benq 32 does the same.
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"Korean 1440p [strike=]blows this thing away by miles with the picture.[/s] has better color accuracy and uniformity in static imagery but is a blur in 1st/3rd person FoV movement."

I've asked about the color saturation capability of the swift and have been told repeatedly that it can display a lush, colorful picture even though obviously incapable of the finer degree of color accuracy(% of color spectrum) and uniformity (vs TN shift/"shadow gradient band") of an ips. That would be great for a monitor dedicated primarily to gaming - especially considering all of the huge other improvements this monitor has over an ips. However, I have no interest in the type of notably pale TN's that had been reported in some of the more recent 120hz+ monitors before the swift. I have a 1080p 120hz samsung A750D next to a 60hz 1440p ips. The samsung has good color saturation and is a great gaming monitor. I would like to upgrade to the 1440p rez, g-sync and ulmb modes in the swift.

If anyone has a different opinion of the swift's color saturation capability , I'd like to know.
 
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mirrinigma said:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=24-236-405

The Newegg page now says "This item is currently out of stock and it may or may not be restocked." and no longer has a "notify" button.

Is this just a new style for their out of stock pages, or are the QC issues and returns really big enough a deal for Newegg to not carry the SWIFT anymore?
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Not a new style. Their other OOS pages still have an auto-notify. I wouldn't be surprised if Newegg abandoned it.
 
StoleMyOwnCar said:
Frankly I just have terrible luck with monitors. I've never gotten a single perfect LCD. Maybe my eyes are simply too sharp for my own good. I remember when I was first looking for 1440p, I went through 8 mainstream brand monitors without a single one of them being flawless. Qnix was better than them, though it's still not perfect either.
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You're not unlucky. You remind me of myself. OCD and all. ;)

But no joke, my past 10 displays (maybe even more), including my past 3 smartphones, have all had at least one dead and/or stuck pixel. In fact, the only LCD display currently in my possession without any pixel defects is an old 1080p Asus. These high resolution/high density displays are almost impossible to get without dead pixels. Makes me wonder... How many pixel defects does the average 4k panel have? I bet it's a lot.
 
I dont go looking for dead pixels unless they go looking for me! As long as there are not many, and they are not smack dab in my main viewing area and none are "stuck" I just deal and accept a few as the cost of "progress" over CRT :mad:
 
Scottyl39 said:
My best friend just got this monitor yesterday. I dont know how anyone could buy this thing. The colors are awful. I guess people want monitors for different reasons but I could never use this. My Korean 1440p blows this thing away by miles with the picture. My new Benq 32 does the same.
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It's posts like these that make me a sad panda :( As someone running an overclocked Korean glossy IPS on dual watercooled AMD cards... I am on the fence as to whether it will be worth spending the $ and time on this monitor and a new set of nVidia cards. Matte coating and potential washed out colors do not appeal to me at all... however, the allure of much improved motion clarity for games is a big temptation.... sigh. The Overlord at 110Hz/110FPS is quite smooth, miles ahead of my old 60Hz IPS... I just don't know HOW much better Gsync and/or a blur free ULMB mode would make my overall gaming experience. It would be quite a gamble and I would hate to discover after spending $1.5-2k that I was happier with my Tempest and 290's.... meh, first world problems right?
 
NukeDukem said:
It's posts like these that make me a sad panda :( As someone running an overclocked Korean glossy IPS on dual watercooled AMD cards... I am on the fence as to whether it will be worth spending the $ and time on this monitor and a new set of nVidia cards. Matte coating and potential washed out colors do not appeal to me at all... however, the allure of much improved motion clarity for games is a big temptation.... sigh. The Overlord at 110Hz/110FPS is quite smooth, miles ahead of my old 60Hz IPS... I just don't know HOW much better Gsync and/or a blur free ULMB mode would make my overall gaming experience. It would be quite a gamble and I would hate to discover after spending $1.5-2k that I was happier with my Tempest and 290's.... meh, first world problems right?
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It would be a first world problem if you threw your money at Asus knowing all the problems. You see, someone from the developing world can never think of spending 800 dollars on matte coating and washed out colors and bad viewing angles and tn. I believe it's very reasonable to expect vibrant colors atleast for 800 dollars. Asus obviously doesn't care for colors going by the fact that they put on a matte coating.
save your money and perhaps get that new 5k apple display once they release just the display.
 
