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So I had half a weekend to play with the Note 3, what did I think?

Hi everyone,
I got a good few hours with the Galaxy Note 3 over the weekend, so I thought I might drop a line about my experiences with the phone
This was the S800 version, and it had the AB binning of that SoC
[UPDATE]
Actually I looked into the bin situation some more after some of the enquiries here. The network guy I was in contact with said it was the AB binning as it was clocked at 2.3Ghz. I took that as read and hence posted that information here, however it looks as if even at the 2.3Ghz clockspeed there are two binnings for the GPU speed. Bottom line I can't categorically state this is AB bin, my apologies for the lack of clarity there everyone.
Here is what the Voodoo Report says, as you can see it depends on whether the 0007 revision corresponds to the AB bin:
Hardware : Qualcomm MSM 8974 (Flattened Device Tree)
Revision : 0007
Firstly, while its very subjective I really loved the faux-leather back. I like that there is now no 'correct' orientation for inserting the S-Pen, and that the S-Pen works with the capacitive buttons. The screen was set to the Film mode and was very good, no complaints whatsoever about pixel density, seemed a fair amount brighter than my S4 when out taking shots with it. It flew with the S800 of course, hardly surprising given it wasn't loaded with apps and has that much power at its disposal. Finally going to the widgets section didn't lag like crazy as per previous versions of TW. Although there were only a handful of contacts loaded, which may have made a difference, I did revel in seeing no lag whatsoever launching the contacts app (finally!). Running PPSSPP as a graphics stress test it managed ~23fps on Tekken Dark Resurrection, which is starting to get up into the playable realm (my Octa S4 for reference manages only ~11fps). On less demanding games results even better - Disgaia Afternoon of Darkness was basically perfect running full speed with sound and with frameskipping turned off (which makes me extremely happy). The S800 still isn't up to playing 1080p 10-bit video, which was to be expected. It did manage it slightly better than older SoCs though, so perhaps in the next 1-2 generations of SoCs we'll see this become doable. My time with it was too short to make any sensible comment about battery life, sorry.
Here is the RAM situation, seems the Exynos version has about 300Mb more free RAM going off Sammobiles, but here is a screen from the S800 version:
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Free storage ~25Gb, a pleasant surprise as I expected less:
I was really surprised (and pleased) to find rapidly accessible defaults management is available:
It let's you choose the colour of the screen visible in the S-View cover:
The have further expanded one-handed use settings, in this slightly strange one you can run everything in a little window with onscreen buttons if you wanted (!):
I made a camera comparison and the shots are up at Flickr here. Included with the Note 3 are the Xperia Z1 I also had and an S4 and Pureview 808. Methods: All shots on auto, all shots taken at same time in same position, lens cloth used to wipe lens covers clean prior to every shot, several shots captured on each phone and best selected for the comparison (if you take one shot only and get one with a completely aberrant focus/white balance etc, in other words a poor outlier not reflecting the cams usual quality, then that isn't especially useful for a comparison like this). Caveats: In all likelihood neither the Z1 or Note 3 on release firmwares, the light in the outdoors scene a bit variable due to moving cloud cover. I have my own thoughts on the photos, but if you haven't seen those on Twitter already better to let you draw your own conclusions before I say a word.
I took a 31s 4K video and was quite impressed at how smoothly it handled fairly quick panning, that 31s cost 177Mb in storage and was recorded at 48Mbps (see mediainfo screen below). The Note 3 was having quite a bit of trouble playing this video back it is worth noting, probably also worth noting that my laptop would not play it AT ALL!
The following information I put in a dedicated thread in the accessories forum, but probably of interest to folks here too:
A few findings of mine from the weekend:
External drives work, but unfortunately NTFS formatted drives still don't work on stock ROMs. It had the power to spin up a 1TB Seagate drive! Unfortunately the drive was NTFS formatted so couldn't do more to see how well it was working, but definitely was powered with a solid indicator light. Promising.
The Smart Dock works with the Note 3
The S3/Note 2 MHL adapters definitely work
The Samsung MHL 2.0 adapter works without needing a charging input plugged in and IS outputting at 60Hz
USB audio working, I tried several DACs. The ones that worked were the HiFimeDIY, Tiny-M, HeadAmp Pico. Unfortunately Apex Glacier did not work (did not work on the S4 either).
USB keyboards/mice working as they did with the older Samsungs
PS3 controller working over USB OTG
Ditto for the Xbox 360 for Microsoft controller (which required an app on older Samsungs in order to work)
Logitech F310 controller works too
Ditto the Logitech F710
It also worked with a cheapie gamepad from Ebay (like $6), although button mappings seemed limited and did not have time to try it in emulators etc to see whether all could be mapped.
BT keyboard and mouse working, as expected
IR blaster via the inbuilt app works great with my LG TV
MHL and USB OTG do not work together using the Samsung MHL 2.0 adapter
Moga Pro gamepad working well
Tried several ethernet adapters, none work.
Unfortunately the one I had did not have the USB 3.0 cable/charger, so could not benchmark read/write speeds or charging speeds using that connectivity.
The Z1 seemed quite large in comparison given the disparity in display sizes:

NZtechfreak said:
I got a good few hours with the Galaxy Note 3 over the weekend, so I thought I might drop a line about my experiences with the phone
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Let's talk camera. I'm guessing the PureView was "baseline." The N3 and SGS4's cameras seem pretty comparable. The color balance on the N3 seems a bit off; especially on greens. Your Octa SGS4 has the Exmor RS sensor in it, do you think the N3 is using "R" like the S-600 SGS4 is? Was the one you were playing with final or pre-production? From the SGS4 camera discussions I know you know cameras. What are your thoughts?
Also, did you get to do any low-light testing? At the launch event Samsung called-out better low light performance as a feature. Smart Stabilization (stupid name) was thought to be a s/w OIS equivalent but appears to be tied to capturing better low light pictures.
Smart stabilisation: Set the device to automatically detect darker conditions and adjust the brightness of the photo without the flash.​
The size comparison to the Z1 is pretty shocking; especially with the N3's chassis having a slot to store a 4" pen.

I will definitely post my own thoughts on the camera, but it's waaay past time I was asleep, so that will have to be tomorrow sorry.
Quickly in relation to the other things: yes, size comparison was a bit shocking! I think this was final hardware, but I don't think it was quite final firmware. No idea about particular sensor in use here, my partner in crime sent Supercurio a Voodoo Report, so hopefully he can help us out there.

