The PRISM+ XQ340 Pro, 3440×1440, 21:9 (UWQHD), is a value Quantum Dot monitor suitable for gamers and home workers alike.
Who is the PRISM+ XQ340 Pro for? Two markets. First, gamers that want 48-144hz AMD Freesync (and some G-Sync compatibility). It has 4ms G-t-G and an 1ms MPRT. And its $599 price is a lot less than a professional level gamers monitor.
The other market is workers (like me) who need screen real estate. WQHD resolution means a pixel density of 109ppi – the same as a 27-inch 16:9 QHD screen with a 16:9 aspect ratio. In simple English, it displays about three A4 pages at the same resolution instead of two. Or for an Excel spreadsheet, it shows columns out to BA and 51 lines deep (at 100% – if you can read text that small. Most will scale it to 125 or 150%).
Who is PRISM+?
PRISM+ is not a brand you may have heard of in Australia. Nor its flagship PRISM+ XQ340 Pro but we have done our homework and can report it is a Singapore based company specialising in displays. It specifies what it wants and works with contract manufacturers (that also work for other major brands) to produce the finished product.
PRISM+ (Australian Website here) is a 100% online company (to be able to offer low prices), so you need to understand that all enquiries go via an automated Zendesk system (good). It has a local Australian office and warehouse in Sydney. Warranty is three years and compliant with Australian Consumer Law (more later on the excellent warranty).
What is Quantum Dot?
First, if you are reading any other reviews, make sure it is for the PRISM+ XQ340 Pro – the Q is for Quantum Dot.
Blue edge-lit (not back-lit) LED lights shine up a light guide and off a reflector plate through the Quantum Dot (QDEF) layer containing microscopic red and green QDs. These fluoresce brightly (different wavelengths), and the combined RGB light goes through the VA TFT LCD (LCM) panel and through an anti-reflective layer to reach you.
We use the term ‘value’ as it uses a lower cost edge-light with no local dimming. You can see some light banding and slightly greyer blacks than more expensive FALD (full-array local dimming) panels.
The PRISM+ XQ340 Pro uses the Samsung LSM340YP05 VA RGB vertical pixel panel to which PRISM+ add a blue LED edge-light and a Quantum Dot colour layer. While that bare Samsung panel is used by the likes of Samsung 34CF791, Monoprice Dark Matter 34, Viotek GN34DBE, Gigabyte 34+WQC, HP E344c, AOC CU34G2X, Philips 34B1C and many more, PRISM+ produces one of the higher speced QD versions.
PRISM+ XQ340 Pro Basic panel specs
Size | 34″ diagonal Quantum Dot |
Resolution | UWQHD (Ultra-wide, quad HD) 3440 x 1440 in 21:9 ratio |
Curve | 1500R – means would form a circle with a 3-metre diameter. |
Panel | Samsung LSM340YP05 VA edge-lit RGB vertical stripe with QD layer |
Vertical refresh | 144Hz (with right video card) AMD FreeSync (otherwise 100Hz AU power) |
HDR | Yes |
Colours | 8-bit 16.7m colours |
Brightness nits | SDR 300, HDR400 (peak means a small percentage of the screen for a second or so) |
Contrast | SDR 2500:1 and HDR 3000:1 (static due to edge-lit) |
Gamut | 140% sRGB, 103% DCI-P3 |
Accuracy | Delta E 3.9 out of the box (<4 is good), but pro users will want to calibrate it below 2. |
Colour temp | default 6500K (Adjust warm, cool and user) |
Other | Low Blue light and flicker-free |
Coating | Anti-glare – not specified but glare increases as you move off-centre |
As far as a panel goes, it shows the punchy Quantum Dot colours that we all like. You can adjust between standard, photo, movie, game, FPS and RTS. The text is crisp. You should download the ICC Windows Profile for this monitor, and it sets it at 6500K and a Delta E of 2.2 – very good.
Our tests confirmed most of the claims. Windows 10 Display Properties report that it does not stream HDR video or support HDR (tested on Microsoft Surface Pro 7).
In any case, you may find that an AMD Radeon or NVIDIA GeForce card may produce different results and support HDR and 144Hz on DisplayPort 1. Note that the Intel Graphics only supports 50, 60 and 100Hz via a DP 1.4 connection and 100Hz via HDMI 2.0.
Screen Summary: The focus is on size for the price, and PRISM+ implementation of the Samsung panel is one of the better ones.
Gamers
If you have the right graphics card, it should support 48-144Hz, AMD Freesync and NVIDIA G-Sync (not certified – try at your own risk). It has a grey-to-grey of 4ms and a 1ms MPRT (moving picture response time). It should be fine for most high frame rate games. We saw no evidence of tearing or judder.
The HDMI Port is 2.0 (18Gbps) and won’t support more than 4K@100fps, so it is not one to use with your shiny new PS5 or Xbox. In any case, the PS5 will not support UWQHD displays unless they have 2160p downscaling – this does not.
The claimed 178° horizontal and vertical viewing angles are theoretical for all VA panels. Moving past 135° (45° off front on) shows significant colour washout and brightness loss. However, VA panels have a high contrast ratio making light and dark very visible – a plus point of FPS or dark lighting games
Ports
Here we see the cost savings in action.
It has 2 x DisplayPort 1.4 (144Hz support) and 2 x HDMI 2.0 (up to 100Hz). These allow up to four computers to connect and use it as a picture-by-picture screen (driven by two separate devices).
A 3.5mm stereo 3-pole headphone jack takes the embedded sound from the active input port. You need amplified speakers or a headset to use it.
If this were a more expensive monitor, we would expect a USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 ALT DP or Thunderbolt 3 port.
