Viotek GNV34DBE curved gaming monitor review

Viotek is a relative newcomer to the gaming monitor scene whose main strength has been targeting gamers on a budget. The Viotek GFT27CXB, for example, is probably one of the best 240Hz gaming monitors you can scoop up right now. And Viotek is hoping to have the same luck by offering an ultrawide budget display to gamers.

Viotek's specialty is speedy barebones gaming displays, and the GNV34DBE curved ultrawide is no different. The 34-inch ultrawide gaming monitor has a 144Hz refresh rate with a 4ms response time on a VA panel. The biggest selling point, though, is the $450 price point. It's a great price when you compare it to other 1440p curved ultra-wide monitors, which usually live in the $700-$800 price range.

The budget price means Viotek has had to make some compromises with the design. It's evident in things like the stand; to start with, it is not height adjustable, which is more than a little annoying. As a proud (and obnoxiously evangelical) standing desk user, the ideal place to set a monitor is eye-level, and the Viotek forced me to continually look down when I stood up and sat too low overall to enjoy what I was doing fully. The stand is also wobbly and never truly felt sturdy through my testing.

Maybe I've just been spoiled with some recent curved gaming monitors loaded with a ton of display and USB ports, but I found myself wishing the GNV34DBE gave me more than an audio output and a pair of HDMI and Display ports.

If you're shopping for a budget screen, chances are, you only care about how it performs relative to its price. Thankfully, Viotek's G-Sync compatible curved display doesn't disappoint in that regard. My matches of Apex Legends and Call of Duty: Duty took full advantage of the 144Hz refresh rate even if the brightness was on the lower side. Gaming at 3440 x 1440 always takes a little getting used to, but the action ran smoothly and looked awesome.

Consuming other media like Netflix and Twitch looked fine in HDR though the black levels definitely left a little to be desired. Colorful movies, such as Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse, look great, showing off all the colorful Spider-persons in action. Overall, for an HDR monitor, the brightness could have been better. But again, for the price, I'm willing to forgive a lot of the shortcomings.

When not using HDR, the Viotek offered a surprisingly decent color accuracy with impressive contrast. One feature I love seeing in ultrawide monitors is picture-in-picture and picture by picture. I was surprised to see that GNV34DBE supported both... though with not so stellar results. 

Enabling any one of these modes disables HDR and squeezes each source to fit each half of the display to a nearly unusable size. If you had dreams of playing PS4 browsing twitter on the same display, it's not going to happen. But A+ for effort, I guess.

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All that said, $450 is a fantastic price for 34-inch ultrawide with 1440p, 144Hz, and HDR. It's probably the cheapest on the market right now. Every time I complained about missing port or feature, I thought about how much extra it would have added to the price and quickly changed my tune. 

Though, if you have particular needs, whether it be adjustable height or eye-care features, you may want to look elsewhere. The Viotek GNV34DBE may not have all the bells and whistles, but it offers decent game performance for the price.

If you're strictly just gaming, on a budget, and need an ultrawide, this isn't a bad monitor. If you're willing to compromise, the Viotek GNV34BDE might be the ideal ultrawide gaming monitor for the budget-conscience gamer.