MSI MPG 491CQP review: a stunning 49-inch OLED monitor

The MSI MPG 491CQP is a big 49-inch gaming monitor that makes use of the newest Samsung QD-OLED panel know-how to ship dazzling colours and beautiful HDR. It does all this whereas additionally offering speedy gaming efficiency, because of a 175Hz refresh charge and 0.03ms response time. It’s not filled with additional options, however that additionally retains its value considerably smart.

It’s all sufficient to make this simply the most effective gaming screens round, and it places MSI firmly on the map in the case of gaming screens typically. There are just a few caveats to notice if you’re occupied with shopping for this show, although.

Specs

Options

There was a flood of 49-inch gaming screens in 2024, with most of them utilizing the identical Samsung QD-OLED panels with a decision of 5,120 x 1,440. That’s the case right here with the 491CQP, so it means this show has loads of competitors in the case of its fundamental occasion.

As such, whereas there are methods by which show producers can differentiate themselves in the case of how they use these panels, it’s the additional options that play an enormous half by which monitor will attraction most to you.

The 491CQP, then, runs its 49-inch panel at a refresh charge of 175Hz, which is a bit slower than some competing screens that prime out at 240Hz, comparable to the prevailing Samsung G95SC. This instantly places the MSI barely on the again foot, however 175Hz remains to be sufficient velocity for many avid gamers.

Elsewhere, this show gives all of the necessities in the case of options, however doesn’t precisely over-deliver. When it comes to video connections, you get a reasonably customary collection of one DisplayPort 1.4a port, two HDMI 2.1 inputs, and a UBS-C port. The latter may ship 90W of energy to related units comparable to laptops.

You additionally get a USB hub, which gives two USB-A 2.0 sockets and a KVM function. This implies you may swap related mice and keyboards (or every other USB units) to connect with your fundamental PC (through the USB-B uplink cable), or to your USB-C machine whenever you swap video inputs. It is a useful little additional, but it surely’s slightly shocking that you just solely get USB 2.0 ports on this monitor.

By the way, the primary distinction between a number of of MSI’s new MAG and MPG OLED gaming screens is that the MPG variations have the 90W USB-C energy supply, whereas the MAG fashions solely ship 15W. The MAG fashions additionally lack a USB hub in any respect.

One other lacking function throughout the board is any kind of audio system, with solely a headphone output supplied for pulling audio from the video inputs. It gives clear and clear audio output at the least, and it additionally saves you spending extra cash on audio system chances are you’ll nicely not even use.

There’s no RGB lighting both, or certainly every other extras, though the stand does embrace top, rotation, and tilt adjustment, all of which function easily.

Design

When a display is as large because the 491CQP, its design can’t assist however be dominated by the presence of the show itself. Nevertheless, MSI has executed a good job of conserving this monitor wanting good and functioning nicely the place potential.

From the entrance, the panel has fairly huge bezels in comparison with some screens, however they’re no greater than most competing shows of this measurement/kind. The underside bezel is completed in a easy and delicate metallic grey, with a delicate MSI brand on the far left. Within the middle, there’s a small white LED to point energy, though it’s a contact too vivid, so it could’ve been useful to have a setting within the menus to make it much less vivid or flip it off.

Around the again, this show seems like a reasonably typical gaming display, with an all-black coloration scheme and a shiny central part with an MSI dragon brand and numerous different traces etched into it. It’s not as classy-looking because the Samsung G95SC to our eyes, however your tastes my differ.

One design function we do like about this display, although, is that its edges are slightly thicker than on some screens, making it simpler to deal with. MSI has additionally managed to implement a totally passive cooling system for the display. Whereas many OLED panels require a fan to maintain cool, there isn’t one required right here. Most of those followers are mainly inaudible in regular use, but it surely’s good to know there’s at the least one much less potential level of failure.

The stand right here seems fairly good with its two lengthy, V-shaped toes completed in a metallic grey. Nevertheless, we a lot desire the slim, flat-foot model used on the Samsung G95SC. It encroaches on much less of your desk house, and the house it does occupy can nonetheless be used, because the foot is totally flat.

The curve of this panel has a delicate 1,800-inch radius (1800R), which simply barely brings the sting of the display in in direction of you. It is a extra sensible curve for many makes use of than tighter curves, however in the event you’re on the lookout for a devoted flight or racing sim display, a 1000R display such because the Samsung G95NA will higher fit your wants.

