Verdict
The Lenovo Legion Y34wz-30 is a gaming monitor that struggles to distinguish itself . With OLED play monitor costing only a little more and the Mini LED rival using IPS rather than VA panels and more local area dimming zone , it is a tough recommendation for most . But , a broad natural selection of ports and potent HDR performance may invoke to some .
Pros
Cons
Key Features
Introduction
OLED proctor simply ca n’t engender the same level of whole - covert light as the competitor . A whole - CRT screen brightness point of 300nits is good for an OLED panel , whereas an light-emitting diode board can often manage 500nits and a Mini LED screen twice that . So , Lenovo is having a go at the latter with its new Legion Y34wz-30 gaming reminder .
There are two fundamental feature of a good Mini LED monitor . First is the number of Mini LED zone . The highest I ’ve ever seen is on a Philips billet reminder with 2,048 blind zones , but 1,024 or 512 are more common . The second is the tone of the moderate jury itself .
Lenovo ’s novel Legion Y34wz-30 play reminder is n’t blast for the sensation in either of these category and the monetary value ticket of £ 899 is close to that of some OLED gaming monitor . This gaming proctor has a mountain to climb . Here ’s my reexamination .
Design
The first thing you notice about the Legion Y34wz-30 is the rack . It ’s a chunky affair that wait more like a discussion section of the Brooklyn Bridge than a monitor base .
The stall measures 350 mm from front to back , and with 50 mm wide foot with a brace between them , it take up a stack of desk space . More than I think a stand for a 34 - in monitor should . It ’s not a in particular adjustable social function either , offer just 30 ° of swivel to left or correct , tilt between -5 degrees and +22 degrees and 135 mm of height alteration .
The locker is a solidly build up dim plastic social function with the display besiege by 9 mm wide bezels at the top and sides and a 27 mm chin below . The panel housing is 25 mm inscrutable , while the central hardware gibbousness in the middle sum up another 40 mm making the Y34wz-30 quite chunky . Thanks to the bulky rack , the assembled unit is 320 millimeter deep and librate 10.5 kilo .
Underneath the cabinet is an RGB LED light which can be prepare to run various fixed patterns or in a smart modal value that oppose to expose colour or effectual end product or mouse move though I found everything to be quite random no matter which voguish mode I take .
There ’s a extensive choice of I / O embrasure with 2HDMI 2.1,DisplayPort 1.4and USB - C DP Alt Mode for video input and 6 USB information ports ; 4 USB - A downstream and a unmarried Type - B and a 2d Type - nose candy for upstream data .
All the USB ports are 3.2 Gen 1 ( or 5Gpbs ) spec apart from the DP Alt Mode Type - C , which also supports 10Gpbs data and 140W PD charging . There ’s also a 2.5 G RJ45 LAN port and an audio jack . That ’s an excellent selection .
Some thought has been give to the musical arrangement of the port . Most are on the back of the cabinet facing down , but two USB - A ports and the 3.5 mm audio jack are in a cutout on the left side , which is much light to get at .
Changing the exhibit setting is done via a joystick and four button on the back of the cabinet on the good side , the larger bottom clit being a simple On / Off button , the two above have consecrated input direction part , while the multi - purpose joystick at the top does everything else .
Lenovo has done short to make the Y34wz-30 stand out in environmental terms and make no claim regarding the amount of recycled material used . It also has a yard evaluation in the EU Energy Efficiency Class , which is the low-toned there is . At least the packaging is overwhelmingly unlifelike , with only a few slender strip of styrofoam used to support the front edges of the cabinet .
Image Quality
The new Legion Legion Y32wz-30 monitor features a 34 - column inch 3,440 x 1,440 VA panel with a 1500R curve and a Mini light-emitting diode backlight . Acer use the same engineering science in its 4 K IPSPredator XP32gaming monitor . There is , however , one big difference between the Acer and Lenovo effectuation : The Acer has 576 local dim zones , while the Lenovo has just 384 .
Another point to make about the Legion Y32wz-30 is that the Mini LED backlight only cultivate in HDR mode . With Windows in SDR mode , you are basically using a standard VA exhibit .
The Legion Y34 - wz-30 for sure does n’t miss cleverness hitting 480nits in SDR and a monolithic 1,220nits from a 10 % screen area in HDR mode , well above the 1,000nits necessary for theHDR 1000certification it carries .
Full - screen HDR light settled at a rather lower level of 802nits , but the divergence had little shock on visual performance , and that 802nits number is way beyond even the most fevered imaginings of the average OLED showing . Panel uniformity was first-class , with very little luminousness or Delta E deviation across the screenland .
The lowest fateful luminescence I recorded while in SDR way was 0.14 nits , give way a direct contrast proportion of 3,395:1 . In HDR mode , that dropped 0.08 nit , and the contrast ratio leap to a towering 15,500:1 .
The conflict is most easily find if you open a full sinister image on the screen in SDR mode . It looks rather grey-haired , as it would on a conventional LED showing but switch to HDR , and it looks entirely black , as it would on an OLED panel .
in force HDR performance is the Y34wz-30 ’s independent reason for existence , and HDR performance is indeed impressive , with great contrast and excellent colour chroma . watch an HDR recording of a fireworks video display , the searingly burnished explosions really jump out .
