NEC MultiSync EX341R
NEC is hoping to flex IT budgets a little further than usual with its stunning MultiSync EX341R
Business monitors rarely set the pulse racing – or at least they didn’t until the NEC MultiSync EX341R landed in PC Pro’s labs. Granted, display geeks will moan that it lacks the 4K resolution or HDR technology that’s often packed into £1,000 living room TVs, but the NEC’s curved 34in display is designed for an entirely different purpose – to both rival and replace existing multimonitor setups, and provide pixelperfect image quality in the process.
If you’re one of those people who scoff at the idea of a curved TV, then it’s fair to say that curved monitors make a lot more sense. As an office monitor like the NEC will be viewed from a single seat, you won’t be fighting with family members to get the perfect position. When sat in that sweet spot, the curvature of the screen means your eyes are a more constant distance away from the onscreen image, which dramatically reduces how much refocusing your eyes must do – if you spend hours staring at a display, that curve could help keep eye strain at bay.
Measuring 34in from corner to corner, and with a generous resolution of 3,440 x 1,440, the MultiSync EX341R presents a disconcertingly huge desktop – one that fills almost every corner of your vision. It takes a little getting used to, not least as you end up moving your head a lot less. Gone too is the familiar sensation of refocusing your eyes to view different areas of the screen; it feels as if your eyes flit more easily from icon to icon, and window to window.
In pure image quality terms, the MultiSync EX341R gets a lot right. The Samsung-manufactured VA panel provides typically stunning contrast – we measured it at 2,099:1 – and the maximum brightness of 279cd/m2 is roughly twice as bright as you’ll need in any sensibly-lit office. As NEC has employed a matte anti-glare layer, rather than the glossy sheen used on many TVs or consumer monitors, there aren’t any issues with glare or reflections, even under bright office lighting. To the naked eye, the EX341R puts in a fine performance. Colours are bright and richly saturated, and the huge contrast means that images and movies look astonishingly solid and lifelike, while text stands out crisp and clear even at very low brightness levels. There are no obvious visual nasties either, with no backlight leakage visible under normal lighting. Under the more exacting eye of our X-Rite colorimeter, however, the NEC doesn’t receive a completely clean bill of health. The SVA panel covers 93% of the sRGB colour gamut but accuracy is wayward – reds a little too red, blues a little too blue. It makes for an exaggerated image that gives loads of pop to business slideshows and product photos, but it’s not strictly accurate. Those who need a colour-critical display should look elsewhere in NEC’s lineup. As you’d expect for a business monitor, NEC has prioritised both ergonomics and power efficiency. That huge, wide display could end up teetering back and forth atop a lesser stand, but NEC has ensured that the MultiSync EX341R
“The curvature of the screen reduces how much refocusing your eyes need to do, helping to keep eye strain at bay”
holds firm – the stand holds the display stock still, while providing 130mm of height adjustment and ample side-to-side and front-to-back tilt. Look closer along the monitor’s edge, meanwhile, and you’ll notice that NEC has also hidden a pair of brightness and presence sensors, which do their bit to save energy by automatically tweaking the backlight brightness, or turning the display off completely when you walk away from your desk.
Out back, there are two pairs of Display Port and HDMI inputs, along with a Display Port output for daisy-chaining a secondary display. The integrated USB 3 hub provides four super-speedy ports along the monitor’s left-hand edge and, unusually, NEC has provided two USB 3 inputs. Each USB input can be assigned to a specific video input, allowing you to use the same keyboard, mouse and connected peripherals on two computers, without plugging and unplugging cables every time. Combined with the picture-bypicture and picture-in-picture features, the EX341R makes light of working with two machines at once.
Suffice to say, NEC has done a lot right here. This is a monitor peppered with business-friendly features, bomb-proof build quality, and which is easy on the eye in more ways than one – as a one-box replacement to a multi-monitor setup, the EX341R hits the spot. At this price – currently just north of £1,000 – it’s no small investment, but if pixel-perfect colour accuracy isn’t top of your wishlist, this could be worth bending your budget for.