Asus ROG Strix XG49VQ (49-inch)

Superb colour and contrast levels Huge, curved widescreen Decent physical design Smart, fast OSD Surprisingly good speakers

Poor uniformity HDR mode doesn’t do much Very expensive Doesn’t work particularly well in some games

The monitor in our Asus ROG Strix XG49VQ review has a lot of positives, but the nature of its design and its huge price means that it’s destined to remain as a niche product.

So much screen space ; Nice curved design and build quality ; Decent gaming pedigree ; Great flexibility

Enormous price tag ; Requires a beastly rig to get the best out of it ; Using Picture by Picture mode loses gaming monitor features ; No G-Sync and HDR not quite as good as HDR TVs

Will definitely appeal to fans of ultrawides, given its picture quality, gaming pedigree and multi-tasking ability. The super-high price and inconsistent feature set remains a concern.

Excellent colour quality ; Fantastic contrast ; Huge, curved, wide panel ; Decent physical design ; Good OSD

Uniformity isn’t great ; HDR has little impact ; Huge price ; Limited usefulness in some genres

Good basic image quality, solid design and decent features, but a high price and some inconsistent performance are issues

Huge panel size ; High refresh rate ; Great gaming features

Not exactly cheap ; Poor image quality for productivity ; No USB-C

Asus’s latest gaming panel is a super-wide, 49-inch monster of a monitor with a high refresh rate and HDR support. However, you’ll pay dearly for such a monitor without a USB-C port.