Iiyama GCB3480WQSU-B1 Red Eagle
The gaming goliath you’re after?
WE’VE SEEN ultrawide monitors before, but they never fail to impress. This model from Iiyama offers a good-sized 34-inch IPS screen that’s about as big as one and a half 28-inch widescreen displays, boasts nearly 5 million pixels, and brings with it some impressive brightness.
The curve in the screen means that not only is the box it’s delivered in bigger than you’d expect, but it takes up more space. We’re not entirely sold on the benefits of a gentle arc in your monitor—it means it can’t sit flat against a wall, and that images in the corners are larger in your vision than those in the center. After decades of perfectly flat screens, having one that bends toward you can be a little disconcerting.
Pretty soon, however, it becomes second nature, and when playing games, the immersive nature of both the wider screen and the curve become apparent. This Red Eagle monitor has a few features that gamers will appreciate, with a 180Hz refresh rate and HDR compatibility, along with a maximum brightness of almost 450 nits. Games that can play to all its strengths are a bit scarce, however.
Creative app users will appreciate the color response, with 100 percent of sRGB, 88 percent of Adobe RGB, and 95 percent of P3 measured in our tests. While this means the colors you set in apps like Photoshop and InDesign are more likely to be accurately represented, for the rest of us it means a well-saturated picture that’s pleasing to the eye.
There are four inputs at the back of the screen, and while there’s no picture-inpicture mode so you can have a streaming stick playing a movie at the same time as you play a game, it does have automatic switching between inputs. There’s no single-cable USB-C connection, so laptop users won’t be able to charge while sending a video signal, but there is a small USB hub that converts a USB 3 Type-B connection from your PC to two Type-A ports, one of which is a quick-charger, allowing you to connect a keyboard dongle and maybe your cellphone.
Having more than one monitor has become popular, given the number of HDMI and DisplayPort outputs that hang out of our graphics cards, but an ultrawide monitor like this takes things in the other direction. A single ultrawide screen can simplify your setup, removing the need to have more than one screen and making good use of Windows’ app snapping and tiling options. While it’s not ideal for maximizing a single app—with the possible exception of video editing or graphic design software, where you want a large view of what you’re doing—it still makes for a powerful productivity tool.
There’s a VESA mount on the back of the monitor, onto which you can connect an arm or stand. This splayed V-shaped foot uses actual screws to connect, instead of the spring-loaded clips we’ve seen elsewhere, with a small screwdriver in the packaging to assist.
We’re not sure that this will be for everyone, but if you do make the leap, this package has a lot to offer. The picture is sharp, bright, and colorful, there’s plenty of connectivity so you can switch between devices, and the USB hub adds an extra layer of convenience. If you like what you see, and have the desk space, you won’t be disappointed.
Iiyama GCB3480WQSU-B1 Red Eagle
ULTRAWIDE Good brightness and color; Sharp picture; Lots of inputs.
ULTRAHIDE USB-C and picture-in-picture would have taken it to another level.
$539, iiyama.com