Colonel Sanders said:
That's strange, every review I have read said that the color reproduction is exceptional (for a TN panel.) The TFTcentral review had a pretty in depth analysis of color accuracy and it rated highly. http://www.tftcentral.co.uk/reviews/asus_rog_swift_pg278q.htm

Obviously we all know a TN is never going to be as good as a high quality IPS/VA but this is the tradeoff for the lowest possible input delay and minimal ghosting.
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I had to verify this in person after hearing the colors issue from all quarters. After spending some time with it I can confirm that the colors are terrible. I mean they look really washed out compared to my new lg 34um95. I've seen tn panels with better color vibrance than this thing. But looking at the t ft central review, I believe the culprit is the ag coating on this thing. The vibrant tn panel that I used had a glossy coating and rgb led back light. This thing is just matte. I mean, it's not semi glossy or light ag like the modern ips panels. It's aggressive ag coated matte.
It doesn't matter how good of a panel you have inside if you're going to cover it up with a hard matte coating right?
 
elvn said:
"Korean 1440p [strike=]blows this thing away by miles with the picture.[/s] has better color accuracy and uniformity in static imagery but is a blur in 1st/3rd person FoV movement."

I've asked about the color saturation capability of the swift and have been told repeatedly that it can display a lush, colorful picture even though obviously incapable of the finer degree of color accuracy(% of color spectrum) and uniformity (vs TN shift/"shadow gradient band") of an ips. That would be great for a monitor dedicated primarily to gaming - especially considering all of the huge other improvements this monitor has over an ips. However, I have no interest in the type of notably pale TN's that had been reported in some of the more recent 120hz+ monitors before the swift. I have a 1080p 120hz samsung A750D next to a 60hz 1440p ips. The samsung has good color saturation and is a great gaming monitor. I would like to upgrade to the 1440p rez, g-sync and ulmb modes in the swift.

If anyone has a different opinion of the swift's color saturation capability , I'd like to know.
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Look I like shiny things. I don't do color work so I don't care much about color accuracy. But I want my display to look lush and vibrant and colorful. Note that I don't also care a lot about viewing angles. So my line was if the swift could display saturated, vivid, lush colors that make the grass look beautiful green and my spells look beautiful and colorful, then I would buy it.
Sadly, this is the one aspect the swift falls flat. I've seen tn panels that show much lusher colors than this. My old alienware m17x r2 laptop screen with a tn panel shows far more beautifully vibrant colors than this monitor. And that screen is from 2010. Perhaps the colors on this satisfy some graphs or what these people like to call "gamut" or something. But they are not beautiful and they look very washed out in comparison to a good ips or glossy tn.
I saw this in person and used it for a day to come to my conclusion. Hopefully my observation can help others who think like I do.

Do keep in mind that a friend of mine absolutely loves this display. But he doesn't care for colors of looks. All he wanted was fast response times and more head shots in a fast fps. If you are that type of a gamer then please ignore everything I said. You will gain plenty of headshots with this thing.
 
I've had my Swift for a little over a fortnight, came from an Eizo foris fg2421 and before that a BenQ 2411XT and 27" Hazro IPS.

It's got no dead or stuck pixels, no backlight bleed and the colours are great. I've no idea how people can claim it's colours are washed out? I've run an Gretag i1 over it and the colours are now spot on, they were pretty close anyway to be honest.

I couldn't be happier with it really. It's less over saturated than the Eizo, (and no black crush), a million miles away from the BenQ in every way and blows the 60hz IPS out of the water with it's motion clarity.

