Tuesday, September 29, 2015

AMH A409U 40" 4K Monitor Quick Review

I found the AMH A399U while looking for a new monitor. The initial order didn't go through due to some complications and I came to know about it after a week. I was upset to be without a monitor for yet another week, but a quick search on ebay for a 40" 4k monitor showed me the A409U. Turned out this was a newer and better, at least on paper, version of the 399U. It didn't have the shiny screen problem of the 399U (although there are matte versions available).

I've used it for about a week. It came with a US power adapter so no hustling to get an adapter. This was my first monitor that required assembly - minor pain as I was doing it by myself, but not too bad.

Here is my quick review.

PROS:
- Looks gorgeous - excellent contrast and color!
- Minimum brightness is very good, this is often a problem with some device, I don't like death ray brightness
- Tiny Bezel
- Blacks are black!
- No light bleed that I can see, I didn't go looking for it, but I'm sensitive to it and it bugs me to no end, since I prefer to keep my editors with a black background


CONS:
- Starts in Korean and is hard to change to English without fiddling around - it really should start with a language menu
- Buttons are in the back and really requires a remote for adjustment, the remote is kludgy and not particularly well designed (minor issue)
- The speakers emit 2 loud clicks on starting (at least with DisplayPort)
- The sub-pixel layout is BGR and requires some tweaking to get the display looking good, and still looks a little odd with small fonts as compared to my 30" monitors.
- There is uneven lighting if you have a plain solid color - this is hard to see in normal usage though
- Still a little shinier than I'd like - it's not as matte as I'd like, but it's not shiny and mirror-like either.

Conclusion:
Although, there are many cons, they are minor, and I'd definitely recommend the monitor. The price to performance ratio is obscene.