A couple of weeks ago I entered the world of UltraWide. 3440×1440 in all its glory. 21:9. I could never go back.

What sparked my interest was a sale at Best Buy (they have great sales – my gaming laptop) – The HP Omen X35 for $799.

No chump change, for sure; G-Sync, VA Panel, 100hz; the Omen X35 seems to have it all. I could deal with the price for all of this.

I was a little scared about buying the Omen; I do a lot of research (A LOT) before I make a purchase. You have to, right? I don’t understand how in this day and age, someone just walks into a store looks around and goes “Yeah, that one looks good for the price.” Do people still do that? Anyways, I’m getting off topic here…

In my research I found many forums claiming that they had issues with the Omen X35; issues with the panel (my panel looked fantastic), dead pixels (none), issues with G-Sync (YUP), issues with artifacting (not for me) and the list goes on. I tried to justify my purchase, because the price was just so damn good; I know what you’re thinking. “Wait a minute here. A monitor for your computer costs more than a 4k TV?” Ok, I get that, but for what this monitor has, the price is pretty great for a curved ultrawide with G-Sync.

I’m not going to go into a full review, because spoiler alert – I already sent this piece of junk back. Even though it looks beautiful, even for a VA panel, with 100hz native refresh rate, I just had too many issues when…playing video games with the Omen (a GAMING monitor)!

Now, I hesitated for a couple weeks because I wasn’t having issues with all games. It wasn’t even THAT bad and noticeable in most games until; drum roll, Dark Souls Remastered. This game brought new issues to my attention. While G-Sync was on, I was have all the graphics look slightly blurry if I was not moving the camera. While moving it went away, but when I completely stopped, everything was blurry. I would turn off G-Sync and the problem would go away, but then I started having screen tearing.

On other games I would get this weird light and dark flickering. I noticed it in; Battlefield 1 and Destiny 2. The Witcher 3, Dark Souls 3 and Far Cry 5 gave me no issues at all, they actually looked absolutely amazing.

I tried to justify my purchase for about a week and I was about to keep the x35 until I saw that Amazon had the Asus ROG Swift PG348Q on sale for $999. I don’t think I had seen it for anything less  than $1249 previously. I was going to hold out until I found the Alienware AW3418DW in stock and on sale for $1149 (which I just checked, it is currently on sale for that exact price at the time of this posting – link here.) Since the Asus was on sale and in stock and the Alienware wasn’t, I figured I’d order it and hope it didn’t have the same issues as the Omen.

The PG348Q while an inch (actually noticeable) shorter, was way more heavy, but in a good, sturdy, high quality way. It’s not as “gamer-y” as the Alienware, which is nice. The Omen does beat the Asus in the bezel department; the Asus is pretty large, but I forget about it most of the time.

The curve of the Asus is less pronounced, which at first was a little bit of a disappointment. The Omen really hugged around you, which gave you more immersion in the game as you did not have to move your head or eyes left to right as much. While I loved that for gaming, I didn’t love that for general computer use or productivity. Words or straight lines were very curved. I started to get used to it, but I actually now prefer the ROG’s less pronounced curve.

Games look absolutely fantastic on the Asus; I have had no issues after using it for a couple of weeks. I don’t know if I’m remembering wrong, but I feel like I am getting better frame rates on this monitor. The only negative I could think of is that it’s native refresh rate is 60hz, but it can be overclocked to 100hz. I’ve had no issues with the overclocking to 100hz, personally.

In conclusion;

I recommend the Asus ROG Swift PG348Q. I wish all games supported ultrawide screen.

DO NOT BUY THE OMEN X35, it’s not worth it!

If you’d like to pick up the Asus PG348Q find it here on Amazon