Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

I've been saving money to upgrade my 32" 720p TV even though it's still going strong for almost 4 years because: 1) It's on my desk and it takes up a lot of space 2) While 720p is easier on my graphics card, the image quality basically cancels out how easily i can max out most settings on modern games. I would say when i'm at a monitor, 1/3 of the time I'm gaming the other 2/3 are just basic web browsing and YouTube consumption. 720p on a 32 inch TV sitting less than 6 feet from it would probably make most enthusiast PC gamers either cringe or cry (or both). I knew that while the 2/3rds I spend doing non-gaming activities would benefit from a higher resolution, my GPU would choke on it. I have been eyeing this Acer monitor because of how affordable it is (get it at $279, DEFINITELY get it right now at $249) and because it's a 1440p resolution which is higher than the standard 1080p. So does paying less equal less quality? With this monitor, I think not. I will list the pros and cons briefly and go into more detail below. PROS +VERY bright (I believe it's at 80 at default which is okay in the daytime but at night it's WAY too bright and I found 45 to be a sweet spot) +IPS display (Vibrant colors at wide viewing angles, everyone needs an IPS monitor unless you are those competitive gamers who need 144 hz monitors that right now are great for multiplayer games but have terrible colors and poor viewing angles) +Very affordable (A lot of high end 1080p monitors are around this price and while most are around $150-$200, I feel it's worth extra to go to 1440p especially if you do more web browsing than gaming) NEUTRAL Quality (My monitor came with absolutely NO dead pixels and very faint backlight bleed common for IPS displays, I guess I won the monitor lottery. This WILL vary, but my experience was positive however I will leave this as a neutral as not all panels are made the same. Mine was made in April of this yer.) CONS -Very flimsy stand (Yes the other reviewers are right, the stand is quite bad. When you try to adjust the vertical height of the monitor it WILL shake. You can't adjust it horizontally nor can you turn it sideways like the Dell Ultrasharp's. It is easy to install the stand though.) -NO vesa mounts (Ties into the flimsy stand because you're stuck with that stand. Some people will find a lack of vesa mounts to be a nonstarter. For me, I can live with a flimsy stand when everything else about this monitor is a solid A.) In the box it comes with a DVI cable and an HDMI cable but not a display port cable. Something to note. So if you're not a gamer, the rest of this review you can skip. I will say to buy this monitor if you aren't a gamer because of the affordability, and the great display at 1440p resolution. Now, for the gamers: The higher the resolution the more your FPS is decreased. If you absolutely MUST have a solid 60fps experience, you will need at least a GTX 970 or a R9 290x if you're okay with dialing down some key settings like AA and shadows for 60fps or a GTX 980 ti or what AMD is going to release on July 16th at E3 if you want to have your cake and eat it too (max everything AND solid/above 60fps). I have a AMD R9 270, which is definitely on the lower end of the GPU spectrum so how does it fare at 1440p? Playing a demanding game like The Witcher 3, I can max out some settings, dial down the foliage distance (huge FPS eater) and get rid of Hairworks (even bigger for AMD AND Nvidia cards) and I can get a solid 30fps. It's not 60, but if you're of the graphics > FPS affinity, you can definitely use a lower end GPU at 1440p like the R9 270, 280 and for NVIDIA the 960. It's up to you what you want more of, but what is not disputable is just how much of a steal this monitor is and it WILL make your games look like you're actually in them, I stared at The Witcher 3 for almost 10 minutes just because how gorgeous it looks and why IPS monitors are always superior to other panels. 1440p is not as big of a jump as 4K, but it IS a big improvement over 1080p. The question is: do you need a new graphics card or not?