NZtechfreak said:
[*]The S3/Note 2 MHL adapters definitely work
[*]The Samsung MHL 2.0 adapter works without needing a charging input plugged in and IS outputting at 60Hz
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hi, thanks for the review! I just wanted some clarification on these two points:
Are you saying that you were able to use the official current Samsung Note 2 MHL adapter without needing the charging input plugged in? I ask, because if there is no reason to buy an official Note 3 MHL adapter (which will probably be released soon), then I'll just use the adapter for my Note 2. Just wanted to make sure...

NZtechfreak said:
Hi everyone,
I got a good few hours with the Galaxy Note 3 over the weekend, so I thought I might drop a line about my experiences with the phone
This was the S800 version, and it had the AB binning of that SoC
Firstly, while its very subjective I really loved the faux-leather back. I like that there is now no 'correct' orientation for inserting the S-Pen, and that the S-Pen works with the capacitive buttons. The screen was set to the Film mode and was very good, no complaints whatsoever about pixel density, seemed a fair amount brighter than my S4 when out taking shots with it. It flew with the S800 of course, hardly surprising given it wasn't loaded with apps and has that much power at its disposal. Finally going to the widgets section didn't lag like crazy as per previous versions of TW. Although there were only a handful of contacts loaded, which may have made a difference, I did revel in seeing no lag whatsoever launching the contacts app (finally!). Running PPSSPP as a graphics stress test it managed ~23fps on Tekken Dark Resurrection, which is starting to get up into the playable realm (my Octa S4 for reference manages only ~11fps). On less demanding games results even better - Disgaia Afternoon of Darkness was basically perfect running full speed with sound and with frameskipping turned off (which makes me extremely happy). The S800 still isn't up to playing 1080p 10-bit video, which was to be expected. It did manage it slightly better than older SoCs though, so perhaps in the next 1-2 generations of SoCs we'll see this become doable. My time with it was too short to make any sensible comment about battery life, sorry.
Here is the RAM situation, seems the Exynos version has about 300Mb more free RAM going off Sammobiles, but here is a screen from the S800 version:
Free storage ~25Gb, a pleasant surprise as I expected less:
I was really surprised (and pleased) to find rapidly accessible defaults management is available:
It let's you choose the colour of the screen visible in the S-View cover:
The have further expanded one-handed use settings, in this slightly strange one you can run everything in a little window with onscreen buttons if you wanted (!):
I made a camera comparison and the shots are up at Flickr here. Included with the Note 3 are the Xperia Z1 I also had and an S4 and Pureview 808. Methods: All shots on auto, all shots taken at same time in same position, lens cloth used to wipe lens covers clean prior to every shot, several shots captured on each phone and best selected for the comparison (if you take one shot only and get one with a completely aberrant focus/white balance etc, in other words a poor outlier not reflecting the cams usual quality, then that isn't especially useful for a comparison like this). Caveats: In all likelihood neither the Z1 or Note 3 on release firmwares, the light in the outdoors scene a bit variable due to moving cloud cover. I have my own thoughts on the photos, but if you haven't seen those on Twitter already better to let you draw your own conclusions before I say a word.
I took a 31s 4K video and was quite impressed at how smoothly it handled fairly quick panning, that 31s cost 177Mb in storage and was recorded at 48Mbps (see mediainfo screen below). The Note 3 was having quite a bit of trouble playing this video back it is worth noting, probably also worth noting that my laptop would not play it AT ALL!
The following information I put in a dedicated thread in the accessories forum, but probably of interest to folks here too:
A few findings of mine from the weekend:
External drives work, but unfortunately NTFS formatted drives still don't work on stock ROMs. It had the power to spin up a 1TB Seagate drive! Unfortunately the drive was NTFS formatted so couldn't do more to see how well it was working, but definitely was powered with a solid indicator light. Promising.
The Smart Dock works with the Note 3
The S3/Note 2 MHL adapters definitely work
The Samsung MHL 2.0 adapter works without needing a charging input plugged in and IS outputting at 60Hz
USB audio working, I tried several DACs. The ones that worked were the HiFimeDIY, Tiny-M, HeadAmp Pico. Unfortunately Apex Glacier did not work (did not work on the S4 either).
USB keyboards/mice working as they did with the older Samsungs
PS3 controller working over USB OTG
Ditto for the Xbox 360 for Microsoft controller (which required an app on older Samsungs in order to work)
Logitech F310 controller works too
Ditto the Logitech F710
It also worked with a cheapie gamepad from Ebay (like $6), although button mappings seemed limited and did not have time to try it in emulators etc to see whether all could be mapped.
BT keyboard and mouse working, as expected
IR blaster via the inbuilt app works great with my LG TV
MHL and USB OTG do not work together using the Samsung MHL 2.0 adapter
Moga Pro gamepad working well
Tried several ethernet adapters, none work.
Unfortunately the one I had did not have the USB 3.0 cable/charger, so could not benchmark read/write speeds or charging speeds using that connectivity.
The Z1 seemed quite large in comparison given the disparity in display sizes:
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How you know it was the s800AB soc?

Snapdragon 800 AB
NZtechfreak said:
This was the S800 version, and it had the AB binning of that SoC
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for this extremely informative post. :good:
How did you find out that the Note 3 uses the AB binning?
Can you confirm that the GPU runs @ 550 MHz? And what about the memory clock speed?

Verry onteresting post. Now its almost impossible to wait....curious to grab that beast in my hand

Thank you for sharing your thought. It seems you know tech very well.
The nicest thing I've read the the reduced lag in touchwiz. I hope it's true. From videos I've seen, it still seems to lag in certain areas such as S Finder, S Note,
Also the little difference in size between note3 and z1 is because the latter has much unnecessary bezels on sides, top and bottom.
Can you confirm if the audio quality is better/louder than note2? Does the bottom placed speaker grills make a difference?

I found one thing that was interesting in this review. The screenshot of the RAM statistics shows a total of only 2.38 GB. My N2 has a total of 1.75GB. I know that some RAM is reserved for system/OS use, graphics, etc., but when the N3 was announced to have 3GB of RAM, I assumed this meant that the total available RAM would be something like 2.75GB, not 2.38GB. That's about a 370MB difference, which is not trivial.
I'm curious if the different variants of the N3 will have different total RAM numbers...

