ASUS ProArt PQ22UC 21.6 16:9 HDR OLED Monitor

great product with one major flaw

The monitor, stand and accessories are very well designed and built. It is mostly plastic and has some flex, but nothing to worry about. Colors look great. HDR mode is over-saturated and unnatural but standard mode is fine. The matte surface seems to reduce image quality a bit compared to glossy OLED screens I have tried recently. Portability is impressive for this size. There is however one major flaw. When using full-screen white backgrounds (... Show Moreunavoidable in most web pages, PDFs, Office documents etc), the monitor does not have enough power to achieve its maximum brightness. Instead it reduces brightness automatically to roughly half, which is disturbingly dim and ruins an otherwise great experience. I checked power consumption and indeed it is power limited. With all pixels dark it draws 15 W. With half the screen white (at 100% brightness) it draws 35 W. With the full screen white it only goes up to 38 W. I tried a larger USB-C power supply but nothing changed (not surprising given that USB-C negotiates power). Not sure why JOLED/ASUS did this; the monitor is not running on battery, and is big enough to dissipate heat, so why ruin it with a power limit? Btw, ASUS and B&H knew about this issue. There is this cryptic statement in the manual: 330 cd/m2 (Typ.) Peak white, 130 cd/m2 (Max.) Full white. B&H support pointed me to that page when I complained. It would have been more honest if they warned their customers upfront... so I am doing it for them in this review.Show Less

Reviewed on B&H Photo Video