LG 34" 34UC97 Curved IPS Display Review

The LG 34” Curved IPS Display

Introduction

It’s finally here. That was my reaction on the arrival of the LG 34UC97 Curved Ultrawide Display. We’ve seen consumer TV’s with curved panels and now it’s time for the PC master race to take full advantage of all these pixels.

Packaging

The 34UC97 comes boxed up similar to any TV packaging you’ve come across the past few years. It’s shiny on the outside but pretty basic on the inside. Hard foam protection isn’t the greatest for such a delicate product and if I were to purchase this online, I’d definitely have a few nerves kicking in on how it will be handled if not packed properly.  It would have been nice to see LG adopt a similar concept to the packaging style used by Dell in their high end displays for ultimate panel protection.

Inside the box you’ll find the curved panel, leg support, back I/O cover, screws for fitting the leg to the panel, HDMI & DP cable along with the power brick and manual. Yes, this does come with an external power brick. A panel this size requires some serious juice from the wall.

Putting the panel together felt a bit old-school with the pieces fastened together with screws as opposed to the ‘insert and click’ option many other manufacturers are doing these days.
Once it’s all up and running though is where this display sits in its own category of awesomeness.

Display

There isn’t much to say about the quality of the panel apart from ‘it’s awesome’. The colourfully rich IPS panel will have you watching things over and over again in awe of the panel quality. Movies, games, photos and general usage just looks amazing with everything you do. The quality in the display gets a solid 10/10. There aren’t many more displays out there that look this good.

The UI is controlled by the awkwardly positioned analogue stick right below centre of screen. It works yes, but being right in the middle you do need to awkwardly shape your arm to get to it. If they stuck the stick somewhere along the right side of the panel, would’ve been no issues at all.

The ‘Curve’

What gives this monitor the ‘wow’ factor, is the curve. Even if that factor lasts for only 10min. it’s definitely a head turner and will attract the sharp eyes of almost anyone who sees it. It’s an eye opener of a feature, but sadly that’s all there really is to it. In my usage I found no benefits to the curve from daily usage. It didn’t really add a benefit to the way I work but it also doesn’t take anything away. The curve is also slightly interesting for the fact that no matter where you look at it from, either the top part of the screen, or bottom will show some horizontal distortion at certain angles. It can be a bit off putting doing regular things like reading and general web surfing. With games I didn't even notice a curve; it didn't add or take away anything from the experience aside from the amazing amount of pixels to play with.

Pixels

At 3440x1440, this is hands down the most productive display to work on, watch movies on, and if your GPU allows, the best gaming experience. I’ve been personally using Ultrawide Monitors for about a year now and I can’t imagine life without it. It adds a whole new level of productivity, an entirely new gaming experience and most of all for me, movies look incredible. With the 21:9 ultrawide ratio most movies will fill out the entire screen without any black borders. On the LG 34UC97 you not only get the wideness but the slight hint of curve which makes this in my opinion, The Best Display For Entertainment. There just is nothing that will give you the level of experience you get from the LG 34UC97 on any other display.

 

Games

I’m not a competitive person, I always prefer panel and picture quality over the speedy TN panels so for me, this was an incredible experience. Games like Civilisation 5, Cities XL and other ‘sim’ type games are made for displays like these. The extra pixels give you so much more to play with it is an incredible feeling. FPS games at ultrawide give you a bigger field of view and with the slight curve you do feel a bit more immersed in the action, though I did realize while playing fast paced action games you sometimes do completely forget and not notice the curve at all.

 

Overall, this is a new piece of tech that is somewhat appropriately priced. The good news is if you’re willing to pay the $1800, you aren’t going to be disappointed. Even if you get over the curve feature, the quality in this panel is what makes this monitor really stand out. With a whole lot of pixels it will easily be the monitor you will ever work / play on.

Linksys EA6800 AC1900 Smart WiFi Router

AC Routers have started flooding the market lately and today I'm taking a look at the Linksys EA6900 AC1900 Router promising consumers speeds up to 1900Mbps (600mbps for Wireless-N & 1300Mbps for Wireless-AC).

Setting up the EA6900, the device wasn’t too fond of my Home network and refused to be detected through wires. After eventually setting it up through my laptop the router was up and running. Looking over the design of the unit it’s fairly similar to previous models with the addition of a few subtle changes and the addition of the 3 antennas. One thing you will notice is the size of the router. It is quite large and if you’re planning to place it somewhere on your desk, you may need to rethink it.

Once setup the web GUI of the device is very friendly and almost every level of user should be able to navigate and make changes quite easily and comfortably. The device lets you manage and edit everything you need to in a router. By default both the 2.4GHz and 5GHz on the device come with the same network ID and password, so your device will connect to whichever one is at its best reach. This is something you may want to change and control so that you can manually manage what devices you have connect to which network. The router also has functionality of using your smartphone to access the routers settings via an account and the app.