MohJee said:
Thank you for sharing your thought. It seems you know tech very well.
The nicest thing I've read the the reduced lag in touchwiz. I hope it's true. From videos I've seen, it still seems to lag in certain areas such as S Finder, S Note,
Also the little difference in size between note3 and z1 is because the latter has much unnecessary bezels on sides, top and bottom.
Can you confirm if the audio quality is better/louder than note2? Does the bottom placed speaker grills make a difference?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Yes that one , also please tell us if there was any other option in sview settings..like having more screens at that window!For example ,having calls logs , dial pad etc

The one handed option is awesome - can you tell us more? Also, what does the settings screen for one-handed use look like?
Thank you!

eclipxe said:
The one handed option is awesome - can you tell us more? Also, what does the settings screen for one-handed use look like?
Thank you!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=327bLcLfBZA

hockeyfan said:
I found one thing that was interesting in this review. The screenshot of the RAM statistics shows a total of only 2.38 GB. My N2 has a total of 1.75GB. I know that some RAM is reserved for system/OS use, graphics, etc., but when the N3 was announced to have 3GB of RAM, I assumed this meant that the total available RAM would be something like 2.75GB, not 2.38GB. That's about a 370MB difference, which is not trivial.
I'm curious if the different variants of the N3 will have different total RAM numbers...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hmm, looks like the Exynos variant will indeed have more usable RAM (2.72GB, to be exact!)...

hockeyfan said:
Hmm, looks like the Exynos variant will indeed have more usable RAM (2.72GB, to be exact!)...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
http://m.androidcentral.com/ram-what-it-how-its-used-and-why-you-shouldnt-care
Sent from my SGH-T889 using Tapatalk 4

deeznutz1977 said:
http://m.androidcentral.com/ram-what-it-how-its-used-and-why-you-shouldnt-care
Sent from my SGH-T889 using Tapatalk 4
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I do care about available RAM, because Android's LMK/LRU memory management still closes applications, and this causes issues (yes, I know the LRU settings can be tweaked). For example, on my N2, even though it has 2GB of RAM, apps (such as the browsers) still occasionally close. While it's true that they at least open up all the tabs from the previous session, the page contents themselves are not cached, which means that if I'm on a slow 3G connection, it can take forever to reload all the pages (I typically have at least 15 tabs currently open).
The more total and available RAM there is, the better. Memory management means basically nothing if it results in apps frequently getting closed.

The Note 3 was having quite a bit of trouble playing this video back it is worth noting, probably also worth noting that my laptop would not play it AT ALL!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
@NZtechfreak, That sounds really odd to me. A phone is supposed to playback a video flawlessly which is shot by itself.
There is a Elysium 4k trailer. You can try playing that. It plays fine on my 2 year old dell n5110, and should be fine on a Note 3 too.

Nice review.
Sent from the New S Pen

What about sound quality of Qualcomm DAC, its support 24bit 192KHz so what it's like compare to Wolfson DAC? (ON S4 Note II S III S Exynos version.)

Can you talk a little about build quality? Maybe compare it to the likes of the G2 and Z1?
Sent from my Nexus 4 using XDA Premium 4 mobile app

shbumc said:
What about sound quality of Qualcomm DAC, its support 24bit 192KHz so what it's like compare to Wolfson DAC? (ON S4 Note II S III S Exynos version.)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 bump .
This and an easier question just for the curiosity.......FM radio available?
.

Review: Nexus 5 as a Music Player

Hello All !!!
I dont know if this is right forum to post this. This is my first review so please excuse any mistakes/blunders
I own both Nexus 5 and Galaxy Note 2(N7100), and from past 2 weeks I have been testing sound on both the phones. Following is the setup:
Headphones Used:
1. Monster Miles Davis Tribute
2. Monster Turbine Pro Copper
3. Shure SRH440
5. Sennheiser Momentus Over the ear(Not the on ear model)
6. HiFiman RE0
Music Used:
Please note all the albums were Flac Lossles 16bit
1. Miles Davis - Kind of Blue
2. Slint - Spiderland
3. Godspeed You Black Emperor! - Lift Yr. Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven!
4. Steve Reich - Music for 18 Musicians
5. Burial - Untrue
6. Broken Note - Terminal Static
Player Used: PowerAmp Pro (Flat equalizer)
Observation:
Before I begin, I would like to say that this is my subjective opinion which may vary from person to person.
Galaxy Note 2:
I love this phone. Been my daily driver from past one year. The ability to expand the memory and replaceable battery is amazing. More memory means more music for me :good: I only listen to flac so this is a huge plus for me.
This phone drives all headphones pretty well. Although one might feel that Momentus and RE-0 were kind of dull as compared to the other headphones. The sound seemed veiled.
So I changed the kernel to NEAK. This kernel have utility to increase the volume and some other fancy adjustments like oversampling etc. I was skeptical what changing kernel would do, and boy was I wrong. Not only did the volume increase but sound became fuller and had solid character. Instruments were perfect, texture was amazing and the bass wasn't sloppy anymore but controlled and very punchy. :victory:
Nexus 5:
Nexus 5 is totally a different beast. Coming from Note2 I was excited about this phone. The build quality and weight was quite better than Note2. I loaded up the albums and fired up the PowerAmp. From the start I could feel something was amiss. Although the resolution of the instruments was good and overall response of the headphones and music was not bad; but I was not blown away. Even after increasing the preamp volume to full, the headphones could not reach their full potential except Pro Coppers. So I broke out my trusty Fiio E5 portable headphone amplifier and sound did improve. After long listening sessions everyday my brain accepted the sound signature of this phone and by the end of 4th day I quite liked the sound.
In the end I had comparisons in a way that I listened the tracks going back-n-forth on both the phones. I definitely like my Note2 with NEAK kernel. But if you take out the kernel from the comparison, difference between the quality is not that huge although the sound from Note2 is lush compared to Nexus5. Both phones lack amplification to drive some headphones to their full potential.
For average Joe: If you are using lossy music and use headphones which are mediocre, then this phone is pretty good for you. You wont be able to tell the difference between sound quality of Nexus and any other phone.
For my Audiophile friend: To be honest this phone will leave you wanting for more. Although Nexus have good DAC but amplification is poor. I would recommend you to grab a good but cheap headphone amp and you should be good. Although 32 GB is real deal breaker if you you use lossless music. For that OTG cable comes to rescue. I would also recommend getting your hand on a kernel/utility which improves sound. I have not come across any yet.:fingers-crossed: Also battery becomes a concern when using such utility/kernal.
My rating: 3.5/5
Pros:
Exceptional pricing
Good DAC
Build Quality
Ability to play Hi-Res FLAC
Cons:
Poor Amplification
Lack of expandable storage (You can use OTG cable though)
Poor Battery (Especially if you will be using utility to improve sound)

Sound quality is so subjective. Some people like how Denon sounds and others like Yamaha. And then there are those who like Bose!
Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

Nice review. Can you use OTG w/ a E18 Kunlun?

kenbhaji said:
I would also recommend getting your hand on a kernel/utility which improves sound. I have not come across any yet.:fingers-crossed: Also battery becomes a concern when using such utility/kernal.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Try this:
Volume Mod
Report back.

