The ViewSonic XG3220 Is A Best-Cheaper 4K FreeSync Gaming Screen

Published on December 26, 2019
ViewSonic XG3220
via Image

The ViewSonic XG3220 is a 32-inch gaming display ($449) designed for PCs and consoles alike, offering a bunch of great features players would love to play at any frame rate, such as 4K resolution, HDR compatibility, and FreeSync. In most ways, it’s a good game console, but the real selling point is ViewSonic size. You get not only a 32-inch computer console for less than $500, but also impressive 4K resolution and plenty of gamer-friendly output and functionality. Basically, you should consider the XG3220 one of the best gaming monitors.

Design – ViewSonic XG3220

There is some aesthetic that exists on any gamers-made product. A lot of glossy black material is supplied, several simple, geometrical curves and strong LED accent lights usually work out. Nevertheless, though checking all of these keys, the XG3220 manages to bring some balance to the normal game style.

The front of the display is quite clean, with only a basic ViewSonic logo placed below the panel painted with the 0.5-inch bezels around the frame. In fact, there are some odd angles on the back of the monitor with a pair of bumper-shaped insets. This gives the impression of a stylized X across the back of the panel, but with metallic highlights, the geometric theme is mostly dressed in matte black. Red XG logos indicate that the display is part of the gaming collection of ViewSonic.

There is an RGB LED accent integrated into the display, but it acts mostly as a control indicator, and another red flash shows a cable management cut-out spot. A fold-away loop is also integrated into the stand to mount a game headset when it is not in service.

There are plenty of adjustment options available on the display, from simplicity such as tilt and side-to-side swivel to more ergonomic and productivity-oriented changes such as height (with 4 inches of movement between the lowest and highest positions) and pivoting to move the device into portrait orientation.

And if you don’t want the stand at all, the display can be used to hang on the wall or clip to the end of a computer arm with a 100x 100 mm VESA mount. The panel itself measures 28.6 x 16.8x 3.0 inches and weighs 11 pounds without the frame, so any suitable aftermarket mounting option will work well.

ViewSonic Ports & Interface

A single DisplayPort 1.2 and pair of HDMI 2.0 ports interface can be seen on the rear of the display, along with a headphone jack for attaching headphones or speakers. Those ports are all faced downwards, which is a little awkward when you get around to put in headphones or other gadgets, but otherwise it’s not a problem. There is also a USB 3.0 Type-A interface on the back of the display to link it up to your Computer and two USB 3.0 ports. There are two more USB 3.0 ports on the floor, for a total of four.

On the back side of the glass bezel, just below these connectors, there are buttons to change the device settings and control the interface on the screen. This six buttons provide easy access to power, menu settings, volume of speakers and other settings.

Gaming Performance – ViewSonic XG3220

The XG3220 is designed with gaming in mind, from the resolution of 3840x 2160 and refresh rate of 60-Hz to the hardcoat anti-glare which prevents reflections off the glass.

Playing Hitman 2 on the XG3220, I was struck by how well a game’s small details are brought out by the higher resolution. All seemed crisp and clear on a Florida racetrack packed with spectators and complex environmental information. Also in the sun-drenched images, colors appeared vivid.

The dark colors were washed out in Ruiner’s high-contrast color schemes. Using the black stabilization settings of the panel, I was able to significantly boost this look, but since it is a backlit LCD, the black parts of the show always had a touch of flickering gray color.

Thanks to the HDR support of the display, high-dynamic-range material (HDR) was stronger than the more casual normal dynamic-range stuff, but it might have been more.

Given its refresh rate of 60-Hz, the display manages quick action well. The frenetic gameplay looked great as I played Ruiner, a fast-paced, top-down dual-stick shooter, without ever feeling choppy. Would it have been nice to support the higher frame rate? Yes, but a much more costly display would also benefit.

AMD FreeSync is also supported by the computer. So it’s very easy to adapt the GPU output to the device’s refresh rate.

Lab Tests – Performance

While in the name of simplicity, the ViewSonic XG3220 does cut certain smaller corners while still offering decent performance and complete 4K for UHD gaming.

In our laboratory tests, the XG3220 worked well, beginning with light. When calculated by our Klein K-10A colorimeter, the monitor occupies 149.7 percent of the sRGB color area, placing it ever so slightly ahead of the LG 38GL950 G UltraGear (148.9 percent), even more than the Acer Predator X34 (98.9 percent) and an immense boost over the older 24-inch ViewSonic XG2401 (91 percent), but the Samsung CHG70 (154.1 percent) is still top.

The XG3220 is also remarkably accurate with a Delta-E value of 0.08 (better equivalent to nil). The Acer Predator X34 (1.77) and LG 38GL950 G UltraGear (0.24) are less good than it. It is even inches ahead of the Samsung CHG70 (0.09).

The ViewSonic has somewhat less spectacular strength, but it will still do the job just fine with a rating of 249.8 nits.

The signal-to-screen latency of the XG3220 is also pretty short of just 11 milliseconds. That’s better than the game show level of 14.42-ms. It should be quick enough that you never find that even if you like good, competitive games, it slows you down.

Final Verdict

The XG3220 ViewSonic succeeds in being two items at once. On the one side, it’s a pretty solid computer console with 4 K resolution, support for FreeSync, and strong performance in games. This sells for less than $500, on the other side, rendering this considerably more economical than many computer consoles with similar features.

Although the XG3220 gives you a lot of bang, it has some obvious drawbacks such as a mid-size HDR and grayish colors, without mentioning relative weak speakers. With monitors like the Acer Predator X34, you can get better performance and finer color, but it’s also significantly more expensive. But if you want 4k gaming experience on PCs and consoles, you definitely have to take it into account and this is our new FreeSync favorite monitor.

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