When comparing Samsung U28E590D vs Acer Predator Z301C, the Slant community recommends Samsung U28E590D for most people. In the question“What are the best monitors?” Samsung U28E590D is ranked 22nd while Acer Predator Z301C is ranked 35th. The most important reason people chose Samsung U28E590D is:
The Samsung uses a 10-bit color display panel, resulting fantastic picture quality. It can reproduce more than a billion colors, compared to the 16 million colors of 8-bit panels. The color saturation and accuracy easily compete with more expensive screens, although they are not precise enough for photo-centric work. Contrast levels are average, but the monitor is brighter than other monitors in its price group.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Great picture quality
The Samsung uses a 10-bit color display panel, resulting fantastic picture quality. It can reproduce more than a billion colors, compared to the 16 million colors of 8-bit panels. The color saturation and accuracy easily compete with more expensive screens, although they are not precise enough for photo-centric work. Contrast levels are average, but the monitor is brighter than other monitors in its price group.
Pro Suitable for watching in bright setting
The brightness measures up to 300 nits after calibration and the matte screen reduces glare, making it easy to view the screen in bright conditions
Pro Good contrast ratio
It delivers a standard contrast ratio of 1:1000, although when properly calibrated, the contrast ratio goes down slightly.
Pro Excellent response time for gamers
This screen offers an excellent response time of only 1 ms, compared to the 5 ms (or more) of other monitors in this price range. Input lag measures at 15 ms, which is second only to dedicated gaming monitors with 10 ms response times.
Pro Multiple inputs (and the option to watch them simultaneously)
This screen's connectivity consists of two HDMI 2.0 ports and one DisplayPort 1.2., which is enough for most users. Samsung offers picture-in-picture and picture-by-picture modes. Meaning that you can view two inputs side by side or one can be scaled down to a small window that you can place on one of the corners.
Pro Good colors
The screen’s 10-bit panel covers 97% of the sRGB color spectrum which is a respectable result for a budget monitor. For professional use, you will have to look for something more accurate. Color saturation and accuracy is excellent and can compete with higher priced models.
Pro Compact, stable and aesthetically pleasing stand
The stand takes little place and has a metallic finish and is quite stable, even if at first this doesn’t seem to be the case
Pro Comfortable on eyes even after prolonged use
This monitor offers a flicker-free backlight, which reduces strain on your eyes. It also includes a setting that reduces the amount of blue light in the screen, making the picture look softer and facilitates nighttime use.
Pro Elegant and minimal look
This monitor is finished in a black plastic with metallic look borders and looks elegant and minimal.
Pro Features a USB 3.0 hub
You can use the monitor’s integrated USB 3.0 hub to interconnect or charge peripheral USB devices.
Pro Has speakers
Even though the monitor’s 6 W speakers aren’t particularly useful for gaming, occasionally they might come in handy.
Pro Has a curve
The monitor’s 1800R curvature makes the overall gaming experience more immersive as you can experience the panel surrounding you.
Pro Overclockable
You can increase the monitor’s native refresh rate from 144 Hz to 200 Hz using Acer’s overclocking feature. Such overclocking doesn’t pose any danger to your hardware and is simple to implement.
Pro Has an FPS counter
The monitor’s integrated FPS counter works flawlessly and doesn’t increase the display lag.
Pro Has G-Sync
G-Sync allows the Acer Z301C to eliminate stutter and screen tearing by synchronizing its refresh rate to the framerate of your Nvidia video card.
This feature works with all the Nvidia’s graphics cards that are newer than the GTX 650Ti.
Pro Decent responsiveness
The monitor’s high responsiveness makes actions feel instant as its input lag of 6.8 ms is too low to be sensed even in fast-paced games.
The monitor’s input lag corresponds to the time delay needed by the monitor’s hardware to process a frame generated by a computer’s GPU.
Pro Excellent motion handling
The monitor does an excellent job of motion handling because of its low full pixel response time, integrated ULNB feature, and highly responsive 144 Hz panel.
The monitor doesn’t suffer from ghosting because its four milliseconds of full pixel response time ensures that fast-moving objects don’t leave overly long traces on the screen, as it allows each of the panel's pixel to change its color within only 4 ms.
The monitor’s ultra low motion blur feature eliminates the motion blur as it makes the monitor strobe and behave like CRT monitors.
The overall motion looks genuinely fluid because of the monitor’s 144 Hz panel, which refreshes so quickly, that the image transitions look perfectly smooth to the human eye.
Pro Great for widescreen gaming
For most new games, the Acer Z301C will give you the advantage of having a wider field of view compared to those who play on 1920x1080 panels. because of the monitor’s 2560x1080 resolution. It has a very noticeable impact in many FPS games where the extended side view lets you spot your enemies faster.
Pro Exceptional picture quality
The Acer Z301C offers picture quality that few other gaming monitors can match. Its native contrast ratio, peak brightness, color accuracy, and gamma are superior to most of its competitors.
The monitor’s premium quality AMVA panel displays eye-catching images, with intensely deep blacks, vivid colors, and lifelike intermediate tones and highlights. The dark scenes look amazing thanks to the monitor’s contrast ratio of 2856:1. Colors look crisp as the Z301C can get up to 355 nits of brightness. The mid tones and highlights look saturated thanks to the panel's gamma which is only 2.3% off from being ideal.
Furthermore, the monitor's overall color inaccuracies are so minor that the human eye can’t detect those.
Pro Excellent for gaming
Because of its responsiveness, motion handling capabilities, and picture quality, the Acer Z301C is among the best gaming monitors on the market.
Additionally, the monitor comes with a bunch of gaming-specific features, such as G-Sync and an FPS counter.
Pro Good for media editing
The Acer Z301C is an excellent option for those who create media for web services as the monitor can display the full range of sRGB colors. The sRGB color space is the default for the majority of web applications, including YouTube and Twitch.
Cons
Con Extremely limited Freesync range (54-64hz)
The Freesync feature is almost useless as the range is actually 54-64hz instead of at least 40-60hz.
And no, even using CRU won't help, as any modification to the freesync range will result into the monitor turning complete white (stuck) eventually after awhile.
Con Poor viewing angles
It uses a TN panel which generally has terrible viewing angles. Color shifting occurs at 40 degrees. And even though Samsung’s proprietary “MagicAngle” helps to improve it, there are plenty of other monitors offering better viewing angles.
Con Limited flexibility
The monitor does not offer much flexibility options as it only can be slightly tilted, but you cannot change the height or swivel it at any direction. There is a Vesa mount in the back so you can attach it to a more flexible stand or wall mount.
Con No USB ports
There are no USB ports found on this screen, so there is no possibility to watch media from external storage directly or use the screen as an USB hub.
Con Accessible navigation joystick
Navigation is done with a joystick in the left bottom side of the screen and is easily accessible.
Con Cheap plastic on the back
The plastic on the back of the screen feels a bit cheap.
Con Very limited screen position control
The monitor can only be tilted by 20 degrees, and no swivel or height changing is available, so is very limited regarding screen position control.
Con Needs slight calibration
To unleash the monitor’s full potential, you’ll need to adjust some of its settings. Fortunately, all the key calibration parameters are available on the Internet.