I'm running ulmb@50% over G-Sync for fps stuff.
 
falkonIndian said:
I had to verify this in person after hearing the colors issue from all quarters. After spending some time with it I can confirm that the colors are terrible. I mean they look really washed out compared to my new lg 34um95. I've seen tn panels with better color vibrance than this thing. But looking at the t ft central review, I believe the culprit is the ag coating on this thing. The vibrant tn panel that I used had a glossy coating and rgb led back light. This thing is just matte. I mean, it's not semi glossy or light ag like the modern ips panels. It's aggressive ag coated matte.
It doesn't matter how good of a panel you have inside if you're going to cover it up with a hard matte coating right?
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Takes about 2 minutes of color correction to fix this, if you're using Nvidia as you should with this monitor, just go to digital vibrance and increase the setting by ~20%.

That said, this is the first monitor I have had to use Nvidia's DV setting for, but it is the easiest way to quickly correct the washed out factory settings on this monitor.

Overall, color is great compared to my Gateway FP2485W, Dell 2407wfp, Dell U2410. Great monitor, really enjoying it even though its not perfect in every aspect as some might expect in this price range.
 
Compared to my Korean Crossover, yeah the Swift colors look like shit, but for gaming it's smooth silk I love it.
 
So many conflicting reports on color saturation. I assumed everyone seeking lush color would try to bump the digital vibrance up if necessary.

I really don't care (have been willing to accept the tradeoff) that a TN doesn't have the color accuracy of an ips, I am just concerned about the color saturation it is capable of .. I want lush color for games not pale.
 
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elvn said:
So many conflicting reports on color saturation. I assumed everyone seeking lush color would try to bump the digital vibrance up if necessary.

I really don't care (have been willing to accept the tradeoff) that a TN doesn't have the color accuracy of an ips, I am just concerned about the color saturation it is capable of .. I want lush color for games not pale.
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Yeah again, I think people just aren't used to having to use the Digital Vibrance setting in the CP to get the color saturation they are expecting from a monitor. I know with the Swift out of the box settings, the combination of super bright backlight, overly high contrast setting, and cold color settings can lead to the impression of washed out colors.

I don't think color accuracy is a problem actually, the reviews I saw with reviewers using colorimeters showed really good delta E values in-line with the rated 95% adobe RGB, but you do need to calibrate. I think there was a calibrated ICC profile floating around somewhere from the TFTCentral review for people to reference.

The monitor also lacks a sharpness control option to help adjust pixel saturation, which is frustrating.

But yeah, by far the easiest way to increase color saturation with this monitor is just to boost Digital Vibrance in the NVCP.
 
It's happening! Finally made it in time.

I'm so excited and scared at the same time, I hope I get a good panel.
 
waiting on amazon or bb personally. Hope I can make the color rich enough when I get one.
 
I have been playing with my swift since September 2nd. It puts a smile to my face everyday I game on it. Bf4 is a whole new game when there is no input lag or tearing. I just cant say enough good things about it. It is a gaming monitor. I am a gamer. Thats why I have it. But movies youtube web surfing and normal desktop use delivers a great experience. Believe the hype if you play games nothing compares to 1440 gsync.

Ps Im running 680 SLI with out a single problem.
 
elvn said:
waiting on amazon or bb personally. Hope I can make the color rich enough when I get one.
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Colors are fine, black levels are not so good though. Lowering the brightness through the OSD menu helps but also destroys contrast levels.

Viewing angles are what you'd expect from a TN but I think some people have an exaggerated idea of how bad that really is. I only notice it on bright backgrounds, especially white. The upper half of the monitor looks slightly cooler than the lower half.

