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- Excellent contrast ratio
- Fantastic colour reproduction for a gaming monitor
- Good build quality
- Ridiculously expensive
- Inverse ghosting on Extreme Overdrive settings
- Chunky bezels
There’s a handful of ultrawide gaming monitors on the market, offering various configurations at differing price points. On paper, the Acer Predator Z35P offers almost the same specifications as the AOC AG352UCG, yet it costs around £300 more. Is it worth the extra money?
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Acer Predator Z35P review: What you need to know
The Acer Predator Z35P is a 35in curved ultrawide (21:9) gaming monitor with a 1440p resolution and a maximum refresh rate of 120Hz. It offers a fantastic contrast ratio, vivid colours, solid build quality and good gaming performance for casual gamers. Nvidia G-Sync also provides a tear-free gaming experience for those who have a compatible graphics card.
However, its extraordinary price tag is hard to justify. The aforementioned AOC AG352UCG offers an almost identical visual experience, and it’s much cheaper. If you’re in the market for a 35in curved ultrawide gaming monitor, it’s a no-brainer.
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Acer Predator Z35P review: Price and competition
At around £1,030 ($1,100 in the US), the Acer Predator Z35P is expensive. It isn’t short of competition, however, with similar specs to the 100Hz AOC AG352UCG at £710, 100Hz Acer X34A at £915, 75Hz Acer XR341CK at £1,050 and 100Hz ASUS PG348Q at £990.
There’s also the Samsung CF791 at £729, which comes with AMD FreeSync rather than Nvidia G-Sync.
Acer Predator Z35P review: Design, features and build quality
The Z35P’s build quality and design are superb. Finished in a brushed grey aluminium shell with red accents, it looks great. The bezels are relatively thin, but have an eye-catching chunky design, which you may or may not like.
The metal stand provides plenty of flexibility: it can be adjusted in height, tilted from -4° to 35° and swivelled by 20°. A handle at the back of the monitor makes it easier to pick up. At the back, right-hand side of the monitor there are four USB 3 ports, one of which provides fast-charging capabilities to smartphones. The only thing missing is a headphone stand.
The on-screen display is accessed through a set of buttons found at the bottom right-hand side of the monitor. The interface is easy to get around and provides plenty of options, including an “overclock” setting that boosts the panel’s refresh rate up from 100Hz to 120Hz.
For connectivity, there’s only an HDMI and DisplayPort input, with a 3.5mm headphone jack output. Two 9W speakers are located within the monitor; these go impressively loud, without distorting.
The Z35P also supports Nvidia’s G-Sync technology, which is fantastic for those who own a compatible Nvidia graphics card. If you’re on AMD, you’ll have to rely on V-Sync, which adds unwanted input lag.
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Acer Predator Z35P review: Image quality
Acer’s UWQHD 3,440 x 1,440 VA panel has a 21:9 aspect ratio. Its image quality is very good – a small step above the AOC AG352UCG.
In sRGB mode, it covers 99.3% of the sRGB gamut colour space, and colours look wonderfully rich and vibrant. It might not look as good as some top-call IPS displays out there, but it’s one of the best ultrawide gaming panels I’ve seen.
Colour accuracy is good too, with an average Delta E of 1.69 that’s good enough for photo and video editing. A strong 2,043:1 contrast ratio and 0.14cd/m2 black level reflect a panel that’s able to render great tonal depth.
It isn’t the brightest panel around in sRGB mode, however: I measured a maximum luminance of 285cd/m2. Switching back to regular mode brightens things up to 340cd/m2, which is fine for sunlit rooms. Uniformity isn’t great either, with up to 17% variance from its centre point thanks to backlight bleed and IPS glow. That’s to be expected from a large ultrawide gaming monitor, but it’s something to bear in mind if you’ll be using the monitor for image-editing.
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Acer Predator Z35P review: Gaming performance
In “overclocked” 120Hz mode, the Z35P passed all the UFO Frame skipping tests. I didn’t notice any visible gamma shift either, which means you don’t have to worry about losing colour accuracy when overclocking the panel.
To get the best results, you’ll naturally need a graphics card that’s capable of supporting 120Hz at 3,440 x 1,440, such as the Nvidia GeForce GTX 1070. You’ll also want one that supports Nvidia’s G-Sync technology, which eliminates tearing by locking the refresh rate of your monitor to your graphics card’s frame rate.
Upon launching Counter Strike: Global Offensive, I found the Z35P a little sluggish. However, enabling overdrive caused the panel to respond a lot faster, making it much more acceptable for competitive games. Activating the “Extreme” added a lot of unwanted inverse ghosting (purple trails), but dialling down the setting to “Normal” minimised the effect, while still keeping things responsive.
Input lag isn’t the fastest I’ve seen, which might put off a few competitive gamers. But for less intensive games or even popular eSports MOBAs, I found the panel to respond well. The large 35in curved design adds an element of immersion that adds to the overall gaming experience.
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Acer Predator Z35P review: Verdict
The Z35P’s gaming performance is impressive, especially if you’re into more casual games. Colour accuracy and vibrance are great, and the build quality is stunning. There’s really not much to dislike about the Acer Predator Z35P – apart from its eye-watering price tag.
Unfortunately, that’s an issue that’s impossible to get over. At £1,030, you’re grossly overpaying for a panel that only offers slightly better colours and an extra 20Hz over the AOC AG352UCG. If you like the sound of a large 21:9 ultrawide gaming monitor, give this one a miss and go for the AOC instead.