Software program and controls

The MSI MPG 491CQP doesn’t supply any kind of software program assist, in contrast to the Lenovo Legion Y34wz-30, and also you management all its options through onscreen menus. These are complete and straightforward to regulate, because of a mini joystick/D-pad management on the again of the show. You get 9 fundamental menu sections, consisting of GI, Gaming, Skilled, Picture, Enter Supply, PIP/PBP, Navi Key, Settings, and MSI OLED Care.

GI is the place you discover the KVM switching operate, together with two display overlay choices. One is a great crosshair function, which is genuinely fairly helpful. It exhibits a crosshair within the middle of the display (measurement and form customizable) after which mechanically modifications its coloration relying on what’s on the display, serving to make sure the crosshair stays simply seen. This may be helpful in video games the place capturing accuracy is vital however a crosshair isn’t in any other case proven on display – when utilizing iron sights, as an illustration.

There’s additionally an Optix Scope function, which is much less clearly helpful. In concept, it provides you a sort of sniper scope zoom impact, but it surely’s on on a regular basis so it’s tough to make it work with most video games.

In the meantime, the Gaming part is the place the primary Recreation Mode presets are situated, together with settings for a darkish color-boosting Evening Imaginative and prescient mode, an AI Imaginative and prescient mode, a refresh charge counter overlay, an alarm clock of all issues, and the Adaptive Sync setting.

Then there’s the Skilled part, which homes the picture high quality presets, together with an sRGB mode for limiting the colour gamut of the display, and each Adobe RGB and Show P3 modes, which once more set the display to what MSI believes are one of the best settings to adapt to these coloration requirements. We tended to depart the show on Show P3 for many use.

The Picture part homes the brightness, distinction, sharpness, coloration temperature, display measurement, and DisplayHDR settings. The penultimate of these enables you to restrict the display to a 4:3 or 16:9 side ratio, which might be helpful in the event you solely prefer to play older video games (or video) on the right side ratio, slightly than filling the entire display. Oddly, 21:9 isn’t supplied as an choice, although.

In the meantime, the Navi Key part enables you to assign completely different shortcuts to the instructions of the menu’s joystick. The ultimate fundamental OSD part is OLED Care, which gives a great deal of methods for the display to cut back the chance of growing OLED burn-in. That’s the place the display develops everlasting marks on it from static vivid photos being proven on it for too lengthy.

The OLED Care menu features a pixel shift setting, which makes the show transfer the display’s picture over one pixel from time to time, barely altering which pixels are activated. You possibly can change the setting to Gradual, Regular, or Quick.

Then there’s Static Display screen Detection, which is actually a standby mode that detects if areas of the display haven’t moved, and in that case, reduces their brightness. The identical primary impact occurs with the Brand, Taskbar, and Boundary Detection modes, which all supply barely completely different areas for the display to focus on to cut back burn-in. It’s a complete listing that, together with a three-year display burn guarantee, goes an extended option to aiding peace of thoughts about your show being ruined by burn-in.

One slight irritation we observed, nonetheless, is that the show will flip off utterly when it goes into standby, requiring you to show the show again on through the button on the again in the event you’ve been absent out of your PC – when getting back from a lunch break, as an illustration. It’s a small subject but it surely received on our nerves.

Picture high quality

As we’ve come to count on from Samsung’s QD-OLED panels, as utilized by MSI right here, general picture high quality is incredible. The flexibility of OLED panels to utterly flip off particular person pixels means you get basically infinite distinction with true black ranges. Colours dazzle too, with the show capable of cowl 99% of the DCI-P3 coloration gamut – the widest used for standard shows. This implies HDR content material specifically actually pops on the MPG 491CQP.

Most full-screen brightness is modest at simply 254nits (by our measurements), so that you don’t get fairly the dazzle that miniLED HDR shows, such because the Lenovo Legion Y34wz-30 can obtain. Nevertheless, the MSI MPG 491CQP’s picture nonetheless seems vivid and usable, even in fairly well-lit rooms.

Furthermore, it may well produce greater brightness ranges in small areas, making HDR content material pop greater than this modest peak determine would counsel. With simply the 4% window of this HDR check sample proven, the display can hit 440nits.

That’s nonetheless nothing in comparison with the 1,000nits of some miniLED screens, but it surely nonetheless makes for incredible-looking HDR imagery – in any case, most individuals will solely need to run their display at round 200nits for every day use so 440nits remains to be a pleasant brightness increase for HDR. As such, whether or not you’re watching video or taking part in video games, this display doesn’t disappoint. It merely seems incredible.