If your expectations aren't too high you'll be satisfied.
 
falkonIndian said:
Look I like shiny things. I don't do color work so I don't care much about color accuracy. But I want my display to look lush and vibrant and colorful. Note that I don't also care a lot about viewing angles. So my line was if the swift could display saturated, vivid, lush colors that make the grass look beautiful green and my spells look beautiful and colorful, then I would buy it.
Sadly, this is the one aspect the swift falls flat. I've seen tn panels that show much lusher colors than this. My old alienware m17x r2 laptop screen with a tn panel shows far more beautifully vibrant colors than this monitor. And that screen is from 2010. Perhaps the colors on this satisfy some graphs or what these people like to call "gamut" or something. But they are not beautiful and they look very washed out in comparison to a good ips or glossy tn.
I saw this in person and used it for a day to come to my conclusion. Hopefully my observation can help others who think like I do.

Do keep in mind that a friend of mine absolutely loves this display. But he doesn't care for colors of looks. All he wanted was fast response times and more head shots in a fast fps. If you are that type of a gamer then please ignore everything I said. You will gain plenty of headshots with this thing.
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What you see as "vibrant and popping" I see as oversaturated and inaccurate. Compared side by side with a wide gamut display, sure the Swift can appear "washed out". That does not mean that it has bad color. Don't confuse gamut with color accuracy. A display can have a very wide gamut but poor color accuracy or vice versa. The Swift has really good color calibration out of the box when using the "user mode" preset and lowering brightness a lot from the default. It represents the sRGB gamut well - which is pretty much what all content on the web etc is using. Coming from a wide gamut IPS display after a while I was not in any way bothered by the standard gamut of the Swift. I would also be perfectly happy doing graphic design work on it in situations that do not require a wider gamut.

If you want your vibrant colors, use the Digital Vibrance control in the Nvidia control panel.
 
Meh, I'll pass, I'm perfectly happy with my 27" IPS monitor, I'll only need two of these, beyond that is ridiculous... $800? Maybe for Christmas, LOL.
 
NickJames said:
Compared to my Korean Crossover, yeah the Swift colors look like shit, but for gaming it's smooth silk I love it.
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Why does anyone think a TN panel can hold up against an IPS/PLS panel? I just don't get that. Not directed at you by the way.

TN has been the leader in gaming panels forever for LCD's. People who suddenly expect a 2560x1440 120hz 1ms monitor with Gsync made for gaming to have the same color/contrast as a less expensive IPS/PLS are just totally blowing their expectations out of the realm of reality.

If you buy this monitor you buy it for gaming. Anything else is a GIGANTIC waste of money. You can spend $300 on a Qnix and get a great everything else experience but even that monitor (my current favorite) can't hold a candle to the ROG in terms of gaming. Even my upgrade ASUS 24 inch Gsync monitor can't keep up with the ROG and up until the ROG I felt it was the best gaming monitor on the planet.

Ever since buying the ROG (yep , took the plunge) I've been absolutely BLOWN the fuck away by it. Its a masterpiece really for gaming. Yes it has a panel lottery (what doesn't these days?) but I got lucky and mine is pretty minimal on backlight bleed. Its so absolutely butter smooth that I'll never... NEVER go back to any other panel for PC gaming. EVER again. The only next evolution is 4k at 120hz with Gsync in my mind and we know that isn't coming anytime soon.

You can't have both. It doesn't exist. Eizo got close but fuck themselves with a horrible panel lottery that makes its amazing gaming panel a total coin toss.
 
Godmachine said:
Why does anyone think a TN panel can hold up against an IPS/PLS panel? I just don't get that. Not directed at you by the way.

TN has been the leader in gaming panels forever for LCD's. People who suddenly expect a 2560x1440 120hz 1ms monitor with Gsync made for gaming to have the same color/contrast as a less expensive IPS/PLS are just totally blowing their expectations out of the realm of reality.

If you buy this monitor you buy it for gaming. Anything else is a GIGANTIC waste of money. You can spend $300 on a Qnix and get a great everything else experience but even that monitor (my current favorite) can't hold a candle to the ROG in terms of gaming. Even my upgrade ASUS 24 inch Gsync monitor can't keep up with the ROG and up until the ROG I felt it was the best gaming monitor on the planet.

