ASUS ProArt Display 32” 4K HDR Computer Monitor (PA32UCG-K) - UHD (3840 x 2160), Mini-LED IPS, 1600nits, 120Hz, 10-bit, Thunderbolt 3, HDMI2.1, w/Calibrator, Compatible with Laptop & Mac Monitor

Writing a review due to a rather strange lack of reviews out there for the PA32UCR-K. It blows my mind this particular model has not been reviewed more. Anyway I grade HDR video and use a 13" M1 iPad Pro with XDR and a 14" MBP with XDR displays at 1600 nits. Wonderful HDR displays for grading but they are small. I didn't want to get an Apple Pro Display for $6,000 and have it limited in what it could connect to. So I took a chance n the Asus PA32UCR-K since there are very few comments on using it for HDR grading and editing. The short: Buy this damn thing now! The long: Buy this damn thing now! Seriously I could not have asked for a better compliment to my smaller XDR displays. the built in HDR standards, the HDR calibration, the 1200 nits, the 87% rec2020 color is all worth every single penny. Sure it's not 1600 nits like my XDR displays but so far I find the Asus PA32UCR-K to sustain 1200 nits very well. Even way above 50% coverage I have not noticed the brightness dip down very much. It all depends how you hook it up. MacOS HDR mode is a bit non standard and seems to limit the display to about 700 nits. Maybe I'm doing something wrong yet. Hooking it up to a BMD video output device for a proper HDR signal however reaches the displays full potential. Even throwing a solid white color on the output and increasing the brightness looks like I'm sustaining about 1200 nits. I have not done a super accurate measurement yet and just eye balling what my scopes read until I no longer see it get brighter. Basically I'm super impressed. I also run both my XDR displays in 1000 nit DCI mode so if the Asus is in fact sustaining 100% 1000 nits thats a perfect match. The color on the Asus PA32UCR-K is mind blowing. I'm seeing reds that are just not possible on any other display. Sad thing is I'm now limiting the Asus PA32UCR-K to HDR PQ DCI mode to match the P3 color of the XDR displays. Accuracy first. Now the elephant in the room. The 576 local dimming zone blooming. Yeah so what. All mini LEDs bloom. Even my 2048 local dimming zone XDR displays. This topic is way over exaggerate and I find blooming a much smaller compromise than OLED. I'm frankly baffled so many think OLED is superior. Its not. Just because you have blooming doesn't mean you can't grade HDR. Anyone experienced should know what the black levels would really be and not be influenced by the blooming. Honestly I hardly notice it on either of my HDR displays. I have a lot of HDR displays as well. A Samsung 1500 nit 50" TV, A Vizio 500 nit 65" TV with 83% rec2020 color, Two XDR displays, Now the Asus 1200 nits display, a LG 32" 350 nit display and a small portable 400 nit 13" OLED. I hardly ever notice blooming compared to the OLED in any real life material. The only shots I ever see blooming are space scenes or Disney+ title screens on a solid black background with a lot of glow. The glow throws off the blooming. Anyway it's grossly over exaggerated. Yeah it's there but it takes a sliver of imagination and understanding to not let it get in the way. OLED has its own negative issues like crappy brightness and dimming of static content to reduce image retention and burn in. It's completely unpredictable and all over the place. Plus tone mapping down to 200 nits kills colors and values in skin and other normal ranges in video and I find that to be completely worthless for grading. Dimming zones are kind of like megapixels as well and you need 4k the amount to really have a decent impact on the blooming. Even then it's there no matter what you do. 576 local dimming zones could divide the width of the screen into 24 zones. I say could because I don't know the exact shape of each zone on each display. I'm using simple math where it can be 24x24 zones. 1152 zones on the $3,400 Asus display is only 34x34 zones. While better and slightly smaller the blooming is still there. Even my 2048 zones XDR displays are only about 48x48 regions. Better yet but still clearly they're around the edges. Nothing will get rid of blooming. Even if Apple jumped up to over 8,000 local dimming zones (96x96) thats still clearly visible zones around bright objects on black. Even dividing a screen into 96 regions across still uses 40 pixels wide zones. Again thats much smaller but it's still there. We always want as many zones as we can get but don't let the 1152 zone $3,400 Asus fool you into thinking it's worth 3x the cost of the 576 zone Asus PA32UCR-K. Don't get me wrong I would have loved the $3,400 model instead but I just couldn't justify that cost right now. A few others thing missing from the highest end $3,400 Asus. 144hz vs 60hz. Yeah to some gamers thats a big deal. Personally I have always gamed at 60hz and I love it. Jedi Fallen Order, Diablo 3, Witcher 3 and too many other time sucks I'm guilty of to list all look great at 60p. Still I get it and some competitive games want 144hz. Honestly I would question using a grading display for that. Seriously get the Asus PA32UCR-K for grading and color critical work and a gaming 144hz 4k display for that. Wear out the cheaper display first and save the expensive display for what matters. Innocen makes some killer HDR 32" panels now that are still visually great but cost much less to game open and wear out vs $3,400. The Asus PA32UCR-K also lacks Dolby Vision which was something I factored but honestly I'm perfectly fine working with HDR10 and, puke, HLG. Maybe someday I will specifically need Dolby Vision. I can still create Dolby Vision with a bit more guess work. For now I don't need it however so I'm fine spending 1/3 the amount. I personally find the Dolby Vision and HDR10+ situation a bit frustrating anyway. I prefer to stick with HDR10 as a universal standard. The Accuracy compared to my XDR displays is stunning. Yes it works perfectly fine with MacOS. Those that say it does not do not know what they are doing or just hates Macs. It is the perfect complement to the XDR displays. This is also the only solution I know of to calibrate for HDR without buying special $2,000 software. That may not matter to casual users but it really matters to me. No I'm not talking about the crude manual HDR calibration tool Windows 11 has to set brightness an contrast. That does nothing for the color. Thats not even calibration. It's a contrast helper tool.I have used calibration hardware on displays for a long time and they are currently really limited in calibrating color for HDR. The hardware is capable but the software is greatly lacking. Plus using a computer profile for calibration is not always optimal and it's better to have the calibration on the display itself. The Asus PA32UCR-K so far has been worth every single penny. Would gladly buy a second one its that good. I will likely hold off however and wait to see what we get in a few years or just get one of the new HDR models coming out of China at 144hz if I ever decide to get into higher FPS gaming. I really only need my video output display to have perfect HDR so I don't need a second one just yet. One last point about the 4k vs Apple 6k. It doesn't bother me at all just like using a 4k 27" vs the 27" 5k iMacs. I use my 32" displays with Mac scaling at 3008 wide (6016) or essentially the same 6k as the Apple Pro Display. Don't believe the hype and myth that it impacts performance. It does not. Only like a 1% hit on resources. A frame buffer is designed to handle resizing with hardly any hit on the system. In terms of quality its stil retina. Maybe not 2x retina and more like 1.5x retina but still retina. The visual difference is almost non existent and totally worth spending $1,200 vs $6,000.

