Author: Adam Simmons

Date published: March 5th 2018



When it comes to a combination of high pixel density and a good amount of useful screen ‘real-estate’, ~32” UHD models stand out as excellent choices. The ASUS PA32UC adopts a 32” ‘4K’ UHD IPS-type panel and couples it with a number of attractive features, including support for wide colour gamuts and HDR for both AMD and Nvidia users to enjoy. For users with compatible AMD GPUs, Adaptive-Sync and hence AMD FreeSync variable refresh rate technology can also be used. As a member of the ProArt series, a key focus is on its colour reproduction characteristics. We’ll explore this alongside the other performance and external characteristics of the monitor in this review.





This monitor uses a 60Hz AHVA (IPS-type) panel, with a resolution of 3840 x 2160 (‘4K’ UHD). 10-bit colour is supported, with a hardware-addressable 14-bit LUT included for enhanced mapping precision and flexibility. A 5ms grey to grey response time is also specified. Some key ‘talking points’ of the specification have been highlighted in blue below, for your reading convenience.

Screen size: 32 inches

Panel type: AU Optronics M320QAN01.3 AHVA (Advanced Hyper-Viewing Angle) LCD Panel

Native resolution: 3840 x 2160

Typical maximum brightness: 400 cd/m² (1000 cd/m² HDR)

Colour support: 1.07 billion (10-bits per subpixel without dithering)

Response time (G2G): 5ms

Refresh rate: 60Hz (variable, with Adaptive-Sync)

Weight: 11.4kg (excluding stand)

Contrast ratio: 1,000:1 (SDR)

Viewing angle: 178º horizontal, 178º vertical

Power consumption: 56.84W typical

Backlight: 384-zone local dimming WLED (White Light Emitting Diode)

Typical price as reviewed: $1999 USD

From the front the monitor looks sleek and modern, with brushed metal used on the stand base and neck for a high-quality look and feel. Further up the neck, below the screen line depending on stand height, there is what ASUS refers to as an ‘icicle gold ring’. This separates the stand neck out into a straight-sided cylindrical upper section and a sloped lower section. The upper section is brushed metal, whilst the lower section is powder-coated metal. The stand base is also powder-coated metal, with cm scale markings at the front of the upper surface. The bezels are very slim with a dual-stage design comprising a very slim hard outer section and a slender panel border. With both elements considered, the total bezel width is ~8.5mm (0.33 inches) at the top and sides and ~18.5mm (0.73 inches) at the bottom. The bottom bezel has a dark grey brushed metal finish. The screen itself dominates most of the monitor area, with a very light matte anti-glare screen surface. This is explored later.





The OSD (On Screen Display) is controlled by a combination of pressable buttons and a joystick at the rear of the monitor, running vertically down the right side (as viewed from the front). The video below runs through the functionality of the menu system.





From the side the monitor is reasonably slim, ~31mm (1.22 inches) at thinnest point and lumping out centrally towards the stand attachment point. The solid-looking stand is really the key feature here. As well as looking solid, it feels solid due to the use of metal rather than plastic for the outer materials. The stand provides good ergonomic flexibility; tilt (-5° to 23°), height (130mm or 5.12 inches), swivel (60° left, 60° right) and pivot (90° clockwise and anti-clockwise rotation into portrait). At lowest height the screen clears the desk by ~51mm (2.00 inches), with the top of the screen ~476mm (18.74 inches) above the desk surface. The total depth of the monitor is ~230mm (9.06 inches), with the screen itself sitting just a few cm back from the front edge of the stand base. This means the monitor is reasonably deep and can’t be pushed too close to the wall using the included stand, so bear that in mind if you don’t have a deep desk.









