The Asus ProArt PA34VC Professional Curved Monitor ($999.99) is a cool, sprawling monitor for both work and play. It's designed for video editors, designers, and photographers, and it features excellent color accuracy, but it also includes a number of gaming-friendly features. Its curved, ultra-wide panel, with a 21:9 aspect ratio, is of a type more commonly seen in gaming monitors—as is its maximum 100Hz refresh rate and AMD FreeSync adaptive sync technology. It's an unusual hybrid of panel traits, and while not cheap, is a superb panel for bridging the gaming and creative worlds.

Color Accuracy and Much More

A matte-black 34-inch (measured diagonally) monitor, the PA34VC measures 16.8 by 32.1 by 8.8 inches (HWD), including its stand. The height increases to 21.2 inches when the stand is fully raised. The monitor is ergonomically friendly; in addition to the more than 4 inches of height adjustment, it can be tilted from 5 degrees downward to 23 degrees upward, and swiveled 30 degrees in each direction.

The base is T-shaped, with a horizontal front bar that extends 22 inches along the bottom, most of the width of the monitor. The middle of the stand is bisected by a beam that connects in back to a cylindrical shaft, which connects to the panel's cabinet near the top. The panel's bottom bezel is 0.6 inch tall; the side and top bezels are so thin that the PA34VC can be thought of as effectively frameless, which makes it a good candidate for use in a multi-monitor setup.

The PA34VC's IPS panel has a native UWQHD resolution (3,440 by 1,440 pixels), which works out to a 21:9 ultra-wide aspect ratio. Pixel density comes to 110 pixels per inch (ppi), lower than 4K monitors such as the ViewSonic VP2785-4K (163ppi) and effectively matching the ViewSonic VP3881 (111ppi). Generally, the higher the pixel density, the sharper the image.

The panel has 1900R curvature, meaning that if its curve were to continue around to form a full circle, it would have a radius of 1,900mm, or 1.9 meters. This is the tightest curvature we have seen on a monitor not geared exclusively to gaming. As is typical of IPS panels, the PA34VC has very wide viewing angles (rated at 178 degrees), which combine with the ultra-wide aspect ratio to produce an immersive experience.

As for color, the PA34VC comes pre-calibrated with a delta-E of less than 2, which is techno-speak for excellent color accuracy. To preserve this accuracy, Asus offers color-accuracy tuning and uniformity compensation through its ProArt Calibration Technology software, which features a 14-bit color LUT (look-up table) and the ability to save color profiles on the monitor. It is compatible with hardware calibrators such as X-Rite i1 Display Pro and the Datacolor Spyder5 series.

For connectivity, the ProArt PA34VC comes with a DisplayPort 1.2 input, a pair of HDMI 2 inputs, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. You get three USB 3.0 ports, plus two USB Type-C ports that support Thunderbolt 3. One acts as an input and one as an output for video-signal purposes, but they also support power delivery (enough to charge a laptop) and up to 40Gbps transfer speeds. Alas, all the ports face downward in the back, and therefore are not very easy to access.

Joyriding Through the OSD

The controls for the onscreen display (OSD) are in back, stacked along the right-hand edge. On top is a mini-joystick controller and on the bottom an on/off button. Between them are five other buttons.

Pressing the joystick straight in brings up the OSD, namely the main (Splendid) menu, which offers nine modes: Standard, sRGB, Rec. 709, HDR Simulate, Scenery, Reading, and Darkroom, plus two user-defined modes. You navigate among them by moving the joystick down, to the right (for sub-modes), to the left, and up.

Below Splendid are menu items titled Blue Light Filter, Color, Image, Sound, PIP/PBP (Picture-in-Picture and Picture-by-Picture, for viewing content from multiple sources simultaneously), Setting, Input Select, System Setup, and Shortcut, each with their own submenus.

Initial Testing

The Asus-rated luminance and contrast ratio for the PA34VC are 300 nits and 1,000:1, respectively.

I did our luminance, color, and contrast testing using a Klein K10-A colorimeter, a Murideo SIX-G signal generator, and SpectraCal CalMAN 5 software. When testing in Standard mode, I measured the luminance at 223.7 candelas per meter squared (aka nits), and calculated the contrast ratio at 3162:1. With HDR enabled, the luminance jumped to 322.6 nits.

According to Asus, the PA34VC covers 100 percent of the sRGB color space. I made the chromaticity chart shown above with it in sRGB color mode. The area within the triangle represents the colors in the sRGB color spectrum, while the area bounded by the curve approximates the range of colors that can be discerned with the human eye. The circles represent my color measurements, which cover 99.9 percent of the sRGB spectrum. So, for all practical purposes, it's the full spectrum.

I viewed a number of YouTube videos, in both HDR and SDR, on the PA34VC, and there was definite improvement in both brightness and contrast when I switched to HDR. The monitor also did well in rendering a series of animated 3D CAD graphics from the SPECviewperf benchmark suite.

The Notorious RGB

Is the PA34VC a good choice as a monitor for photographers? It depends largely on how you use your photos. If your images are all to be posted online, a monitor such as the PA34VC that displays the full sRGB color spectrum is fine. sRGB is the standard color space for the Web, so even though Adobe RGB has a wider range of possible colors—sRGB only encompasses about 70 percent of the Adobe RGB gamut—websites will not be able to display the additional colors. What's more, if you do upload art saved in Adobe RGB to the web, it will be automatically converted to sRGB, with the colors actually looking duller than if you had shot it or saved it to sRGB in the first place.

That said, Adobe RGB does have a wider color gamut than sRGB, and savvy photographers may be able to coax a more vivid range of colors when printing Adobe RGB images, whether they're outputting their own prints or working with a commercial service. They will certainly want a monitor that will display them to full advantage. The ViewSonic VP2785-4K ($898.00 at Amazon) and BenQ SW320 ( at Amazon) each cover 99 percent of the Adobe RGB color space, according to their manufacturers. With those monitors, if you need to work in sRGB, you simply change the mode on the OSD.

With a 100Hz refresh rate, support for AMD's FreeSync adaptive-sync technology, the panel's pronounced curvature, and even the mini-joystick control, the PA34VC can do double-duty as a respectable if not top-of-the-line gaming monitor. I noted an input lag figure of 5.1ms (gathered using the HDFury 4K Diva). It did well in displaying our test games, among them Far Cry 5.

Hardcore gamers may want to spring for a 144Hz G-Sync monitor, such as the Editors' Choice Acer Predator XB3 (XB273K) , but the PA34VC should be more than satisfactory for most everyone else.

A Versatile Display for Graphics Pros and Gamers

The Asus ProArt PA34VC Professional Curved Monitor is primarily geared to professional video editors, photographers, and designers, but thanks to its ultra-wide curved panel, 100Hz refresh rate, and AMD FreeSync adaptive sync technology, it also has a foot in the gaming world. When you're not using the PA34VC to tweak photos for the web, edit videos, or design the latest gadget, you can get in some rounds of your favorite AAA titles. As a professional monitor with an unusual degree of versatility, it earns our Editors' Choice.

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