MSI Summit MS321UP Monitor Review

Performance

The out-of-the-box performance of this monitor is impressive, but I do feel it needs some tinkering to get the best out of it, but even then, I’ll admit that is subjective too. It’s too bright, I had to turn the brightness down quite a lot from the default settings. On an evening, I’d even set it as low at 5%, that’s how bright it is. That being said, on a bright sunny day, the sun is hitting your screen, and you crank that brightness, the picture cuts through great, so it’s not a bad thing to have.

The colours look stunning, there’s no doubt about that, very rich and very accurate for a monitor in this price range. For most people, this likely won’t matter too much though. However, if you’re a movie fan and watch a lot of content on this monitor, you’ll certainly appreciate the accurate colour mapping.

It’s really on point for editing though, and depending on what you’re working on, the support for these extended colour spaces is great for designers. From editing a movie, to tinkering with YouTube content, Photoshop, Adobe or whatever really, it really hits the mark.

Furthermore, the increased resolution of a 4K panel is always welcome, and at 32″ you get a massive picture and good pixel density. So even getting your face up close to the panel, things look pin sharp.

The HDR performance is really good too. It’s rated with VESA DispalyHDR 600, and honestly, for this panel technology it holds up well. It’s brighter and more vibrant with HDR content and worked really well when I watched Mad Max: Fury Road, the vibrancy really pops in that movie.

I am more surprised because while it’s not as good HDR compared to my LG TV, it’s a significant cut above the “HDR” I see on many gaming monitors, which is often s*** or worse, on a good day.

It’s great for gaming too, albeit it’s going to appeal more to at-home gamers like myself than the eSports scene. It’s “only” 60Hz, but at 4K, that’s still plenty to contend with for the sort of GPUs most consumers can actually afford these days. Still, playing around in my heavily modded Fallout 4 right now, the kick-ass colours make the Commonwealth look pretty, even if it is a radioactive rust pit.