Size/fit
It is hard to beat a 34″ 21:9 screen for real estate. The 1500R curve is pretty easy on the eye and lends itself to multiple screen use – it has small top and side bezels.
It is 808 x 495 x 225mm x 7.6kg with stand and 808 x 343 x 123mm x 6.3kg without. The stand is a centre column with +5° to -15° tilt, 15° swivel and 100mm rise from 398-495mm (top).
The legs do stick out, but that is for stability. It attaches to a clip out mount replete with a nice blue LED glow. The VESA wall mount is four standoff screws – you provide the plate or monitor arm.
The 240V cable plugs directly into the unit (no power brick), and the DisplayPort cable provided is way too short for dual monitor use.
User interface- generic
The user interface is the same for most brands using the Samsung panel. What that means is the controls/electronics are also generic to the panel. You can read all about the adjustments in the manual here (it is a PDF, so check downloads).
Power – sipper
We tested using the Emberpulse meter. At worst, it consumes 80W/h, which means a few cents per hour. In sleep mode, it is .5W. It gets a 4-star rating.
Warranty – excellent
Warranty (policy here) is 3-years ACL, and it is excellent. It is a doorstep exchange, so customers do not need to ship the monitors back. The freight costs are all covered by PRISM+ (a strong part of its customer experience). The XQ340 Pro has a 2 bright, 3 dark, total 3 dead pixel policy.
Caveats
Mac users – make sure you have 21:9, 3440 x 1440p res settings (older Macs may have issues). PS5 users may have issues with all Ultra-wide 3440 x 1440 monitors using this panel.
GadgetGuy’s take
Never heard of PRISM+ before. Probably would not have reviewed an unknown brand, but something about the professional approach and the fact it is a Singapore company with local warehousing in Sydney swayed me. And they have 200,000+ customers and over 600, 5-star reviews made me think twice.
I am pleasantly surprised – and that is hard! The gear is value-focused; it is not smick or packaged in glossy boxes. Its direct-to-consumer model means it lives or dies by its quality and after-sales service.
Ratings are is based, for the most part, on performance and in a small part on price. It meets or exceeds all our test paradigms that get it well past the 8/10 pass mark. Price, warranty, and after-sales support notch it up a few more points. I would be glad to have it on my desk.
You can read other GadgetGuy monitor news and reviews here
A few things to note as someone who also took a shot and grabbed this monitor:
Whilst it does support adaptive sync, it is NOT G-sync certified. It will work with G-sync, but I have found that the backlight tends to flicker quite a bit when the framerate is is between 48-90fps. I have heard that this is fairly common with VA panels such as this one, but not something I am used to coming from a IPS panel with G-sync. This is something some people may not notice, but I did instantly.
I also tried to plug a PS5 into it. The PS5 recognises the panel as 1080p @ 60hz, which is fine and to be expected, but the image quality is horrendous. I am not sure if this is due to the panel scaling to 1080p terribly, or something with the PS5. That said, my other 16:9 1440p Acer Predator manages to scale the PS5 down to 1080p just fine, so I suspect the scaling on the Prism+ panel is just terrible. Be warned.
Not bad value for money, but just know going in that this is not a top-rate panel, it is bang of buck.
Many thanks for the feedback. Yes, it is bang-for-buck rather than top-end performance but at the price, it is very good for most. I will make sure that the G-Sync reference is clear on no certification. Interestingly PRISM+ felt the comments were fair, but asked to make it clear that the test unit (Surface Pro 7 with Surface 4K dock) does not support as many features as say, a gaming rig with an NVIDIA GTXC10 (or later). I have since been told the PS5 does not support 3440 x 1440 and PS5 selects 1920×1080. As the monitor (and the Samsung panel and electronics) do not have inbuilt downscale/upscale it is going to look poor.
Hi Ray,
Spot on! I also have since spoken the Prism+ support who mentioned no down/up scaling support, which explains the picture quality issue on PS5.
Perhaps something for them to consider on future models given the abundance of HDMI ports on the panel, would be good to be able to use this panel with game consoles.
One other thing of note is that the MRPT mode for 1ms cannot be used simultaneously with adaptive sync, so you have to choose between these options.
Thank you for your thorough review. Having the monitor I can confirm your review is fair and accurate 🙂
Hi, I’m looking at buying my first monitor (so i don’t know too much)
Ive got an xbox series x, is this monitor a good option for this console? Im not bothered about it being 4-8k just as long as the quality is good and the frame rate is optimal.
The Xbox series X is a 4K@120Hz capable device with all sorts of game things like VRR, ALLM, Active-sync and G-sync. The Prism+ X340 Pro is more a good desktop monitor for productivity and does not do any of those things – just 144Hz maximum.
Here is our pick: 4k FLAT SCREEN LG 27GN950-B
3140 X 1440 Samsung LC32G75TQSNXZA
You can read more here https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/best/xbox-series-x-s or here https://www.windowscentral.com/best-monitor-xbox-series-x-series-s but basically a 27 to 32″ flat 4Kor 34″ UWUHD.
200,000+ reviews for a company i’ve never heard of does raise some red flags for me in my opinion. I want to give it a go but it’s a hard sell still.
Yes they are enthusiastic but the product stacks up pretty well for the price. Apart from obvious warranty issues here in Australia (a risk worth taking) it is a good device.
Great comprehensive review Ray. Are you going to review the larger version at some stage, cheers Murdo
Hi Ray, which would you recommend this or the Samsung 32″ 4K curved monitor UR590C ?
I won’t recommend PRISM+ X490 PRO to Macbook Pro users….also 5K monitor comes with older version HDMI 2.0 interface shows how good they think about quality.