Ever since buying the ROG (yep , took the plunge) I've been absolutely BLOWN the fuck away by it. Its a masterpiece really for gaming. Yes it has a panel lottery (what doesn't these days?) but I got lucky and mine is pretty minimal on backlight bleed. Its so absolutely butter smooth that I'll never... NEVER go back to any other panel for PC gaming. EVER again. The only next evolution is 4k at 120hz with Gsync in my mind and we know that isn't coming anytime soon.

You can't have both. It doesn't exist. Eizo got close but fuck themselves with a horrible panel lottery that makes its amazing gaming panel a total coin toss.
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Dude, please read my previous post and let me make this clearer. the colors are washed out EVEN WHEN COMPARED TO CERTAIN TN PANELS. I am in the possession of a TN panel that runs circles around this one with regards to colors popping. Now, after reading some responses here, let me summarize

1. Colors are washed out compared to LG 34um95 and dell u3011 (observed in person)
2. Colors are washed out compared to alienware m17x r2 rgb display (TN, RGB led backlight, Glossy)
3. Considering TFT central found no issues with the panel, it is my humble observation that the matteness of the coating might be a big contributor to washed out colors.
4. It is claimed in the responses that increasing vibrancy in the D.V Nvidia thingy will increase the saturation and make the colors pop. However, I haven't verified it and I have given my display back so cant verify it.

So there. No one here is comparing the TN to IPS just for the sake of doing it. All they're looking for is if the colors pop. TN not an issue - see, observe, I'm not mentioning viewing angles?? I get it, its tn, its going to have bad viewing angles. But there's no excuse for colors being washed out because I have seen TN panels where they do pop.
 
chizow said:
Takes about 2 minutes of color correction to fix this, if you're using Nvidia as you should with this monitor, just go to digital vibrance and increase the setting by ~20%.

That said, this is the first monitor I have had to use Nvidia's DV setting for, but it is the easiest way to quickly correct the washed out factory settings on this monitor.

Overall, color is great compared to my Gateway FP2485W, Dell 2407wfp, Dell U2410. Great monitor, really enjoying it even though its not perfect in every aspect as some might expect in this price range.
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This... I haven't done this and if this fixes the washed out colors, then I stand corrected. My observation was purely with what I could do to the colors on the monitor itself and I still maintain that if the Ag coating had been atleast semi-glossy instead of full on matte, we would have seen a big difference in out of box colors.
 
First impressions: wow, that AG coating is really, really awful. You can see the graininess on all but the darkest colors... This alone might be enough to send it back.
 
Yeah, I mentioned that in a comment on my Amazon review. The coating isn't Dell U2711 bad (that is, even though I got a perfect one I literally returned it for that reason alone), but it's bad.
 
I really feel like a lot of the negative comments I've seen about this monitor could have been avoided by using a different, less aggressive AG coating. I'm coming from an IPS display (LG 27EA63V) and the Swift is surprisingly close in most aspects. The damn AG messes with what is definitely the best TN display I've yet seen.

Gaming at 144hz is just as amazing as I'd hoped. :D
 
Colonel Sanders said:
I really feel like a lot of the negative comments I've seen about this monitor could have been avoided by using a different, less aggressive AG coating. I'm coming from an IPS display (LG 27EA63V) and the Swift is surprisingly close in most aspects. The damn AG messes with what is definitely the best TN display I've yet seen.

Gaming at 144hz is just as amazing as I'd hoped. :D
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Yeah and in my experience some people are more susceptible to it than others. Thing is, personally I'm not demanding a full on glossy coating since I know that would be unfair to matte users. However asus could have met in the middle with a light ag coating like some of these new semi glossy panels. Those have ag properties and also don't hide the colors completely. Everyone would have been happy then. It's a shame because I really wanted to like this monitor and I know quite a few people in the same boat as well.
 
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