[Review] Samsung CF791 34″ Curved Monitor
With more and more tasks being done on a computer these days, screen real estate is at a premium. Doing multiple tasks at once means you either have to have many windows open, or have to switch between them all. The Samsung CF791 34″ Ultra-Wide screen lets you get that screen real estate back. With an aspect ratio of 21:9, one is able to multitask on a single monitor.
When the courier came to my door with the box, I wondered how he carried such a big box from his vehicle to my door. Turns out that while the box looked humongous, it was actually pretty light. Unboxing the Samsung CF791 34″ Curved Monitor I got the usual polystyrene cover revealing the 34″ curved widescreen monitor. Inside the box also contained the power supply, a DP to DP cable (as well as a DP to mini-DP adapter) and an HDMI cable.
The Samsung CF791 34″ Curved Monitor has a resolution of 3,440 x 1,440, a 4 ms response time, and a refresh rate of 100 Hz. I have found the brightness of the screen plenty adequate, and even with the morning sunshine shining on the screen, I am able to still see what I am doing. The slight curvature of the screen also gives the immersive effect especially when watching a full-screen YouTube clip. But only if you are sitting at a relatively close distance to the monitor.
Some monitors take a bit of effort to physically move the monitor to a position you like. But not this Samsung one. I can easily move the monitor screen up and down with one hand effortlessly, as well as swivelling it around back and forth with no issues. Changing settings and inputs on the monitor is done via a four-way mini joystick at the back bottom right of the screen. It was pretty responsive and I didn’t have any issues changing inputs or settings via this way. Did I also mention that it also has very thin bezels?
According to the specs of this 34″ widescreen monitor, it has an Adobe RGB Coverage of 92% and an sRGB Coverage of between 120 – 125%. To my untrained (but humble) eye, the pictures on screen look very crisp and the colours pop out at you thanks to Samsung’s Quantum Dot technology. However, due to the unusual size of this monitor, finding native sized clips to play on this screen was a bit challenging. Most apps would just zoom into the content and leave bits of the video cut off, though it’s not really the monitor’s problem it’s a big wide beast.
One feature I did make quite a bit of use out of was the Picture-in-Picture mode. This allowed me to watch something on my Chromecast, with it taking up a corner of the screen while I worked on my computer. Oh did I mention it has built-in speakers too? This was especially handy as it meant I didn’t have to connect up an external speaker to my monitor just like I have to do with my Dell UltraSharp monitor. As well as Picture-in-Picture, there is also the option to select Picture-by-Picture.
Speaking of features, the monitor also has the following general features marketed with Samsung’s own personalised names:
- Samsung MagicBright – a feature that provides an optimum picture quality suitable for the environment where the monitor will be used.
- Samsung MagicUpscale – prevents image degradation when scaling up and makes images on the monitor appear clearer and sharper than on a note pc. Magic Upscale enhances the layers of the picture details and the vividness of the picture.
- Eco Saving Mode
- Game Mode – a feature that optimizes image settings for playing games when connected to a PC or a game console, such as PlayStation or Xbox. It disables the standard image processing the monitor normally performs and allows the game itself to adjust the settings to provide the best picture for that game.
- Flicker Free – by having a higher refresh rate.
- Supports AMD FreeSync technology.
In terms of inputs, the Samsung CF791 has 2 HDMI ports, 1 Display Port and 1 headphone jack, as well as a USB hub.
The Samsung monitor uses a maximum power consumption of 73 watts and when on stand-by mode, uses a tiny 0.3 watts.
Overall a 21:9 monitor certainly gives you that cinematic experience when watching movies or even YouTube clips, although some apps may not support native 21:9 aspect ratios. As well as the ability to multitask with multiple windows open at once. Or perhaps multitasking to the max by doing both of the above using Picture-in-Picture!
The Samsung CF791 34″ Curved Monitor currently retails for between $1,199 to $1,499.
For more information please visit: http://www.samsung.com/nz/monitors/curved-cf791/