The Note 2 has the Wolfson DAC. It totally crushes anything Qualcomm has.
No contest. I have the S3 and have had a host of Qualcomm based devices, but for sound quality, nothing has ever touched the Wolfson DAC on a smartphone.

Ultimate (Possible) Phone Specs: Share your thoughts!

CPU:
ARM 10nm FinFET LPP (2nd Gen) 64-bit processor
Frequency: 3Ghz, vast overclocking capabilities
Cores: Cortex-A75 Deca-core (only big cores)
Heat Output: Almost constant room temperature in every possible situation, except when enabling overclock mode
GPU:
World's first discrete mobile GPU: Nvidia M-Pascal GTX 1080M Ti GPU, equivalent to 50% of a full sized GTX 1080 Ti, overclockable
RAM:
Type: LPDDR4E
Size: 12GB
Speed: 4266MHz
Display:
Display Panel Technology: QD-AMOLED
Refresh Rate: 120Hz
Adaptive Refresh: Yes
ULMB: Enabled in Gaming Mode
Resolution: 5120×2160 5K WUHD/3840×2160 4K UHD/2880×2160 SHD
Aspect Ratio: 21:9/16:9/4:3
Brightness: 2000cd/m2
HDR-10 support: Yes
Dolby-Vision support: Yes
Hybrid Log-Gamma Support: Yes
Adobe RGB: 100%
DCI-P3: 99.98%
Rec 2020: 100%
Static Contrast Ratio: 5.000.000:1
Wide Color Gamut Display: Yes
Bit Depth: 10 Bit
Professionally Calibrated: Yes
Curved: Yes
Material: Sapphire (with flexible properties)
Bezels: Only top and bottom (for speakers)
Size: 5.7 inches
Response Time: 0.1ms
Pressure sensitive: Yes
Glasses-free 3D: Yes
Sound:
3.5mm Headphone Jack: Yes, with 6.35 mm to 3.5mm adapter included
Radio: Yes
Speakers:
Loud and powerful, crisp and clear hexa surround front-facing speakers
Frequency Range: 16Hz-22Khz
Dolby Atmos: Yes
DAC:
HI-FI Audiophile Quad DAC
Bit Range: 24 bit
Sampling Rate: 192kHz
Total Harmonic Distortion: >0.1%
Included Earphones:
Open-back, balanced, audiophile-grade in-ear headphones, with defined lows, mids and highs
Frequency Range: 15Hz-22Khz
Sound Isolating: Yes
Camera:
Sensor: (diagonal) 13.33mm (63.7mm², 12.288mm by 5.184mm) 3-Layer stacked CMOS image sensor with 1Gbit of stacked DRAM
Resolution: 24.8/18.6/13.9 megapixels (21:9 - 7680×3240; 16:9 - 5760×3240; 4:3 - 4320×3240)
Saves Images as: FLIF
Resolution/FPS (Video): 5120×[email protected], 3840×[email protected]/105fps, 3440×[email protected]/174fps, 2560×[email protected], 2560×[email protected], 1920×[email protected]/426fps, 1720×[email protected] 1280×[email protected], all in slow motion/real time options.
Flash: Quad QD-OLED flash (quad tone)
Pixel Size: 1.60µm
ISO Range: 1 - 25600
HDR-10 Support: Yes
Dolby Vision support: Yes
Hybrid Log-Gamma Support: Yes
Adobe RGB: 100%
DCI-P3: 99.98%
Rec 2020: 100%
Static Contrast Ratio: 5.000.000:1
Wide Color Gamut Support: Yes
Bit Depth: 12 Bit
Records loss-less files: Yes
Phase Detection Autofocus: Yes, dual pixel
Predictive Hybrid Autofocus: Yes
OIS: Yes
EIS: Yes
Laser Autofocus: Yes
Setup: Rotatable dual camera setup
All specifications above are valid for both cameras
Camera 1#:
Aperture: f/1.5
Camera 2#:
Aperture: f/2.5
Software:
Android Version: Stock Android O 8.0
Updates: All future updates guaranteed and immediate integration
Rootable: Yes
Unlockable Bootloader: Yes
Brick-and-bootloop-proof Technology: Included in Official Xposed Module
Vulkan API support : Yes
Google Drive Storage: 1TB of loss-less storage
Dolby Atmos: Yes
Storage:
Internal Storage: 32GB-256GB NVMe SSD
SD Card: Expandable SD Card slot up to 1TB + dual sim card slot
Cooling:
CPU, GPU and RAM are all liquid cooled, comes with a stylus that doubles as a liquid reservoir, tip detaches as female Nano-USB to male Thunderbolt 3 adapter
Battery:
Removable explosion-proof 6500Mah super-dense battery
Port: Thunderbolt 3 with Quick Charge 4+ equivalent
Sensors:
Semi-instantaneous fingerprint and iris scanner, accelerometer, gyroscope, infra-red, compass, proximity, barometer, thermometer, humidity sensor and heart rate monitor.
Networking:
WLAN: Wi-Fi 802.11 a/b/g/n/ac/ad, dual-band, Wi-Fi Direct, hotspot
Celular Data Bands: All 3G, 3.5G, 4G and even 5G bands supported
Bluetooth: 5.0, A2DP, aptX, LE
GPS: A-GPS, GLONASS, BDS, GALILEO
NFC Support: Yes
Extra Features:
Modular:
- Antennae for increased digital TV, radio and cell data reception
- Keyboard Projector
- 5120×[email protected] laser projector
- QD-OLED 5000 lumens flashlight
- All components are replaceable/can be upgraded
- Ultra-Loud Hi-Fi Stereo Speakers extension
IP68 dust proof and water proof submerged in up to 50m for 24 hours
Official Protective Case, does not block module connections
Official Reinforced Flexible Sapphire Screen Protector
Price:
What it cost to make (including taxes) + margin of profit just enough to pay everyone who worked on it + margin of profit for industry growth. That's it. No exaggerated profits. After everyone's salaries are paid, the price drops.
Some explanations (part by part, in order):
CPU:
ARM's Cortex A75 cores are the most advanced (upcoming) mobile CPU cores, and some phones already feature deca-core setups.
FinFET LPP is Samsung's latest iteration of the 10nm manufacturing proccess, and supposedly brings about 10% increase in perfomance over the first generation.
I chose to only put big cores (A75) for maximum possible performance.
I decided to give the phone overclocking capabilities. No phone has that yet, but coming with an unlockable bootloader, a stock rootable android and a CPU that runs really cool, it would be a shame to not let fiddlers overclock this beast.
GPU:
With Nvidia making a laptop GPU as powerful as a desktop one (laptop GTX 10-series, plus it seems like a laptop GTX 1080 Ti is coming soon), I thought it wouldn't be much of a stretch to squeeze that into a phone, while shaving off 50% of the performance. Afterall, Nvidia seems to have taken interest in building processors for mobile, with the Nintendo Switch having one. And a discrete GPU in mobile sounds very nice, and it's overclockable too.
RAM:
LPDDR4E is the latest iteration of LPDDR4, and Samsung achieved 4266MHz with LPDDR4 already, and it's 12gb too (link).
Display:
Your first question might be why would put 3 different resolution with 3 different aspect ratios on the screen's spec sheet. Well, how absolutely amazing would taking advantage of OLED's flexible properties to make an expandable screen be? No more black bars on movies (most movies are recorded in ~21:9) + ultra-wide gaming, + still being able to switch to 16:9 for Youtube videos and TV series + watching old movies and TV series! No more black bars, EVER! Plus, retracting the screen will turn off a lot of pixels, so 4:3 mode can be used for extreme battery efficiency! The screen wouldn't be literally stretched all the times you clicked the dedicated button, instead it would de-roll a rolled up extra part of the screen hidden in the chassis, and push the bottom bezels apart to make room for the extra screen. So essentially, it takes advantage of OLED being rollable.