The rear of the monitor gives another view of the shiny stand, with the rear of the screen itself covered with a brushed-textured matte black plastic. The stand attaches using a quick-release mechanism (button faces downwards just in front of the DisplayPort input) and can be removed to make way for an alternative 100 x 100mm VESA compatible solution if preferred. Towards the left side you can see the OSD controls explored earlier. Towards the bottom right there is a K-Slot. The ports face downwards? in the bottom central region, beneath a removable port cover. They include a generous selection of modern standards; AC power input (internal power converter), on/off switch, 4 HDMI 2.0b ports, DP 1.2a, 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports (1 input, 1 output), USB-C, 2 USB 3.0 (Type A) ports (plus upstream) and a 3.5mm headphone jack. The monitor also includes two up-firing 3W speakers. These provide a reasonably rich sound output that is less tinny that some integrated speakers, although not as full and bass-rich as some higher power speakers. The ‘ASUS SonicMaster’ speakers found on some larger Designo models, for example.





Adaptive-Sync (and hence AMD FreeSync) is supported for compatible GPUs and systems via DisplayPort 1.2a and Thunderbolt 3 on this monitor. HDCP2.2 is supported via DP, HDMI and Thunderbolt 3 as well. All of the inputs support HDR on compatible systems. Standard accessories include a DP cable, HDMI cable, USB 3.0 cable, Thunderbolt 3 cable and a power cable. There is also a model sold in a limited number of regions that includes an X-Rite i1Display Pro as an accessory, the PA32UC-K.





The image below is a macro photograph taken on Notepad with ClearType disabled. The letters ‘PCM’ are typed out to help highlight any potential text rendering issues related to unusual subpixel structure, whilst the white space more clearly shows the actual subpixel layout alongside a rough indication of screen surface. A very light matte anti-glare screen surface is used here, which some users may refer to as ‘semi-glossy’. This provides decent glare handling characteristics whilst also allowing fairly direct emission of light from the monitor, as far as matte surfaces go (refer to this article). This helps retain a good degree of clarity and vibrancy. The screen surface texture is fairly smooth, although not the smoothest we’ve seen. There is a light misty graininess visible when viewing light shades, in particular white, which is still preferable to the heavy/smeary graininess associated with some matte screen surfaces.







As shown above, the monitor uses the standard RGB (Red, Green and Blue) stripe subpixel layout. This is the default expected by modern operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and Apple MacOS. You needn’t worry about text fringing from non-standard subpixel layouts as a Mac user and don’t need to run ClearType as a Windows user – although you may wish to adjust this according to preferences. We did not identify any issues related to text rendering on this model and indeed text clarity is an obvious strength of this screen.





This monitor comes with various ‘Splendid’ presets; ‘Standard Mode’, ‘sRGB Mode’, ‘Adobe RGB Mode’, ‘Rec.2020 Mode’, ‘DCI-P3 Mode’, ‘HDR Mode’, ‘User Mode 1’ and ‘User Mode 2’. A range of other settings can be configured in the OSD, as explored in the video earlier. We will be testing these (with the exception of ‘User Mode 2’, as it is identical to ‘User Mode 1’ by default) and a range of other settings for this section. The following table shows some key readings taken using a Datacolor Spyder5ELITE colorimeter, alongside general observations and a list of ‘Extra OSD Settings’ which are available in some presets but not others. The monitor was left to run for at least 2 hours before readings were taken. It was connected via DP, using the supplied cable, to a Windows 10 system using a Club3D Radeon R9 290 royalAce FreeSync-compatible GPU. HDR testing deeper into the review was performed using an Nvidia GTX 1070, again connected via DP. For the purposes of this table, our observations were very similar using GPUs from either vendor. We also tested using HDMI and the observations were similar once the colour signal was corrected (as directed in this article). The monitor was left in its ‘plug and play’ state, without additional drivers or ICC profiles specifically loaded. Unless otherwise stated, assume factory defaults were used, with the exception of ‘Dynamic Dimming’ being disabled. This is explored separately later on. When viewing the figures in this table, note that for most PC users ‘6500K’ for white point and ‘2.2’ for gamma are good targets to aim for.

*Uniformity Compensation can only be activated with ‘Dynamic Dimming’ disabled. The Uniformity Compensation setting, as explored later, is set in the factory. The exceptions are ‘User Mode 1’ and ‘User Mode 2’, where a colorimeter can be used to setup the Uniformity Compensation during hardware calibration (see below).