 Let's start at the end. If you have the budget for it, the ROG XG349C is an excellent ultra-wide which is easy to use, has a great display for both games and video and it will even make you more productive. Asus did send us this item for review but they had no say in what we had to say about it. And let's break that down. Easy to use. While the assembly process is straightforward, I really appreciated the embedded twist screws so you don't need a screwdriver and an IQ of 200 to figure out how to slot in the monitor into its base. ROG really is pretty good at focusing on how a consumer actually uses their products and they design accordingly. Compare that to the base of this ultra-wide from a different brand which does require a screwdriver and is not as intuitive. Also for easy to use, the default settings of the XG349C look great right out of the box. Remove, assemble, install, and release. I mentioned this because how do you buy an expensive monitor? Your money is wasted if the monitor needs to be calibrated and you didn't do it. That's why I really appreciate the XG349C which was beautiful right out of the box. To compare, my primary monitor was the BenQ EX2780Q. The problem with the BenQ, when I first got it, I was disappointed because the display out of the box wasn't that beautiful. I had to change settings. I had to adjust the brightness, the gamma, and all of those different things. That wasn't a problem with the XG349C which was very nice right out of the box. Easy to set up. Time to game. This is a 3440x1440 IPS screen with a whopping 180Hz refresh rate overclock with HDR and G-Sync. So at least on paper, it should be a dream to play on this thing. And it pretty much was. I primarily tested the monitor with a 3080 playing two FPS games. Back for Blood which is a faster paced action shooter. Hit him! Hit him! Nice! Yeah, wait, wait, wait. Wait, wait, wait, wait. End Outer Worlds which is a first-person RPG so slower paced. There was no screen tearing, motion stutter, stop go animation. Everything was smooth. The problem is that I couldn't easily land on the monitor for my poor kill score in FPS games. The downside to the monitor is having a really fast response rate like 1ms response time. Is that the colors lose sharpness and vibrancy because the monitor is so obsessed with changing colors quickly. It doesn't care anymore about color reproduction or sharpness. The image quality can become blurred as the monitor sacrifices quality for speed. But this wasn't the case at all with the XG349C. Whatever game I was playing, the action was crisp and clear. In particular, Outer Worlds is a very varied color palette and it was such a joy to just look around the game world, to look up and see a ring planet, to look down and see the various critters that you're about to snipe. And I was really able to appreciate the vibrancy of the colors of that game because of the display of the XG349C. This was my first extended use of an ultra wide screen and at first I was a bit wary of having such a large screen, like really close to my face. But the curve on this one is very slight and your eyes quickly adapt to the larger real estate of the monitor. So much so that when I had to give up the monitor to my brother so that he could try it out, I missed it. I didn't think that I would miss it because that's it. I'm never on an ultra wide screen. But once your eyes get used to the largest of the screen, you really start looking for it. You're not into gaming that in your downtime you might be watching series or movies and the XG349C, which is larger than some TVs, is an excellent choice for that as well. To demonstrate here are stills from the latest Eva movie. On the left is my primary monitor before the BenQ EX2780Q and on the right is the XG349C. And again the BenQ is a fine monitor. Both reviewers and our customers generally have no complaints about it and are happy with it. But here in the side by side comparison, you can see that the XG349C edges it out in terms of brightness and just overall slight, the colors seem to pop a bit more in the XG349C. The color on the BenQ 2780Q is a bit muted compared to what we can see with the ROG monitor. Don't get me wrong, both are good monitors and it's really hard to convey the difference in a screenshot shown through a video that you're seeing on some other monitors. So there's a lot of layers. But I think even in these side by side comparisons, you can see that the image quality of the XG349C is a bit sharper, is a bit whiter, with its blacks more solid. The difference is even more noticeable in person. That said, my winner for best display quality still goes to the ASUS TUF VGA27A1LQA. That monitor was so good man. I mean the color vibrancy on that just really popped. So that would be my number one with the XG349C display quality rated at very good. So you've gamed, you've watched, unfortunately now it's time to work. The XG349C gives you a lot of real estate space to work with. In my usual setup, I have three monitors and I didn't miss my three monitor setup at all. You know, it's an investment to have a good screen. And if you're angry, it won't be because of the image quality. It will be because when you're angry on your email, when your officemate sent you all the work, it won't be because you're angry. The added horizontal space is also very useful if you're working with programs like video editing, which usually takes up a lot of horizontal space because it has things like timelines and other features. So one example of where having an ultra-wide, larger physical space can make you a lot more productive. For those using MacBooks, they output really well to the XG349C using USB-C. So this appeals to the crowd that have laptops but want a large monitor to work on when they're at home. Because really, how can you be productive on a laptop screen which is super, super tiny? Rounding out the ports, aside from the USB-C, the monitor has one HDMI port, one display port, one USB port, and one 3.5 millimeter jack plug. The monitor also has a KVM switch, so you can use the monitor along with just one keyboard and mouse to control two devices. The usual work case being you have both your desktop and your laptop connected to this monitor and you just need to use one keyboard and mouse to control both of them. Now, I didn't test this myself personally because I don't own a laptop. Although based on the feedback online, it's useful but because the monitor only has one USB port, you'll need to have a USB hub in order to connect your mouse and keyboard to it. Bottom line, the XG349C is a good looking, good displaying monitor. If you have the budget for it, roughly around $60,000 now, although I've seen it going on Amazon abroad for around $1,400, quite a lot of money to spend. You don't need to go ultra-wide depending on your budget and workflow situation. For example, the ASUS TUF monitor I mentioned earlier is an excellent monitor and it's around probably less than half. So this big boy is not for everybody. But again, if you can afford it and you're looking at an ultra-wide, why the heck not? It's an excellent monitor. What's up internet? Because I said we began with the end and now we're at the end, we'll start with the beginning. What's up internet? And thank you to our top fans who afforded this monitor. Thank you to Leah Magnaje, Ian Meru, Richard Ongkinko, ITX addict, John Ruben Ocha, Christian Espinoza, and Rafael James. Thank you for supporting the channel.