The relatively low-pitched number of local blind zones does result in some haloing noticeable when little burnished objects are moving across a dark screen , said objects having a glow around them because they are low than the dimming zone behind them .
The effect is hard to notice in everyday use . Playing Returnal in HDR , was a slight consequence due to the dark environs , but in the brighter landscapes of Halo Infinite , it was not . I favor an OLED monitor for Returnal , but Halo absolutely suits a brighter Mini light-emitting diode panel .
The filmdom has plenty of coloring material to show , with good gamut coverage of 99.1 % sRGB , 80.1 % Adobe RGB and 87.3 % DCI - P3 . Colour accuracy was dead acceptable , too , with the display showing a Delta E variation of 2.16 vs. the sRGB profile .
Lenovo bills the Y34wz-30 as a 180Hzrefresh ratemonitor , but it ’s actually a 165Hz panel with a 15Hz overclock . However , engaging the overclock only lasts 30 minutes before it reverts to the down refresh rate . Usefully the monitor lizard supports the maximum refresh rate over both DisplayPort and HDMI .
The overclock is actually of confutable time value because I could not detect any improvement in the motion handling between 165Hz and 180Hz or when alter the overdrive background . Switching on the MPRT ( Moving Picture Response Time ) reduced the video display luminance without noticeably improving the ghosting .
No matter the combination of setting I used , there was more ghosting in evidence in the Blurbusters UFO test than the Acer Predator X32FP demonstrated despite the Acer having a technically slower 160Hz panel . Of course , dark artifact trails are a known impuissance of VA panel , making it all the more queer that Lenovo has decease down the VA rather than the IPS track .
The Y34wz-30 is certified with AMD’sFreeSyncPremium Pro but also works withNvidia ’s G - Syncsystem , soscreen tearingisn’t an issue no matter which brand of GPU you expend .
Software and Features
Buried inside the console are two 5W speaker . They can hurl out some serious book , 81.5dB(A ) measure out against a pink interference source at a 1 chiliad aloofness , but they miss sea bass and can become a little raucous at gamy book . The sound timbre is on par with the Acer Predator X32 , but both decrease short of the quality you get from Philips ’s new Evnia - serial gaming monitors .
The Y34wz-30 is fitted with what , on theme , should be one of the best USB hubs and KVM execution on the grocery store . Not only are there sight of connectivity options with USB - atomic number 5 and USB - ascorbic acid upstream inputs and five USB downstream , but the computer menu system to attribute which information remark should work with which video inputs is simplicity itself . And there is a consecrated button on the rear of the cabinet to trade between KVM comment .
But the USB hub would n’t work with mySteelSeries Aerox 3gaming computer mouse . I ’ve never have this issuance before despite using the same all - SteelSeries keyboard and computer mouse combining with numerous play monitors . I flagged up my issues with Lenovo , who could not replicate them , leaving me to close that it must be an matter particular to the monitor sample I was commit to try .
The OSD computer menu system is very well organised , with everything set exactly where you would expect it to be . If you do n’t care using the joystick to navigate the menu system , Lenovo ’s Display Control Centre software have you do it via the Windows desktop .
The Port options menu hosts a wide array of painting - in - picture and exposure - by - icon options and a TrueSplit mode that fix a Windows partition ( 1:1 or 2:1 ) in office .
Gaming enhancements admit a practical gun-sight with two style : a timer , frame pace buffet and canonic hardware stats for your GPU and CPU . A 4 - level calamitous boost uncover foe lurking in the duskiness .
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Should you buy it?
HDR performance is the headliner of the show for Lenovo ’s latest gambling monitor , and that ’s back up by a useful extract of embrasure .
The competition is secure and the Lenovo falls short against rival organic light-emitting diode , Mini LED and gaming - focused alternative .
Final Thoughts
Nothing is truly wrong with any part of the Y34wz-30 ’s carrying out but , HDR performance aside , it ’s not that much beneficial than some IPS or VA gaming monitors be half the price , and its motion treatment ca n’t bear on several OLED monitor that are only a little more expensive .
translate that into the existent world , the award - winningAgon AG405UXCis an excellent 40 - inch IPS gaming reminder with a refresh rate of 144Hz and a price tag of £ 529 , while the 27 - inchLG UltraGear 27GR95QE - Bis a superb 240Hz OLED play monitor that can be picked for £ 850 .
If you are fain to pay a little more , then £ 1,150 will get you the Philips Evnia 34 - inch 34M2C8600 ( the fiddling brother to theEvnia 42M2N900 ) . For that extra £ 250 , you get a monitor that fellate the Legion into the weeks on every front other than maximum full - screen cleverness . If you take the superb - bright Mini LED backlight , Acer ’s 4 K X32FP can now be pick up for £ 950 .
Trusted Score
How we test
We use every monitor we test for at least a week . During that clock time , we ’ll check it for ease of exercise and put it through its paces by using it for both casual job and more specialist , colour - tender oeuvre .
We also check its colours and simulacrum timbre with a colorimeter to test its coverage and the display ’s quality .
FAQs
The Legion Y34wz-30 has 384 Mini run zones compared to 576 in the Acer Predator X32 .
Legion Y34wz-30 uses a VA panel . It ’s the only VA Mini go display we have come across .
Test Data
Full Specs