"SHD" stands for Small/Square-ish High Definition. Not the best name, but it was the best I could figure.
QD-OLED already is in research (sources here, here,here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here) plus recently Quantum Dot supplier Nanoco and OLED supplier Kyulux agreed to put their efforts on making QD-OLEDs a reality (link) (plus it's free of heavy metals and rare materials, too, so it's more nature friendly AND less expensive!).
2000cd/m² seems absurd at first, but it's actually what QD-LED TVs already reached.
There are already 4K phones (the Xperia Z5 Premium, for example), so I just stretched it to a 21:9 aspect ratio to make it 5K.
It's not using G-Sync, because the manufacturer would make a deal with Nvidia so that this GPU supports non-proprietary adaptive refresh. Apple's Ipad Pro has it (link)
21:9 phones are already in concept (links here and here)
120hz screens are in development too (link) (there's already a 120hz tablet: link)
The color spaces I made the screen reach are currently unheard of, but if you consider that QD-LEDs already reach over 90% of Rec 2020 (link), then 100% with QD-OLED doesn't seem too extreme.
The last time OLED's static contrast ratio was mentioned was at its beginning (1.000.000:1), and since dynamic contrast ratio isn't even a real thing, and all LG's being saying is that it's "infinite", I figured a 5 times increase in contrast wouldn't be too much, specially with HDR and how just from 2016 to 2017 LG's OLED's brightness increased by 25%.
In the production line, each individual display would undergo calibration with a spectrophotometer, in an automated process.
Why Sapphire instead of Gorilla Glass? Because Sapphire is naturally stronger than Glass, meaning even if Sapphire was undoubtedly weaker than Gorilla Glass 5, if Corning decided to make a "Gorilla Sapphire" (apply the same efforts to strengthen sapphire as they did to glass), then it would blow Gorilla Glass out of the water.
(most, if not all) OLEDs already have a 0.1ms response time.
Glasses-free 3D phones are already on the market (link).
All of this would be REALLY hard, but who know what they could do if they actually cared about us customers, instead of more profits.
Sound:
There was, already, a planned phone with quad speakers (link), although it was scrapped (the tablet version did come out, though). So I just made it even better with 6.
The LG G6 already has a quad DAC.
You might ask: why did I make the DAC only 24bit/192kHz, when there's phones with 32bit/384kHz DACs out there? Simple: It's a gimmick, it doesn't actually change sound, unless all your songs are 32bit/384kHz FLACs, which practically don't exist yet, and will probably take a few years until it becomes standard.
Camera:
All the crazy stuff about stacked DRAM, 960fps and etc. are numbers already achieved by the new Sony IMX400, their latest sensor.
Originally, the camera only recorded up to 5120×[email protected] and properly scale down from there, which was already a big stretch, but then the IMX400 came out, and recorded [email protected] This made things easier: that sensor could already do 5120×[email protected] if it scaled the res/fps properly, but it didn't, so the only difference between that one and my concept, is that my concept has more res options (including 21:9 ones and QHD), and scales properly (I did the maths myself. Some scalings make undesirable frame rates, so there's the option to just go with the closest multiple of 60 admitting one decimal off). As hard as pulling this camera off would be, I still think it's possible if they really worked hard on it and cared about us customers.
Also, all res/fps options are both in real time AND slow motion, so you could record blazingly smooth [email protected] videos, or super slow ones.
Also, I gave it all focus methods at the same time. kek.
Rotatable cameras already exist (link)
Software:
I thought it would be paradise if a phone already came with the option to be rooted, so there it is, although a form would have to be filled saying you agree to use it carefully just as you would in a desktop operating system.
The manufacturer would take the responsibility to bake every "extra feature" normally baked into a custom UI into an Xposed module, that includes the "gaming mode" business.
Also, the “brick-and-bootloop-proof technology” mumbo jumbo is just an algorithm that analyzes and stops any modification that will prevent the phone from booting/being usable, and if it somehow does, it recognizes the error and reverts to stock rooted image.
The manufacturer would promise to update all content immediately after an update arrives (for android and other software), and since it’s stock android it wouldn’t be that hard.
Storage:
NVMe mobile SSDs already exist in Iphones (link)
Cooling:
Also, there is already a liquid cooled laptop, so I stretched that concept too. There's also a liquid cooled phone, too, although very obscure (link) And having a stylus+liquid reservoir+USB type-c adapter combo just seemed so efficient and awesome to me. What would happen to the liquid when the stylus/reservoir is removed? It would work this way: removing the stylus requires pressing a button that would move the liquid to the empty space left by the stylus, whilst ejecting it. So the liquid would still be on the phone after you eject the stylus, now on the empty space where the stylus used to be.
Battery:
For such a powerful phone I gave it a 6500Mah battery (explosion-proof guaranteed because of Samsung screw ups, lol) (here's a phone with a 10900mAh battery. If that phone can have a 10900mAh battery, than surely they can fit a 6500mAh in this one).
Rest:
The extreme water proof limit was made up, expandability up to 1tb was made up, and 5G support was also made up. The particular modules were also made up.
I gave it loss-less capabilities in every aspect possible, but maybe it would be better to leave to such a skilled company the job to make a more efficient loss-less algorithm than FLIF, FLAC and loss-less video codecs.
The whole purpose of this phone is to be what the customer wants, not what the manufacturers and the CEOs want. It's not about profiting, it's about making the users happy, while making only the necessary amount of profits.
This was really crazy and goofy, but still, it was fun making this. Please share your thoughts: if you think it would be possible for now/near future, if not, then when do you think it would be possible, how much would it cost, how thick would it be, etc! Constructive criticism is welcome! Thanks for reading ;D