10 bits/channel HDR mode works flawlessly even on a small Macbook M1 in the display's full resolution and of course also on the Pro. HDR with its high contrast, the 10 bits for avoiding color banding and the large P3 color space provide a new experience for photos taken with a camera in raw mode providing that enhanced information. Non-annoying power indicator LED pointing downwards from the underside, the matte screen surface and the massive and well designed stable mount are important details for the whole high quality experience. At lowest mount position the bottom active screen border starts at 11cm above the table surface. The fan runs every half an hour for a few minutes only when HDR mode is active and its sound is not annoying as it's a low frequency wind noise only, no mechanical motor sound or vibration. Much quieter than that of a Macbook Pro for example. The Macbooks attached to this screen only need a single USB-C (Thunderbolt) cable to be powered and transfer the graphic signal. Don't use a USB-C hub in between as when attaching those typically over HDM, you will only get 8 bits/channel SDR. Audio output and input via a USB-C cable headset plugged into the display which acts as USB hub, also works fine.

This is a wonderful monitor with beautiful color and an excellent value. It's made nicely with big and fully adjustable stand that even lets you rotate monitor vertically. (I used to think I wanted something like that.). The color is vibrant out of the box, and you can set either sRGB or Rec 709 standards. (I use the latter as it's most video compatible and I think it has the widest dynamic range. Also I can set my mac computer to Rec 709.). However, I don't think the calibration was fully accurate. Mine had a slight green tint (I see others complaining about this) and I fixed it by setting tint at 43 (-7) and it should be noted the adjustment ticks are very small. That seems just about right but I plan to do my own full calibration(s) on this and all my other monitors with a colorimeter I just got. I had a different Pro-Art monitor before and it seemed exactly correct out of the box.