Speed wise the EA6900 is the fastest router I’ve used on the 2.4GHz at close range. It easily surpasses anything I’ve used and beats my own wireless router that I use. Where it doesn’t do so well is in the distance. Head to head against my dedicated Wireless-N router, it performs on par. I didn’t really see an improvement of speed against my existing router using the EA6900. For the premium price tag on the device and the age gap difference between the routers I was expecting significant improvement on the wireless range and throughput.

The biggest downside to the unit is the amount of heat it generates. It’s definitely up there as one of the hottest I’ve held. Even after an hour or so of powering it on, it gets uncomfortably hot. So beware and ensure you’re router is placed in a well-ventilated area as it’s going to need it.

Overall, the Linksys EA6900 is a solid piece of hardware with powerful specs that does have a few minor issues going against it. Saying that, most issues should be fixed with firmware updates which I hope Linksys is working on. If you’re looking to future proof your Home or Office wireless network, the Linksys EA6900 is one to put on your consideration list.

Gigabyte G1 Sniper B5

I don’t usually do Motherboard reviews, because usually they’re all the same really. A few extra SATA ports here and there, a colour scheme and some fancy marketing hype. Obviously the more you pay for an item the better the performance will be, but sometimes you got to ask yourself how much power do you need?

The G1 Sniper B5 is a 4^th Generation 1150 Micro ATX form factor motherboard.

Let’s take a look at what we have to play with on the board!

·        

 Support for Intel^® Core™ i7 processors/Intel^® Core™ i5 processors/Intel^® Core™ i3 processors/Intel^® Pentium^® processors/Intel^® Celeron^® processors in the LGA1150 package

·         Intel^® B85 Express Chipset

·         4 x 1.5V DDR3 DIMM sockets supporting up to 32 GB of system memory

·         1 x HDMI port, supporting a maximum resolution of 4096x2160

·          Realtek^® ALC898 codec

·         High Definition Audio

·         2/4/5.1/7.1-channel

·         Support for S/PDIF In

·         Support for S/PDIF Out

·         Intel^® GbE LAN chip (10/100/1000 Mbit)

·         1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16
(The PCI Express x16 slot conforms to PCI Express 3.0 standard.)

·         1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x4 (PCIEX4)

·         2 x PCI Express x1 slots
(The PCIEX4 and PCIEX1 slots conform to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)

·         2 x PCI slots

·         4 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors (SATA3 0~SATA3 3)

·         2 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors (SATA2 4~SATA2 5)

·         Up to 4 USB 3.0/2.0 ports (2 ports on the back panel, 2 ports available through the internal USB headers)

·         Up to 8 USB 2.0/1.1 ports (4 ports on the back panel, 4 ports available through the internal USB headers)

• 1 x 24-pin ATX main power connector
• 1 x 8-pin ATX 12V power connector
• 4 x SATA 6Gb/s connectors
• 2 x SATA 3Gb/s connectors
• 1 x CPU fan header
• 3 x system fan headers
• 1 x front panel header
• 1 x front panel audio header
• 1 x S/PDIF Out header
• 1 x S/PDIF In header
• 1 x USB 3.0/2.0 header
• 2 x USB 2.0/1.1 headers
• 1 x serial port header
• 1 x parallel port header
• 1 x Clear CMOS jumper
• 1 x PS/2 keyboard port
• 1 x PS/2 mouse port
• 1 x coaxial S/PDIF Out connector
• 1 x HDMI port
• 2 x USB 3.0/2.0 ports
• 4 x USB 2.0/1.1 ports
• 1 x RJ-45 port
• 1 x optical S/PDIF Out connector
• 5 x audio jacks (Center/Subwoofer Speaker Out, Rear Speaker Out, Line In, Line Out, Mic In)

So all in all, it’s a pretty feature packed board in a micro form factor.

Having said all that though, it’s not why I’m writing this review. You’ve probably already made up your mind on whether a motherboard like this will suit your next PC needs. What this motherboard has that a lot of others lack is decent Audio. Now it does come with your stock standard Realtek audio chip, but it what it has as an extra is a little something called Gigabyte Amp-Up Audio (which is basically your pre-amps).

Now, I was less than optimistic about how it would sound, after all, on board audio is horrible, regardless of your motherboard. These little pre-amps however help boost up that audio to a level where even audio enthusiasts wouldn’t mind if they had absolute no other choice.

Compared to other on board audio I’ve tried, this is probably the best that I’ve ever heard for something that comes with the motherboard. How does it fair against a $200 dedicated sound card? Well, not as well, as it shouldn’t. After all, the price of a soundcard itself is higher than the whole motherboard, but what it does do is offer those who want ‘good’ audio without the need of buying extra hardware, a real good option to consider. With the availability of many pre-amp options out there to suit your listening preferences, those who want to tweak it a bit have that option to do so.