Interesting no replies ever. I'm not an inventor but it's fun to dream. I think you are on to something here. I'm going to submit pure conjecture right now. Here it is early 2022. About a year ago LG closed it's phone shop. It seemed like they announced they had a prototype of a rollable display and the next moment they announced they are done with the phone business. Now I'm not a conspiracy geek but that sounds like something shut them down as soon as they announced rolling display technology. What does anyone have to say?

vivo X9 hands-on: an ultimate smartphone for selfie lovers

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The good:
Elegant design and great build quality
Gorgeous display
Superb front-facing cameras
Hi-Fi sound
The bad:
Expensive
The rear-facing camera lacks OIS
The Snapdragon 625 processor isn’t future-proof
No NFC
While other smartphones are battling it out on the benchmark front, vivo, a Chinese smartphone brand which ranks at No.5 in the world in terms of shipment, takes a very different approach in marketing their products. The vivo X9 is one of the newest additions to their “camera & Music” smartphone line. Rocking dual front-facing cameras, the X9 is anticipated to attract consumers with ultimate enthusiasm for selfies.
Key features of the vivo X9
• 5.5″ Super AMOLED of 1920*1080px resolution
• 20MP & 8MP dual front-facing cameras with moonlight LED, F2.0 aperture
• 16MP autofocus camera with LED flash, F2.0 aperture
• 4K video recording (both front and rear cameras)
• Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 (octa-core 2.0 GHz Cortex-A53, Adreno 506 GPU)
• 4GB of RAM, 64GB internal storage
• Funtouch 0S 3.0 (on top of Android OS v6.01)
• AK4376 DAC
• Dual SIM, dual standby
• 2G Network: GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900
• 3G Network: HSDPA
• 4G Network: LTE, TD-LTE
• Wi-Fi 802.11, Wi-Fi Direct, dual-band, Wi-Fi hotspot
• Bluetooth v4.1
• USB host (dongle required)
• Standard 3.5 mm audio jack
• 3,050mAh irremovable Li-Po battery
Retail package and Accessories
The vivo X9 comes with very elegant packaging and lots of accessories. Inside the box you will find a phone, a charger, a cable for charging and data transmission, two protective cases and two screen protectors.
Design and build
At a glance, the X9 looks like just another extremely refined smartphone from vivo: a large display is dominating the front, and there is relatively small bezel around.
The only major difference you will instantly notice is that there are dual front-facing cameras now, both located on the left side of the ear piece. On the right side, you will find a light sensor and a moonlight LED flash.
There are some less obvious differences which makes the X9 more aesthetically pleasing than its predecessors: the width of the bezel on the left and right side is only 1.59mm each, compared to the 1.82mm of the vivo X7. The black frame around the display has also been reduced. The corners are more rounded, as well.
There is an oval Home button below the display, with a built-in fingerprint reader embedded in it. This key is both capacitive and physical, and offers decent key travel when pressing on it. The oval home button on my Samsung S7 Edge often failed to read my fingerprints due to its narrow reading area, fortunately I haven’t experienced the same problem with the vivo X9, thanks to the relatively larger reading area.
The bottom side plays host to a Micro USB port, stereo speaker gates and a 3.5mm headphone jack. It is quite disappointing that vivo decided to choose a Micro USB port instead of a more advanced USB Type-C port for its latest phone. As the latter becomes increasingly popular, it is for certain that Micro USB will be abandoned in the near future.
The power button and volume rocker are hosted on the right side, both of them are very easy to locate and offer tactile feedback to the users.
On the left side is a SIM Tray slot, you can use the stock tool to take the SIM tray out.
As you can tell from the picture above, the X9 supports using dual nano-SIM card in one phone.
The uniqueness in the X9’s design is more pronounced on its rear side. The plastic strips which allow signals to travel through are now located more towards the top side and bottom side, giving the back of the phone a more unified look. The rear-facing camera does pop up a little, but as the lens is covered by sapphire glass, it won’t get scratches easily. If you are still concerned, the cases which can be found in the retail package will save you from those worries.
The vivo X9 measures 152.6*74*6.99mm, about the same dimensions as the Samsung S7 Edge (150.9*72.6*7.7mm) and One Plus 3 (152.7x74.7x7.35mm), more compact than the Apple iPhone 7 Plus (158.2*77.9*7.3mm). Using the phone with one hand shouldn’t be a problem for most people, and for folks with smaller hands, there's a one-handed mode that resizes things onscreen to make apps easier to reach. The X9 weighs 154g, also about the same as the Samsung S7 Edge (157g) and One Plus 3 (158g), significantly lighter than the Apple iPhone 7 Plus (188g). Thanks to the balanced weight distribution, the X9 feels even lighter than the number suggests.
The build quality of the X9 is amazing. The front side of the phone is covered by Corning Gorilla glass 5, which is super resistant to scratches, and may be able to survive many occasional drops. The metal structure also feels extremely solid.
Display and sound
The X9 rocks a 5.5-inch Super AMOLED display at the resolution of 1920*1080px. Although it is not the most cutting-edge in terms of pixel density, as most of the flagship smartphones have 2K displays now, it was still impossible for us to pick out individual pixels while using the phones in a normal distance. Putting the phones in a VR set we started to notice the difference, as my Samsung S7 Edge does look a lot sharper and more natural than the X9.
Despite the lower pixel density, the display of the X9 is still breathtakingly gorgeous. Like most AMOLED panels, the color saturation and contrast ratio here are simply great, you get very deep black and rich tones. The X9’s display looks generally more pleasing than most of the LCD panels used on other smartphones, as everything appears more vivid and alive.
Viewing angles are excellent as well, looking at the display from an extreme angle the colors are still not distorted. The brightness of the display is also great, you won’t have any problem using it outdoors in direct sunlight.
One of the major selling points of vivo smartphones is Hi-Fi. The X9 features an AKM4376 DAC to boost its audio performance. Specs-wise, this converter isn’t really so impressive as the quad-core DAC used in the LG V20 or the dual ES9028 DAC used in vivo’s very own Xplay 5. But coming from the S7 Edge, my audiophile ears did notice a significant improvement in overall sound quality when plugging in my B&O H3 in-ear monitor. The bass has a lot more punch, the vocals are crisp clear, instrument separation and positioning are as good as some of my earlier DAPs. I even asked a few of my non-audiophile, iPhone using friends to try listening to music with the X9, all of them actually said that the X9 sounded a lot better than their iPhones, although they couldn’t really pinpoint what the differences were. Acoustic nuts may still find their DAPs with Amplifiers irreplaceable, but for average smartphone users, the X9 is certainly one of the best phones out there to enjoy music.
On the speaker front, the X9 is also outstanding compared to many other smartphones. Not only are the built-in speakers louder, but the sound coming from them also has more clarity, layers and strength. Enabling the “Super Audio” mode in the settings, the X9 can sound as loud as some of the portable speakers and laptops, very impressive given the phone’s relatively small footprint.
System, UI and Apps
The X9 runs Android 6.01 Marshmallow out of the box, with a heavily customized skin called “Funtouch OS 3.0” on top. I know many folks prefer stock Android skin to those customized UIs, but vivo has really taken measured steps into developing their own UI, especially for the Chinese customers.
Like many customized skins, the Funtouch OS doesn’t include an application drawer, everything lays on the homescreens. Users can create folders to keep them in order.
And personalization freedom is what the X9 gives a lot of: You can rearrange the navigation buttons and even add extra ones. You can make the on-screen keyboard larger or smaller. You can hide the icon of the apps which you don’t want people to know that you are using. You have many interface themes to choose from. There are the so-called signature wallpapers, generated around the first initial of the user. And the list goes on.
Like I said earlier, many of the features of the Funtouch UI are tailor-made for Chinese customers, whether vivo will use a different UI on the units for oversea market is still unknown. Fortunately, this is Android and you can always install third-party launchers such as Google Now launcher to get the stock Android experience.
Cameras
