- Lawrence Ng
Huawei MateView GT Review: Best 1440p Ultrawide For The Price
If you're looking for a 1440p ultrawide monitor, then you might want to take a look at the Huawei MateView GT. Just by taking a look at the specs, you can see that it hits everything that you would want in a high-end ultrawide monitor.
It's 34-inches, has the usual 21:9 aspect ratio, 1500R curve, 3440 x 1440 resolution,165Hz refresh rate, FreeSync support and up to 90% DCI-P3 coverage with a delta E of less than 2. It can output 10-bit colour, 350 nits of brightness and because it's a VA panel, it boasts a pretty good contrast ratio of 4000:1.
As you can tell, it has really impressive specs and that fact is made even more impressive when you consider the price. The Huawei MateView GT comes in at S$798, which would translate to approximately US$590.
From our personal experience, it's been a great monitor and we can wholeheartedly recommend it. But there are a number of things that you should know before considering picking this up and some of them aren't really mentioned by Huawei.
First, let's talk about the design. Despite the MateView GT being Huawei's first gaming-centric monitor, it is really minimalistic.
The back is really simple, the bezels are minimal and the chin only has the Huawei font on it, not even the logo. The only thing that stands out is the soundbar that's included with the stand, which has a single RGB strip. We'll talk more about the soundbar later but overall, the design is just minimalistic and it really doesn't scream "gamer" at all.
In fact, if you do not use the included stand with the soundbar and mount the monitor on a VESA monitor arm instead, it looks just like a professional monitor at the office. It looks plain, yes, but simple, and that's nice.
In terms of adjustability and ergonomics, you get the usual few that most ultrawides are capable of. There's a decent amount of height adjustment and tilt. What you don't get is swivel, which is understandable since it's ultrawide and curved, no less.
The only small gripe we have about the whole setup is that the stand doesn't really include any form of cable management. Your cables simply dangle down from the port and there really isn't any way to give it a tidy look, especially if you have your PC on the floor instead of the desk. A hook or an indent on the stand itself would've been nice.
As for ports, you get one DisplayPort 1.4, two HDMI 2.0, a USB-C for power only and a USB-C that supports display, data transfer and 10W charging. That's pretty standard for an ultrawide monitor and that last USB-C port is basically designed to use with a smartphone or a laptop. Included with the monitor is a USB-C power adaptor, a USB-C to USB-C cable, a USB-C to USB-A cable and a DisplayPort 1.4 cable.
At this point, we want to mention that we don't like the included power adaptor. First, it's 135W, which is way higher than what this monitor requires. But that aside, what we don't like is that it uses the design that most light laptops come with, where the power adaptor is on the plug head itself.
Because of how much vertical space it takes up, we couldn't use the cable management tray that we have under our desk because it simply wouldn't fit. We would have preferred it if the power adaptor is built into the monitor itself but if not, the standard power brick would've been much better, ironically. At the very least with a power brick, we can still use our cable management tray or use velcro and strap it to the desk legs, which makes for a cleaner routing of cables.
Now, let's talk about one aspect of the MateView GT that makes it unique: the soundbar. Honestly, we can't complain. It's pretty decent.
It's a stereo speaker with 5W each for a total of a 10W output and it gets decently loud. It's not going to replace your shelf monitors or let's say, a proper soundbar, but it is definitely much better than almost any onboard monitor speakers. If you just want a decent audio experience without the cable clutter, it honestly isn't bad.
The RGB strip isn't just for looks as well, either. It is touch-sensitive and you can adjust the volume by simply sliding your finger across. Two taps on the centre would also allow you to mute and unmute. It's really intuitive and nice.
We now come to the main thing about this monitor and it is about the panel itself. As mentioned earlier, it's a 34-inch panel with a 3440 x 1440 resolution and in our opinion, 1440p is the sweet spot. At this screen size, 1080p would surely look too low-res and while 4K will look nicer, Windows Scaling is still an issue and you do require a powerful PC to power 4K gaming with high frame rates.
Speaking of high frame rates, this monitor is capable of 165Hz and that's enabled by default out of the box, as long as you use DisplayPort.
165Hz is really nice, especially if you have a PC that can make full use of it. Games just feel so much better to play and everything is just buttery smooth. Even outside of gaming, when you're simply browsing the web or managing documents, it's just great. The monitor also comes with FreeSync support as well, which is a very nice touch. Though we do have to say it's weirdly hidden for no reason.
By default, the FreeSync option isn't available in the on-screen display (OSD). Instead, you actually have to push and hold the joystick forward when you're facing the monitor, for 10 seconds. You'll see a slight refresh on the screen and only then would the FreeSync option actually appear in the OSD. We're not sure why that is the case but it is what it is.
For those of you who are looking at this monitor for professional work, it's pretty decent as well. This panel does cover 100% sRGB, 90% DCI-P3, about 84% Adobe RGB and with a delta E of less than 2. If you're someone who requires proper Adobe RGB coverage for your work and a more stringent delta E rating, this is definitely not going to perform up to standard. But if you're someone who simply requires a good enough colour-accurate monitor with a slightly wider colour gamut, this is pretty good.
