Lenovo Legion Y34wz-30 review: an HDR monster of a monitor

The subsequent massive battle for gaming monitor supremacy will be between OLED and miniLED screens. OLED has rather a lot going for it, however isn’t the brightest display screen tech round and, regardless of current enhancements, it’s nonetheless liable to display screen burn-in. In the meantime, miniLED isn’t as quick to reply however brings dazzling brightness for robust HDR copy in even brightly lit rooms. The Lenovo Legion Y34wz-30 is a good instance of the latter, and makes for a compelling general-purpose gaming monitor.

This all provides as much as this Lenovo show being the perfect miniLED monitor we’ve but examined, and among the finest HDR gaming screens too, touchdown this show a spot on our greatest gaming monitor listing.

Specs

Options

The primary characteristic of the Lenovo Legion Y34wz-30 is, after all, its display screen, which is a 34-inch ultrawide panel. This implies it has a fair wider 32:9 width-to-height ratio than a standard 16:9 display screen. This show dimension is joined by a decision of three,440 x 1,440 pixels, which is typical for this display screen dimension, and offers the identical density of 110 pixels per inch as a typical 2,560 x 1,440, 27-inch show.

As such, this panel instantly presents an interesting stability of display screen dimension and backbone that ensures the show appears to be like sharp, however with out the decision being so high quality that you need to use the scaling settings in Home windows to make the textual content a readable dimension. You’ll be able to match two typical utility home windows side-by-side, comparable to having a browser open on one half and your e-mail software program on the opposite, with out it feeling cramped.

This show dimension can be perfect for watching motion pictures, as many motion pictures are filmed in a really widescreen format. Mix this vast panel with the excessive distinction from the miniLED backlight, and few screens will likely be higher for HDR film watching.

Elsewhere, this display screen has fairly just a few further options. For a begin, you get a great deal of connections, with the added means to attach your mouse and keyboard to the show, then have it management which video enter they hook up with (a KVM characteristic).

You get simply the one commonplace DisplayPort enter on your PC, however then two HDMI 2.1 connections (so that you get 120Hz console help) and a USB-C video enter too, with 90W charging for the latter. You’ll be able to then join as much as six USB gadgets and have the KVM operate swap these between inputs.

The primary limitation of the KVM operate is that it could possibly solely change between the USB-C enter and one different video enter, decided by whichever enter can be related to the USB-uplink socket. Conveniently, two of the USB ports are on the left fringe of the monitor, together with the headphone jack, making them simple to succeed in.

Speaking of audio, this show comes with audio system – removed from a assure nowadays – however sadly they’re not fairly pretty much as good as we’d hope. Though they’re rated to 10W and are higher than some entry-level monitor audio system, they lack the lower-end oomph of these on the Samsung Odyssey G9 G95SC. In the end, we wouldn’t use them for any audio playback past watching the odd YouTube clip.

In the meantime, the show’s stand presents top, rotation, and tilt adjustment, however can’t be rotated right into a portrait orientation, which makes it a bit difficult to plug cables into the monitor as soon as the monitor is in place solely on our desk. You may as well take away the stand and use the rear VESA mount to suit a monitor arm or various stand.

Design

This isn’t probably the most elegant show we’ve ever seen. The show panel is distinctly chunky, due to the additional thickness required to accommodate the subtle 384-zone miniLED backlight, slightly than the skinny strip of LEDs on one edge utilized in commonplace LCDs.

This panel thickness will get even chunkier on the again, the place it homes all of the connections, which makes it all of the extra a disgrace Lenovo didn’t make the audio system only a bit higher – it seems like there’s room for a extra highly effective audio setup.

The stand has a chunky angular design, giving off the impression of a bolstered roofing beam with its triangular sample. I do fairly just like the V-shaped look of the stand – it’s a bit extra elegant than a plain rectangle – however I in the end discovered it a bit impractical, as is usually the case with this model of stand. It takes up plenty of desk area,each side-to-side and front-to-back.

One little design further is that Lenovo has added RGB lighting to the underside of the underside bezel. This provides the keyboard space of your desk a lovely glow, which might be genuinely helpful if it might sync up with what’s being displayed on the display screen. Nevertheless, it could possibly’t do that, as an alternative providing a handful of fundamental RGB results. They’re extra helpful/noticeable than RGB lighting on the again of a display screen, but it surely’s nonetheless the kind of characteristic I’d in the end find yourself turning off.

The Legion Y34wz-30 has a choice of controls on the rear proper facet of the show. These provide energy on/off management, enter choice, and normal menu navigation. The latter makes for fast and straightforward navigation of the menus, with the controls feeling responsive and the menus shifting quick. Furthermore, the menus provide loads of picture high quality and sport setting tweaks, making it simple to arrange the show how you want.

There isn’t an enormous wealth of extras, such because the AI-influenced sensible crosshair of the MSI MPG 271QRX, but it surely has all of the fundamentals you must want.

Software program

In addition to organising the Legion Y34wz-30 through its in-built menus, you may as well management some settings through Lenovo’s Artery app, assuming you’ve related the USB cable of the monitor to your PC. The software program enables you to change between the monitor’s sport mode profiles, add crosshair, body charge, and timer overlays, change sound output gadgets, and it even bizarrely has a job scheduler.

Sadly, the installer for Lenovo Artery wouldn’t work on our check system, so I can’t vouch for its utility. It’s not an incredible signal that this will likely be dependable software program for years to come back primarily based on this expertise, although.