Most of smartphone makers have realized now that people need better front-facing cameras for selfies. That’s why you get greatly improved front cameras on the Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge, the Apple iPhone 7 and many other flagship smartphones. However, no brand went as far as vivo did, as the newly released X9 has featured dual front-facing cameras: a 20MP primary camera complemented by an 8MP secondary camera and a moonlight flash, arguably the best selfie camera setup on any smartphone currently available. The 20MP front-facing SONY IMX376 CMOS lens is in charge of taking the picture and capturing all the details, while the 8MP sensor deals with blurring the background.
To everyone’s delight, the impeccable specs do translate into outstanding selfies. The dual front facing cameras capture lots of details and very rich colors under optimal conditions. HDR is available for those tricky scenes and it works pretty well.
The vivo X9 easily crushes other market-leading smartphones when it comes to taking photos with the front-facing cameras.
Even in low light conditions, the selfie cameras are still usable, thanks to the front-facing moonlight LED flash, which provides just the right amount of illumination to light up your face without dazzling your eyes.
The X9 adopts a 16MP SONY IMX298 Exmor camera with F/2.0 aperture on its rear. The lens offers a sensor size of 1/2.8" and a pixel size of 1.12μm, and has been commonly featured on lots of flagship smartphones such as the Xiaomi Mi5, Huawei Mate 8 and One Plus 3. The camera focuses fairly quickly, has a fast shutter and takes nice photos in general.
In automatic mode, images are not as sugarcoated as the photos taken by some other smartphones. There are no excessive amounts of contrast or saturation to the photo, and sharpness is also kept at a reasonable level. As a result, photographs are natural, delivering a very close representation of reality. Unfortunately, the rear-facing camera on the X9 isn’t accompanied by optical image stabilization, which is now a standard feature for flagship smartphones. As a result, ghosting and blurs could happen when you are not holding the phone steadily.
The camera app also offers lots of effects and modes for the users to play around with. The users are provided with 7 modes and dozens of different filters when shooting with the rear-facing camera, including the popular time-lapse photography. With the front-facing camera, the users has many different beautification functions to choose from as well.
Videos taken by the X9 look fine, with lots of details and rich colors. The phone is also capable of taking smooth 4K videos.
Performance
The heart of the vivo X9 is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 625 Octa-core processor clocked at 2.0GHz, beating alongside 4GB of RAM. It's not quite the Snapdragon 820 and 821 you'll find in those mainstream flagship Android smartphones, and the differences did show in benchmark tests.
In the Antutu V6.0 benchmark test, the X9 was returned a score of 61,544, far below the scores of the One Plus 3T and Samsung S7 Edge, and also many points behind the LG G5 SE. Only when compared to entry level smartphones such as the Meizu M5 Note and Huawei P9 lite, the X9 could have an advantage.
On the Geekbench 3 benchmark, the X9 scored 785 in single-core performance and 4,050 in multi-core. That's definitely nowhere near the Samsung S7 Edge and One Plus 3T in either category.
In the more graphics-focused 3DMark, the X9 scored 13,829 in the Ice Storm Unlimited test and 473 in the Sling Shot ES3.1 test.
In the PCMark Work 2.0 test, the vivo X9 was returned a predictable score of 4,780.
The X9 has 64GB internal storage, which is very generous considering many flagship smartphones only have 32GB storage on board. However, the eMMc 5 used here is not as fast as the UFS 2.0 used on high-end smartphones, the Androbench test scores told the difference. As you can see from the chart above, the X9 doesn’t match high-end smartphones in terms of Sequence Read Speed, but its Sequence Write Speed is actually quite similar to those flagships.
Fortunately, the benchmark scores didn’t entirely translate into real-world performance, as the X9 felt almost as fast and responsive as the Samsung S7 Edge while dealing with everyday tasks such as social networking, video feeds and web-browsing. The only difference that I noticed was it did take a little longer to install an application, and screen rotation didn’t happen as instant as it was on the S7 Edge.
Running graphics-intense 3D games, which I didn’t always do myself, the differences showed. Hiccups and lags did happen with big titles such as GTA: San Andreas, NFS17 and Asphalt 8, and we did notice significantly extended loading time and lower frame rates. With that said, the X9 still handled most of the games pretty well: Temple Run, Plants VS Zombies, Vitua Tennis and many other popular titles were as fast as they were on those cutting-edge smartphones.
Multitasking was generally fast, and the X9 could hold many applications in the background for a relatively long period of time, thanks to the 4GB RAM. Switching between applications on the X9 was not always as instant as it was on the S7 Edge, but for average users, the difference was ignorable. The internals may seem adequate for most people now, but with the upgrades of Android and many applications, how long will the Snapdragon 625 be able to keep everything running smoothly on the X9 is simply unknown.
Battery life and charging
The X9 has an irremovable 3,050mAh battery under the hood, pretty average for a 5.5-inch phone. As the X9 sports a more power-conservative processor, we actually expected it to do very well in battery life. Unfortunately, the result was just not as promising as we had hoped.
In the battery rundown test, in which we streamed full-screen videos over Wi-Fi with screen brightness and speaker volume at maximum, the phone lasted 5 hours and 38 minutes, which is 1 hour shorter than the S7 Edge’s result in the same test. In my nearly two weeks of testing, the X9 could power through a full day of moderate use, with around 30% charge remaining when I decided to call it a day. For intense smartphone gamers, carrying a mobile charger will still be inevitable.
The nice thing is, the X9’s battery consumption has been kept at minimum during standby. I once connected the phone to Wi-Fi and left it on my desk to receive messages and alerts for 12 hours, the battery only dropped 2%.
The X9 supports vivo’s very own dual-engine charging (5V-2A or 9V-2A), which supports up to 18W input, so topping up the battery takes very little time. With the stock wall charger, it only took around 1.5 hours to fully charge the phone.
Cellular and connectivity
The vivo X9 supports all major cellular networks, you can just insert any SIM card into the slot and start using the phone immediately. There are two Nano SIM card slots on board, which means the phone supports dual standby.
Like all other smartphones, the vivo X9 also features Wi-Fi, GPS, Bluetooth, and all of them work like a charm. There is no micro SD card slot for you to expand the storage, but the 64GB internal storage should be sufficient for most users. For me, the real disappointment is the missing of NFC. Users with the latest iPhones and Galaxy S phones should know how convenient Apple Pay and Samsung Pay are, and with the X9, you may never be able to use similar functions. Lots of new speakers and wireless headphones also features NFC for faster pairing with the smartphone, but with the X9, you will still need to take a number of steps to get them paired, shame on vivo!
Competitions
The vivo X9 is priced at RMB2,798 ($406) in China, and in the same price range you will find many powerhouse smartphones. Although none of them offer equally impressive front-facing cameras, they do make up with horsepower and other unique features. The One Plus 3T features a Qualcomm Snapdragon 821 processor clocked at 2.5GHz, 6GB RAM, 64GB UFS2.0 storage and 3,400mAh battery. The nubia Z11, which is powered by a Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, has a breathtaking bezel-less design and the same AK4376 DAC. The Xiaomi Mi5s (Enhanced Edition) features a Snapdragon 821 processor, 4GB RAM, 128GB UFS2.0 storage, and a cutting-edge ultrasonic fingerprint scanner. Affordable flagships aside, many mid-range offerings run more capable chips like the Snapdragon 65X. Even the X9’s predecessor- the vivo X7 - is powered by a Snapdragon 652.
Verdict
For $406, the vivo X9 represents a really attractive mid-range offering. It has a simple and elegant design, great build quality and while performance isn't quite up to the level of its similarly priced rivals, it offers fantastic acoustic experiences and arguably the best front-facing cameras on a smartphone.
If you are looking for a future-proof powerhouse handset which will do very well in benchmark tests and intense 3D gaming, there are many affordable flagships out there, some of them priced even lower than the X9. But if you rank selfies and music as your top priorities, and horsepower is far down the list, then you won’t be disappointed with the vivo X9.