For its price, it will be hard for you not to consider the G1 Sniper B5 as your next upgrade. It looks good, has awesome green LED’s running down the side and offers superior audio than other motherboards with on board audio.

By Sahin Selvi
sahin.s@centrecom.com.au

The opinions in this article are presented by Centre Com and do not truly represent those of the author (Sahin Selvi). The benchmark results may differ from user to user depending on what background software you are running and versions of benchmark software. These results aren’t portrayed to be seen as exact performance figures but merely as a rough estimate on the performance of the machine. These results are in no way bias to any company or person and are here to provide the end user in depth details and to provide extra assistance of potential purchases. All information on this page is subject to copyright. Please do not copy any parts of this article. 

Acer Aspire S7

Acer have been pretty active lately with the release of Windows 8 and the niche Ultrabook market. The S7 looks to stand out from the crowd with a slick design and luxury features that make it a head turner. Processor: Intel® Core™ i7-3517U 1.9GHz Processor (4M Cache, up to 3.00 GHz) Memory: 4GB DDR3-1333 Memory (1 x 4GB) Storage: 128GB SSD Optical Drive: No Wireless LAN: 3rd WiFi 2x2 AGN+ Bluetooth: Bluetooth 4.0 Camera: HD Battery: 4-cell (up to 6 hours) Card Reader: 2-in-1 Operating System: Windows 8 Graphics: Intel HD Graphics 4000 (UMA) Display: 13.3" HD + Touch Weight (KG): 1.3 Dimension (W x D x H): 323.3 x 223.5 x 11.9 http://www.centrecom.com.au/catalog/acer-aspire-73514g25aws-p-61388.html?sort=2a Packs quite the punch ey? Well it should because at $1900 you’re going to be expecting some serious grunt from this machine. It does however feature a few extra specials like a cleaning cloth for the display and a matching wireless mouse (with batteries!). The packaging itself is also quite elegant with crafted individual boxes slipping into their own aligned spaces with bits of material to pull each one up. Premium product packaging for a premium product makes sense doesn’t it? Let’s start but looking at the design. Its high glossy white, it’s thin and expectantly lightweight. Opening the lid truly reveals the exquisiteness of the slick design. Simplicity is key here and Acer has pulled it off very well. There’s very little marketing stuff going on around the keyboard with an Intel Core i7 sticker, the model of the laptop, Dolby theatre text and unnecessarily  ‘Professionally Tuned’ on the right hand side. Seriously Acer, get rid of it and the Dolby text (the Dolby text is also plastered next to the speakers on the BOTTOM of the unit). Not many people care about things like that. Many people are well aware of the quality of audio they are to expect coming out of a 13” Ultrabook. Annoyingly Acer has once again opted to put the Power button on the side of the unit which adds this tiny extrusion to what is otherwise a slick looking machine. The rest of the unit is just as slick and continues the simple design throughout the unit. The display is probably one of the biggest selling points on this unit.  Featuring a 13.3” Full HD Touch Display. There is a downside however. With a 13.3” display, the Full-HD resolution can make things appear pretty small on the screen which can cause a few annoying issues for people who have not so good eyes and people who have a chunky pointy finger (it is a touch screen after all). The quality and performance of the screen however is pretty much the best I have seen on a laptop. The colour saturation, black reproduction and overall contrast of the display make your high definition photos and videos just stand out that ever so better. It truly is a magnificent display. The performance of the laptop is equally impressive. With a 128GB SSD which actually appears to be 2x 64GB’s in some sort of RAID setup (I’m assuming either RAID1 or a proprietary RAID-like setup similar to MSI). It does however seem to have worked. With SSD benchmarks providing average score of 350MB/s and 740MB/s Write and Read respectively. Those read speeds are absolutely astonishing and is one of the most important part of an SSD, not the Write speeds. Booting up the unit from a cold start comes in around 5-7 seconds which is a definite eye turner for all those mobile workers. Unlike other Acer Ultrabooks I’ve tested this unit did not seem to have any issue with playing back Full-HD MKV content. A few others caused lag and stuttering throughout the vide whereas the S7 powered through with no issues and managed to do an entire 90 minute feature film on battery with plenty of time remaining. In fact the S7 managed to give me 4hrs of battery life including the 90 minutes of watching a movie full screen and about another 90 minutes watching YouTube videos and other Flash related content (Flash media is generally CPU intensive and great on draining batteries). Gaming is a miss with this laptop and so it should be as it isn’t designed to be used as a mobile gamer. This laptop is a high performance machine for people who need the power on the move. Its thin, its lightweight and features a full HD display ideal for professionals on the go. If you need a superfast laptop with good internals this could be for you. With a relatively hefty price tag, it is aimed at the higher end users. sahin.s@centrecom.com.au