I purchased the PA32UCR-K from Amazon and the first thing I have to say is that the display is absolutely stunning. It is a beautiful monitor.... but only when and if it works, and trying to make this monitor function as advertised is an absolutely frustrating experience. Note: I have updated the firmware to the latest version, currently MCM 205 USBC Port: When I use the USBC port to connect to my Mac, the monitor will not automatically display an image or turn on when I turn on my Mac, as any normal monitor would, I can only get it to recognize the input by powering on and off the monitor. Yes, USB C is selected. Also the USB C hub is absolutely unusable because it randomly ejects hard drives when they are connected to the ports. I am using the provided usb c cable and I am on the latest firmware. My current workaround is to connect to my Mac via hdmi, which works, but the USBC connection and hub are completely unusable. Color Calibrator: The included documentation tells you to download the software at xrite.com, but after installing that software I received an error message saying the i1 Display Pro is no longer supported and to download software from Calibrite which then gives another error message saying the serial number is incorrect and that you have to pay for a license. I then contacted Asus support which kindly directed me to a link to download the Asus software to calibrate the display, but unfortunately that software crashes constantly and is impossible to use. Literally every time I give it a command it crashes. I've tried for hours and cannot get it to work. The image attached to this review is the crash message that pops up every time I try to use the software. Dysfunctional interface: Every time I turn on the display it defaults to "User Profile 2", but since the calibration software does not work, I'm not able to save settings to that profile. As a blank profile, it displays a flat and unusable image, sort of like a log profile, and I have to manually select some other default profile, which is annoying and time consuming and has to be done EVERY TIME I TURN ON MY COMPUTER. Many of my problems seem to be Mac compatibility issues, but remember that the ProArt marketing materials, including for this monitor, show a guy using Davinci Resolve with a Macbook - which is exactly my use case, so I can't understand why they can't make basic functionality compatible with Mac when they are advertising this to Mac creatives. I deeply regret purchasing the PA32UCR-K with so many other functional options available at this price point. After this experience I will never purchase another Asus product again.

4K in a 27" monitor makes for TINY pixels. Several co-workers agree that to be able to read on this monitor you had to lower the resolution or mess around to customize the font size. I've since used the WQHD version of this and prefer it to the 4k. I think the WQHD is a good balance of high definition, small pixels, and is usable for most people in native resolution. We had both a USB-C AND an HDMI cable fail while connected to this monitor, and had some trouble with an HDMI port that may have physically failed or been broken. (It is used on a desk and not moved, so not sure how this can happen.) I've not had those troubles with the alternate 27" WQHD model. If you have great eyes and want the full 4k resolution this should be a great display. You can use it in portrait or landscape, and it has excellent color matching. They come pre-calibrated. I would expect support to replace any that have hardware issues as we experienced within the warranty period, though we opted to replace the cable and use a different port and continue using it as is.

My wife and I are amateur photographers, and we love photographing the Blue Angels during their practice sessions. But we always struggled with post processing photos that looked one way on our screen but vastly different when you posted or printed them. So I took a chance on replacing her monitors with these ProArt models. Problem Solved! Great resolution and color mapping. She LOVED them! In fact, she raved about them so much, I bought two more to replace my monitors. Now we spend more time enjoying our photo's instead of struggling to fix them.

This monitor is excellent. The color accuracy is outstanding, and the image quality is simply stunning. Everything looks sharp, vibrant, and natural without being over-saturated. It’s also very comfortable to look at for long sessions, which makes a big difference for daily use. The design is clean and professional, and it fits perfectly into a modern desk setup. Very happy with this display.

I love this monitor the picture quality is amazing! I did purchase it with a pretty nice discount so I can't complain when the box came with some ding. The calibration for this monitor was a pain in the glutes! I spent nearly the whole night fighting the X-Calibrator and I finally got it to where I like it. If you are not a professional and a noob like it prepare to fight to get the picture just right. Now that it is all picture-perfect I definitely recommend this monitor. Just a warning prepare to spend hours calibrating to get the picture you like. The ports on this beauty are amazing as well. HDMI works really well for me. I never tried the USB-C but I am sure it will work. But I never tested it so I can't say for sure. Thanks for taking the time to read this and I hope it helped.