A few months back I made the decision of switching from a 24-inch monitor, to the new ultra wide monitor that Huawei just came out with, and all I can say it was the best decision I could’ve made.
Being a frontend web developer it is very important to have both the code and the UI interface right in front of me at all times, without having to switch between windows or monitors – it makes work 100% more fast and efficient.
That being said, I spent a lot of time weighing the options I had: either get another 24-inch monitor and have them both side by side, or get a whole new ultra wide monitor. It’s safe to say I am beyond pleased with the decision I made.
For the tech-savvy readers…
The Huawei MateView GT is a 34-inch widescreen panel with an aspect ratio of 21:9. It’s a great place to start: the extra width makes games more immersive, with racing, shooter, flight sims and adventure titles, in particular, benefiting from the extra horizontal space.
The 3440 x 1440 resolution is solid, too – the density level of 109ppi is crisp enough to make games look great and there’s more vertical space than on a conventional 1080p panel. You also won’t need a ridiculous graphics card to get games running well on the Huawei.
Design and features
- An immersive and effective widescreen design
- Includes a surprisingly good soundbar
- Middling adjustment and connectivity options
Image quality
- Huge contrast, great black levels and accurate colours
- Underwhelming in HDR
- 165Hz FreeSync is good for mainstream games, but there’s some blurry motion in faster situations
Out of the box, the Huawei MateView GT’s VA panel delivered a brightness level of 205 nits and a black point of 0.04 nits. The latter figure is sensational, and those results create a contrast ratio of 5125:1.
That is mighty, and it means the Huawei delivers incredible depth, bold colours and superb nuance and vibrancy. It’s punchy, lively and impressive. It’s better than both rivals here – they had VA technology, too, but neither could match this contrast.
On the rear beneath a detachable port cover you’ll find two HDMI 2.0 inputs and one DisplayPort 1.4 port, one 3.5mm audio jack, one multipurpose USB-C port (with video, data transfer and 10W fast charging support) and a USB-C port for the power supply. There’s no USB hub here.
The panel sits on a fairly basic stand with 110mm of height adjustment and 20 degrees of backwards tilt – bog-standard stuff for an ultrawide monitor. Less bog-standard is the soundbar mounted to the bottom of the stand, which houses two 5W drivers and an LED light that runs horizontally across the middle. You can VESA-mount the MateView GT, but in doing so you lose access to this unusual soundbar.
Huawei’s base contains a soundbar with two 5W speakers. The Huawei has a microphone, too, and a band of touch-sensitive, customisable RGB LEDs across the front of the soundbar adjust the volume.
The speakers are extremely loud, easily filling a room, there’s plenty of punchy bass and the mid-range is reasonably clear. These speakers are easily good enough for mainstream gaming, especially thanks to that bass, and they’re better than the audio kit on any rival. That makes them an ideal option if you want decent audio without relying on external hardware.
To sum things up…
This is an amazing wide monitor, it does the job perfectly and offers a seamless experience for a much cheaper price compared to other similar monitors out there at the moment. Huawei did an awesome job once again.