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With a bright high-resolution panel and impressive color coverage, the MSI Summit MS321UP ($799.99) is an appealing big-screen productivity monitor for graphic artists, video producers, and photographers. It can render HDR content and it exceeded its rated contrast ratio in our testing. The Summit is on the costly side and lacks some of the docking-station and videoconferencing features we’ve enjoyed in other business displays, but it should prove a very capable choice for creative employees.
A Handsome Design and Large, Hi-Res Screen
Outfitted with a 4K or UHD (3,840-by-2,160-pixel) panel measuring 32 inches diagonally, the MS321UP has a pixel density of 138 pixels per inch (ppi), which is more than enough for photo editing. Its in-plane switching (IPS) technology gives it wide vertical and horizontal viewing angles (up to 178 degrees), ensuring accurate color even when viewing the screen from the side or above.
(Credit: Molly Flores)
Black with gold trim, the Summit cuts a handsome figure. Up front, the panel is framed in black and nearly bezel-less on the top and sides. The cabinet is connected to a rod that emerges from the rectangular base. The monitor measures 18.1 by 28.6 by 9.3 inches (HWD) and weighs 21.4 pounds. You can adjust its height by up to 3.9 inches (raising the top edge to 22 inches); swivel the screen 35 degrees in either direction; and tilt the top of the display up to 5 degrees toward you or 20 degrees away. Like many monitors of this size, the MSI does not offer the ability to pivot between landscape and portrait modes.
(Credit: Molly Flores)
Video inputs include two HDMI 2.0 ports, one DisplayPort connector, and a USB Type-C port. The last supports DisplayPort over USB Alternate Mode and up to 15 watts of power delivery, which is fine for charging small devices but not enough to power or effectively charge most laptops. There are also three USB Type-A ports and one USB Type-B port.
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(Credit: Molly Flores)
Most of the ports face downward at the rear, making them a little hard to reach since the monitor can’t pivot. Two of the USB-A ports as well as microphone-in and headphone jacks and an SD card slot are located on the side for easy access.
(Credit: Molly Flores)
A five-way mini-joystick controller makes navigating the MSI’s onscreen display (OSD) menus a snap. Originally a flourish found on gaming monitors, mini joysticks are now found on some productivity monitors as well.
(Photo: Molly Flores)
Testing the MSI MS321UP: Good Brightness and Contrast, Stellar Color Coverage
I tested the Summit MS321UP’s brightness, contrast, and color coverage using our standard test equipment: a Klein K-10A colorimeter(Opens in a new window), a Murideo SIX-G(Opens in a new window) signal generator, and Portrait Displays’ CalMAN 5(Opens in a new window) calibration software.
MSI rates the display at 400 nits (candelas per square meter) of luminance, and it came very close to that—392 nits—in our measurement. The Summit also did better than its rated 1,000:1 contrast ratio, turning in a 1,158:1 score.
(Credit: PCMag)
The monitor did great in our color gamut testing, covering 100% of the sRGB palette used for webpages and numerous other applications (MSI only claims 98%) as seen in the CalMAN chromaticity chart above. The Summit also covered 98.9% of DCI-P3, a color space for digital video—an unusually high score for a monitor not primarily aimed at creative pros, and easily ahead of the manufacturer’s claimed 95% coverage (see the chart below).
It also covered 90.2% of the Adobe RGB gamut used by professional photographers when editing photos for printing, another above-average score for a productivity monitor. We did not test the display’s color accuracy, but MSI claims that it comes pre-calibrated to a delta-E value of less than 2.
(Credit: PCMag)
In my ad hoc testing, I viewed video clips and photos from our usual test library. Colors in movie scenes were well saturated and detail looked sharp in both bright and dark areas. Colors in photos seemed vivid and reasonably true.
The Summit MS321UP has a VESA DisplayHDR 600 rating, so I briefly tested it with some HDR content, using a DisplayPort connection rather than our usual HDMI. I couldn’t run our brightness or other quantitative tests since our Murideo signal generator is limited to HDMI connectivity, but subjectively the HDR video looked bright with vibrant colors and sharply rendered detail, especially in darker scenes where it is often lost.
A Long and Winding Road
Though this is September 2022, we actually received our MS321UP review unit in September 2021. We had expected it to be available in the U.S. soon after, but though the monitor was for sale in Asia its American launch was repeatedly pushed back. It wasn’t until last month that it showed up on U.S. retail sites, chiefly Newegg and Amazon. And over the past year, the market has not stood still.
In recent months, we’ve seen a growing number of videoconferencing monitors with high-res webcams, dual microphones, and powerful speakers, such as the Asus BE279QSK. Additionally, so-called docking-station or USB-hub monitors have become popular. Most of them have an Ethernet port to provide wired networking connectivity to a laptop that lacks it if Wi-Fi coverage is spotty or absent. Docking-station monitors also have plenty of downstream USB Type-A and Type-C ports for connecting to peripherals. Some recent displays, including the Editors’ Choice award winners the HP E27m G4 and the Philips 329P1H, boast both videoconferencing and docking-station features.
(Credit: Molly Flores)
A Capable Screen for Creative Workers
While the abovementioned HP is smaller, the Philips 329P1H is essentially the same size (31.5 inches) as the Summit and shares its IPS tech and 4K resolution. Like the MS321UP, it’s impressively bright with higher-than-rated contrast and aced our sRGB and DCI-P3 color-coverage testing. The Philips also provides pivot capability, plenty of ports including Ethernet, and can deliver 90 watts to easily power a laptop. Finally, it sells for about $200 less than the MSI, though the latter does have an SD card reader and can render HDR content.
For those reasons, the Philips 329P1H remains our Editors’ Choice pick among 30-plus-inch business monitors. But if you don’t need videoconferencing features beyond what your laptop provides, and your budget allows it, the Summit MSI321UP is well worth consideration as a highly capable productivity display for graphic artists and video and photo pros. It offers bright still and video images with strong contrast (including for HDR content) and excellent color coverage.
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Although MSI’s Summit MS321UP lacks some of the videoconferencing and docking-station features found in recent business monitors, content creators will appreciate its big, bright, high-contrast screen and excellent color coverage.
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Source link : https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/msi-summit-ms321up