Hello, how can I change (or add) other language instead English and Chinese? My phone does not have google play and services. Is there a ROM with this stuff? Thanks!

What frequency do you run your monitor at? Freesync, FS Pro or G-SYNC?

I finally took the plunge and picked up a ViewSonic G-SYNC 144 Hz (165 Hz when overdriven) QHD 2K AHVA monitor last March. Aside from one worrying moment where the screen wouldn't display anything over DisplayPort, after some tasteful swear words it came back and has been working since. I do tend to use it at max 144 Hz, often less (120 Hz or 100 Hz if game streaming, as G-SYNC causes a few issues with OBS). A friend bought the Samsung Odyssey G9 DQHD which runs at 240 Hz, which is insane.
I have a 60 Hz monitor next to the 144 Hz one and frankly using anything less than 100 Hz disgusts me now.
Do you have a particular refresh rate you prefer, and is a faster refresh or higher quality panel your main priority? Variable Refresh Rate is great, but what is the most prevalent out there? Interested to know what monitors you are using and whether you consider them bad, good or average for the price.

christopherwoods said:
I finally took the plunge and picked up a ViewSonic G-SYNC 144 Hz (165 Hz when overdriven) QHD 2K AHVA monitor last March. Aside from one worrying moment where the screen wouldn't display anything over DisplayPort, after some tasteful swear words it came back and has been working since. I do tend to use it at max 144 Hz, often less (120 Hz or 100 Hz if game streaming, as G-SYNC causes a few issues with OBS). A friend bought the Samsung Odyssey G9 DQHD which runs at 240 Hz, which is insane.
I have a 60 Hz monitor next to the 144 Hz one and frankly using anything less than 100 Hz disgusts me now.
Do you have a particular refresh rate you prefer, and is a faster refresh or higher quality panel your main priority? Variable Refresh Rate is great, but what is the most prevalent out there? Interested to know what monitors you are using and whether you consider them bad, good or average for the price.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Mainly I'm using two Monitors:
Lenovo P44w-10 with H/K USB-C Speaker and LG 24GM79G-B
Both are capable of 144Hz which is a big difference when you play FPS shooters and don't want any motion blur(like me).
The Lenovo is really expensive, but theres no alternative when it comes to the multiple connections the monitor can serve to you and the picture quality is really good though it has not a high vertical resolution(only 1200).

strongst said:
Mainly I'm using two Monitors:
Lenovo P44w-10 with H/K USB-C Speaker and LG 24GM79G-B
Both are capable of 144Hz which is a big difference when you play FPS shooters and don't want any motion blur(like me).
The Lenovo is really expensive, but theres no alternative when it comes to the multiple connections the monitor can serve to you and the picture quality is really good though it has not a high vertical resolution(only 1200).
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
How do you find things like panel uniformity and backlight bleed?

christopherwoods said:
How do you find things like panel uniformity and backlight bleed?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The Lenovo panel is well made(also the overall quality) and I can't see excessive bleeding in dark situations.

Have an Acer Predator z35, 144 at stock and overclocks to 200Hz, g-sync compatible, have an Nvidia card, but game at 144.
It's kind of the sweet spot.