Picture high quality

Having just lately reviewed a number of OLED gaming screens, within the form of the LG 27GR95QE, the MSI MPG 271QRX, and the Samsung Odyssey G9 G95SC, probably the most instantly optimistic features of testing the Lenovo Legion Y34wz-30 is that its image is so clean.

For any given pixel density, present OLED shows have a tendency to not have as sharp a picture as different panels, with textual content and borders to different high-contrast areas affected by shade fringing. The Legion Y34wz-30, although, has none of these points.

As such, as we talked about earlier, this show makes for an incredible general-purpose productiveness show, with ample area for 2 home windows side-by-side, and the picture sharpness to do them justice.

This panel has wonderful shade copy, with a claimed 95% protection of the DCI-P3 shade area (94.8% in response to our measurements). This implies the panel can produce the broader shade vary anticipated of the varied HDR requirements that exist at the moment. Crucially, although, whereas colours pop on this display screen, they don’t look unnatural and exaggerated.

All this and the native distinction of the show is great too. That’s as a result of this monitor makes use of a VA LCD panel with a distinction of three,000:1, in response to Lenovo’s ranking. In our assessments, it solely hit 2,100:1 however this nonetheless made for a punchy, high-contrast picture with deeper black ranges than may be achieved on IPS or TN LCD shows.

Coloration stability isn’t good out of the field, although, so chances are you’ll wish to fine-tune the pink, inexperienced, and blue stability if you happen to care about color-accurate work. We measured the default shade temperature as 5,655K, when ideally it must be 6,500K, so the panel appears to be like a bit too yellow/orange at its default settings.

One side of this monitor that dissatisfied me is you can’t manually flip the 384-zone mini LED backlight on or off. This variety of zones can be comparatively low for a miniLED show, with some having over 1,000 zones for this display screen dimension. In non-HDR modes it simply seems to be off, leaving the native distinction of the show to do all of the work, however if you happen to have interaction HDR the backlight springs into life.

Consequently, HDR appears to be like superb, with true black ranges achievable, because the backlight zones for black areas can change themselves off utterly. In the meantime, the backlights for brighter areas can ramp as much as 1,000 models of brightness.

For comparability, in typical desktop gaming, you usually use a monitor at 150-300nits, and HDR on OLED screens tends to peak at solely round 400nits. As such, 1,000nits is amazingly vivid when utilized in darker gaming/cinematic areas, and nonetheless actually impactful in brighter areas. The under picture reveals the show in SDR (left) and HDR (proper) modes.

It’s a disgrace you’ll be able to’t allow the backlight zoning for non-HDR content material. For many desktop work and gaming it’s not an issue however a show comparable to this one ought to come into its personal when watching motion pictures and different widescreen movies.

Nevertheless, with so little HDR content material out there, the most important promoting level of this show typically doesn’t get to work. Even guaranteeing the black bars you inevitably get across the edges of sure video content material are literally really black, slightly than a distracting gray, would make all of the distinction.

Efficiency

Of the three forms of LCD panels – IPS, TN, VA – it’s usually thought of that VA is the worst for gaming, or not less than fast-paced, aggressive gaming. That’s as a result of it tends to have the slowest response time, which is the time it takes for a pixel to transition from one shade to a different. A sluggish response time leads to blurry, smeary, ghostly trails in fast-moving photographs.

Certain sufficient, that was the case right here in response to our response time check outcomes. Utilizing our OSRTT tester, we measured the panel’s preliminary response time as starting from a distinctly poor 10.5ms to a way more respectable 4.2ms, relying on the overdrive setting used on the show. That compares to round 1-2ms for the quickest LCD panels and below 1ms for OLED shows.

At this most overdrive setting, the show does present a little bit of inverse ghosting, which refers to the ghostly trails attributable to the pixels overshooting the colour they’re aiming for, but it surely’s not sufficient to be a serious concern.

As such, I discovered this to be a quick sufficient show to play the likes of Apex Legends and Quake Champions. It might not preserve tempo with the quickest gaming screens out there, but it surely nonetheless presents a clean, responsive really feel.

Value & availability

When initially priced at round $1,200, the Lenovo Legion Y34wz-30 was a very laborious promote, because it doesn’t do sufficient to raise itself above much more reasonably priced ultrawide choices. Nevertheless, with it presently out there for round $640, it’s a way more aggressive providing. Notably, although, whereas its value within the US has dropped to a wise stage, in areas such because the UK it’s nonetheless going for round £900, and it’s too costly at that value.

Options

If the Lenovo Legion Y34wz-30 monitor isn’t the precise selection for you, I’d suggest contemplating these options.

Closing verdict

If you happen to’re after a show that you need to use to take pleasure in top-tier HDR gaming and video, the Lenovo Legion Y34wz-30 delivers the products, and it’ll maintain its personal for many desktop and broader gaming use too. Its miniLED backlight fairly actually shines in relation to delivering the excessive brightness and excessive distinction which can be key to nice HDR supply.

In different areas, it’s stable sufficient although not excellent, with satisfactory aggressive gaming efficiency and first rate general-purpose desktop picture high quality. Its first rate audio system and USB hub with a KVM characteristic additionally profit it as a extra general-purpose show than some gaming screens.

As such, at its present US pricing of round $640, it’s an honest purchase if HDR is a key precedence and also you’ll use the KVM operate. In different areas the place its pricing isn’t but so aggressive, although, it’s much less of an apparent winner in comparison with the newest 34-inch OLED screens at related costs, or different LCD 34-inch choices for decrease costs.