Gaming monitors are getting really good these days and you don’t even have to break the bank anymore to pick up something decent. What’s amazing to me too is the fact that you can pick up a 35-inch 2K curved display for less than $400, which would have cost you an arm and a leg a few years ago. For instance, Monoprice makes a 35-inch, 1800R 2K curved display with a 120Hz refresh rate for just $319. It’s called the Monoprice Zero-G 35″ Curved Monitor and it’s an ultrawide unit with a resolution of 3440x1440p@120Hz, making this a fantastic choice for both work and play.
DESIGN
Let’s start off with the design of the Zero-G 35″ Curved Monitor. There’s only so much you can really do with a monitor these days that hasn’t already been done before, so I can’t fault this for looking pretty normal. There’s really not much special about the design of it from the front other than the fact that the bezels on it aren’t that large and it uses matte textured plastic. The display itself has an anti-glare coating on it and that’s pretty much it on the front. There aren’t any LEDs or buttons that you can see and there’s not even a logo. That’s because the original logo that was on it was a sticker and it fell off on the second day of testing this out. That’s fine because the logo didn’t look that great anyways and it looks much cleaner without one.
There are buttons, but they’re located at the bottom of the display and hidden from view.
The back of the Zero-G 35″ Curved Monitor is where it gets a bit more interesting with some cool-looking vents on the two outer parts of the back and two red LEDs that stretch across the middle. I don’t think these change colors as I couldn’t find anywhere in the settings to adjust that. The stand for the monitor is fairly thin and strong and takes up a fairly large footprint to keep the monitor steady and in place.
Other than that, you’re looking at one HDMI 2.0 port, two HDMI 1.4 ports and one DisplayPort 1.2 port.
SPECS
In terms of specs, the Monoprice Zero-G 35″ Curved Monitor is pretty good for the price. You’re looking at an ultrawide display with an aspect ratio of 21:9 with an overall resolution of 3440x1440p @ 120Hz refresh rate. That’s fairly solid for gaming. The monitor also supports AMD FreeSync. Lastly, the is a 1800R curved display, which means it’s the least curvy of most curved displays, but is good for those who might find 1000R and 12000R displays too curvy.
Lastly, the monitor does support VESA mounting, but you need to remove the stand and attach some brackets for it to work correctly. It does come with them in the box.
EXPERIENCE
The Monoprice Zero-G 35″ Curved Monitor has been pretty good for the most part. For work, this monitor is absolutely amazing. The color output is really good as is the brightness. With 2K resolution, I’m able to display three browser windows or apps all at once without overlap. That’s incredible to me and is amazing for productivity. If you want something for work that will give you some crazy desktop real estate, you can’t go wrong with a 2K ultrawide setup.
Gaming on the other hand has been mostly positive. The games that support 2K ultrawide resolution look really good and you can see more of your game. However, I’ve run across some games that seem to exhibit screen tearing while moving really fast. An example of this would be Destiny 2. Also, the game doesn’t quite seem to move as smoothly and that might be because of the 4ms response time instead of the 1ms response times you see one some other gaming monitors. It doesn’t quite look as good as some other gaming monitors I’ve tested. Then again, Destiny is an odd game when it comes to testing mainly because it behaves in unpredictable ways based on whether it’s running in a window, full screen, or any other number of different factors.
Overall though. the Monoprice Zero-G 35″ Curved Monitor is still a very good 2K monitor for the price and despite some small issues with gaming, I think most of that comes down to experimenting with in-game settings to get the best visuals out of this monitor.
FINAL THOUGHTS
The Monoprice Zero-G 35″ Curved Monitor is the largest monitor I’ve tested so far and while it’s not the largest ultrawide monitor out there, I can’t imagine having anything larger than this. In fact, I wouldn’t even have the space to fit anything larger. This monitor is plenty large as it is and I will say that it’s done wonders for my productivity. I don’t have to swap between windows as much anymore and can fit my whole workflow on the desktop without anything hiding behind another window. I thought my old ultrawide 1080p monitor was wide before, but it doesn’t even compare to how massive of a difference this one is. I don’t think I could ever go back to anything smaller.
Aside from the size, I’m pretty impressed by the performance of the Monoprice Zero-G 35″ Curved Monitor. The colors look great, there’s just the right amount of brightness, and gaming performance is above average for me. This monitor is definitely a keeper and I’ll need to rethink my current setup with the smaller ultrawide second display.
The Monoprice Zero-G 35″ Curved Monitor is currently available for $319 on Amazon.
