Disappointments with XR341CK

I was extremely excited to get this monitor. I was looking to upgrade from my old 2 monitor setup and tried a 4k, but found it not to my liking. I started looking at Ultra Wide's and was able to get my hands on an HP Envy 34 inch which convinced me to get a 3440x1440 21:9 monitor. While I'm not a hardcore gamer I was enticed by the ability to have 75hz and freesync which I felt gave this monitor an advantage of the LG/Dell/Samsung competition.

I have a main windows desktop and mac work laptop which I had planned to use in Picture-by-Picture mode so I wouldn't have to use separate displays or be switching inputs. To my huge disappointment the built in PBP features, or lack there of, for this monitor is a deal breaker for me. The inability to change the scale the displays and have it stuck at 3440x1440 is ridiculous. I thought maybe I was doing something wrong, but after many attempts and different configurations I finally concluded this couldn't be done as when switching to PBP mode it locks the 'wide mode' at 'full' and doesn't allow any changing. Why even have PBP if you're not going to provide any useful support for it? Sure I can plug in another comptuter/device and have it shrunk down to fit in the screen space, but it's unfortunately un-usable.

The second gripe I have with this monitor is the lack of any display management software. The ability to set up regions on a screen this large is, in my opinion, standard. The ability to quickly organize windows in a way which would increase productivity is something which should be there. How can Acer think this is ok to ship a 21:9 3440x1440 monitor without these features? While this may seem small when you're paying nearly a grand for a monitor which is lacking in features cheaper monitors have it makes the decision to return it an easy one and I'll save a few hundred while I'm at it.

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Cory-Acer

Hi EndersChosen,

Thanks for taking the time to give us some feedback. I have to be honest, I've never found a useable application for PNP in my day to day life, so I have to confess that I don't even know what a good PNP setup would look like. Can you provide me with any suggestions?

Similarly, with display management, my personal opinion is that this device is positioned to be a gaming powerhouse, with a focused effort on whatever game is being played. I do know of some applications that try to help get the most out of the desktop real estate, but can you point me towards display management software at a monitor level that you've seen or would like to see?

I'll certainly pass this information along as idea's and any follow up you have will be appended in the future.

Thanks,
Cory

EndersChosen

Hi Cory,

Thanks for responding. I understand the target audience for this monitor is gamers and I'm not as hard core game as I used to be but still like to play. The idea of having freesync and higher refresh rates was very attractive to me and I felt worth the extra cost comparitively. While those featues worked well it didn't met my expectations for productivety.

Picture in Picture, PIP, isn't something I was really interested in and like you can't find a real good use for it. However, Picture by Picture, PBP, is something I was interested in. I have a work mac laptop and my personal windows desktop and the idea was to be able to have both plugged into the monitor so I could have my personal windows based stuff on one side and have my work OSX specific stuff on the other and be able to use both with one keyboard and mouse. I'm probably a very small portion of people who would have this complaint, but non the less it was a deal breaker for me.

I wish I had taken pictures of what Picture by Picture creates, but essentially it forces both devices to use a 3440x1440 resolution squashed into half of the physical area, as mentioned before this makes both devices unusable.

The absense of any display management software was a big surprise for me. I can't see how you can make a 21:9 3440x1440 $1000+ monitor and not have custom software to help manage windows on it. With a monitor this size the built in Windows management features aren't enough, and yes there are other software options available which make this an easy work around I feel this is something acer can either include or make themselves. I shouldn't need to go look somewhere else for it. If I were to recommend what I would like to see it would be something beyond what LG has done, where they just give you presets, and something closer to what Dell has with their Display Manager for the U3415W where not only does it give you presets, but also custom options, as well as configuring the color levels for each area it's split up to. This, in my opinion, is the best software for display management and something you, LG and Samsung should try to replicate.

Thanks for your time.

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