All in all, it's a pretty great monitor and yes, we do quite like it especially for the price. But we now have to talk about what Huawei didn't really mention and flaws that aren't really Huawei's fault but rather because of VA technology itself.
First, we have to talk about ghosting or black smearing that's mainly associated with VA panels. That is definitely present in this panel as well. The MateView GT has a rough Grey-To-Grey of 5ms and comes with Overdrive settings to minimise this effect but even so, it's not really great.
By default, it comes preset at Level 2 and you might think Level 4 will be the best. But Level 4 is far too much as instead of ghosting, you now get inverse ghosting. Out of all the levels available, we would say that Level 3 is probably where you want to keep it at. But even so, it's not exactly great. If you were to compare it to our five-year-old IPS monitor, an Asus MG279Q, that has a similar response time. They look rather similar and again, that's a five-year-old monitor. IPS is way better now.
This is just something you have to live with, especially if you're not getting the highest-end VA. It's like having motion blur permanently turned on all the time and the effect is only made worse if you play a lot of competitive shooter or horror games.
While 165Hz is nice, it isn't effective per se if all you see is a blurry mess when you do those quick swipes and flicks. This is also the main reason why although the contrast ratio is way better on VA as compared to IPS, it is a double-edged sword. You do get deeper blacks and it's nice for sure. But when there are a lot of dark elements in the scene, especially for horror games, it can become a really blurry mess.
It also really depends on the games you want to play. For instance, we play "Genshin Impact" quite a lot and it's our main game. "Genshin Impact" on this display is fantastic because not only are the colours great but ghosting or black smearing isn't really an issue since dark scenes are few and far between and we don't need to flick our mouse to look for an enemy. If you just want a nice display to watch movies or anime, it's perfectly fine and perhaps nicer than IPS even because you aren't interacting with the display at that point.
So it really comes down to your use case. If you frequently play competitive games, especially shooters, this is not for you. But if you're a casual gamer, this is probably fine.
Now, let's talk about colour and this is where Huawei misleads you a little. As mentioned, Huawei states 1.07 billion colours on their spec page, which would mean a 10-bit panel. You might already know from the price that you usually don't get a true 10-bit panel.
Or do you?
Well, to be frank, we're not entirely sure. You simply need to know that if you were to run the monitor at the full resolution of 3440 x 1440 at 165Hz, you will be limited to 8-bit. Even if you try to choose 10-bit in the AMD or NVIDIA Control Panel, it will always revert back to 8-bit.
In order to get a 10-bit signal, you will have to drop the refresh rate down to 144Hz. Now, 10-bit will be selectable in your graphics card control panel and it'll also state 10-bit in Windows.
But if you want 10-bit at 165Hz, you technically can. All you have to do is turn on HDR. With that, you can achieve 10-bit but in this case, Windows will specifically state that it is actually 8-bit with dithering.
In our experience, we honestly can't really tell any difference between 8-bit and 10-bit or even 8-bit with dithering or FRC, and we don't know if we can trust what Windows says.
In any case, our suggestion is this. If you want to run 10-bit, whether it's true 10-bit or not, drop the refresh rate down to 144Hz and stick to SDR. A difference of 21Hz isn't that noticeable and this is our preferred setting. But if you want the best refresh rate, it's 165Hz and you'll have to stick to 8-bit.
Our only other advice is to not use HDR. It's just bad and doesn't look good at all. Unlike the 4K MateView monitor, which has proper HDR400 certification, this MateView GT does not.
Lastly, we have to mention about viewing angles and how it ties into professional colour work. The viewing angles aren't great with this monitor. There's a reason why the highest-end professional colour monitors are mostly IPS and now with OLED. For one, not only does IPS offer better colour accuracy and consistency over VA, but better viewing angles as well.
Now, you might argue that VA can achieve a very similar colour gamut and accuracy, which is true. But the actual colour consistency that you see across the panel is still inferior and that's because of viewing angles.
Because of how VA works, the horizontal viewing angle isn't that great. Just shifting our heads a few inches left or right is enough for us to notice a visible shift in colour while looking at the same spot on the screen.
In order to see the actual colour and consistency across the entire panel, we have to sit right smack in the middle and at a certain distance away from the monitor. It might be okay if there's just a sole user but if you're working with another person in a professional setting, the two of you won't be looking at the same colour and that's because of the viewing angle. That's not great.
If you're fine with everything we've said about this VA panel, we would still at least recommend you get a colorimeter and calibrate the display because the out of the box colours definitely aren't that accurate.
All in all, however, we have to say that we definitely enjoyed this monitor and if you weigh the pros and cons of this monitor while taking into account the price, it's still very much a positive experience.
If you just want a great 1440p ultrawide monitor with a 165Hz refresh rate that performs pretty amazing for most games while still being decent for some work, this is really awesome, especially for the price of just S$798 or approximately US$590.
Even after all that we've said, we can definitely wholeheartedly recommend it. Just make sure that you know what you're looking for.
Content by Soon Kai Hong