In our coloration calibration exams utilizing a Calibrite Show Plus HL and DisplayCal software program, the display did present that it advantages from slightly little bit of coloration stability tweaking to look excellent, but it surely’s not too drastic. Its default Eco mode isn’t nice, although, so we advocate switching to the Show P3 or Consumer modes and going from there.

As such, there are solely two fundamental areas of concern in the case of picture high quality. The primary is that the sheer measurement of the display means it’s truly too huge for even ultra-widescreen motion pictures, and it doesn’t play completely with some video games both. Barely much less huge screens – these with 21:9 side ratios – supply a greater expertise for widescreen motion pictures and video games.

As a substitute, it’s whenever you’re utilizing productiveness software program and watching the occasional ultra-widescreen video clip, such because the one proven above, the place the display actually shines. The additional width is tremendous helpful for having a great deal of home windows open side-by-side, and it makes for fairly a sight when the entire display is crammed with video footage.

The place it’s let down for productiveness work is in the case of textual content readability. As a result of QD-OLED panels use a barely completely different format of pink, inexperienced, and blue subpixels to LCD screens, they’ll produce coloured fringes on the sides of high-contrast components of a picture, comparable to black textual content on a white background. You possibly can see within the two photos under how the OLED panel (prime) has these fringe colours, whereas the LCD panel under (with the identical decision/display measurement) seems a lot crisper.

For that reason, I personally nonetheless wouldn’t use a display of this measurement and backbone for my day job of studying and writing about tech all day – the drop in textual content high quality is noticeable sufficient. Nevertheless, many customers will discover it’s not a lot of an issue. Additionally, for screens with a better pixel density – as you’ll discover with 4k 32-inch OLED screens, for instance – this drawback basically disappears.

Gaming efficiency

The large benefit of OLED over LCD is its ultra-fast response time and that’s in proof right here. With a rated 0.03ms response time, this panel is 100 occasions quicker at switching colours than the quickest LCD, in concept. In our response time exams utilizing an OSRTT, it truly averaged a 1.28ms preliminary response time, thanks to some slower-than-expected coloration transitions, however for probably the most half, that is nonetheless a blazing-fast display.

This was borne out in my very own gaming exams, the place I discovered the 491CQP to supply a very snappy really feel that allowed me to goal and observe motion exactly. That stated, I might understand the slight drop in peak refresh charge in comparison with 240Hz screens of the identical kind. The distinction wasn’t evening and day, however I’d undoubtedly slightly have the 240Hz refresh charge than not when taking part in the likes of Apex Legends and CS2.

Value and availability

The MSI MPG 491CQP value of $1,099.99 (£1,089.99) is unquestionably aggressive with different model new QD-OLED gaming screens of the identical measurement. Gigabyte’s Aorus CO49DQ is listed at the identical value, whereas the likes of Asus and Philips competing screens are costlier. Proper now the MPG 491CQP can be barely discounted to $999.99, however we don’t understand how lengthy that low cost will apply.

As such, the primary competitors to the 491CQP in proper now (Might 2024) stays Samsung’s G95SC. That is based mostly on barely older QD-OLED tech, but it surely nonetheless holds up nicely and gives a 240Hz refresh charge, together with a number of additional options, whereas costing simply $100 extra.

Alternate options

If the MSI MPG 491CQP isn’t the appropriate alternative for you, I like to recommend contemplating these options.

Ultimate verdict

The MSI MPG 491CQP is a good OLED gaming monitor at a good value. The sheer quantity of display house and efficiency you get for simply over $1,000 is unimaginable. Having seen just a few of all these screens just lately, there’s no additional wow issue right here to essentially make the MSI stand out, but it surely additionally doesn’t do a lot (if something) improper, and it has a aggressive value.

On the whole, the huge width on supply right here is superb for general desktop house, racing and flight sims, and different video games too. For some video games, and for many motion pictures, the huge width is definitely a bit wasted, however when the display might be stuffed it seems very good. HDR dazzles and colours pop, bringing superb depth to no matter you’re viewing.

Should you spend all day working at a display, and care loads about textual content readability, the sort of display isn’t one we’d advocate, although. Likewise, as a pure aggressive gaming display, its 175Hz max refresh charge is a contact limiting. Nevertheless, as an all-rounder, it delivers the products, with peace of thoughts relating to OLED burn-in coated by MSI’s three 12 months guarantee.

For extra of our prime picks for gaming screens, whether or not you’re on the lookout for a high-end OLED display, or less expensive choices, take a look at our greatest gaming monitor information, the place we have now suggestions for all makes use of.