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Posted September 30, 2021 by Dian Raval in Tech & Gadgets
 
 

REVIEW: HUAWEI MateView GT — Hitting The Gaming Monitor Ground Rolling



HUAWEI has been predominantly known for its top-of-the-line smartphones but has since expanded and continues to expand to other products and devices.

In one of their most recent efforts, they started to put their foot in the computer gaming scene with a brand new monitor. With the word ‘Mate’ in its name, HUAWEI looks to deliver a level of quality fans have come to know from their other flagship products. For a first entry into the scene, it actually ain’t half bad.

HUAWEI Official Store Page | Shopee | Lazada

Check out the View, Mate

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Visually, HUAWEI doesn’t go overboard with flair. In fact, the entire design of the monitor is quite minimalistic. It comes in matte and with fairly thin bezels and nothing much beyond the HUAWEI branding at the bottom center. Of course, there’s the built-in soundbar which has an RGB strip across the center with some pretty decent lighting modes and supported colors.It’s certainly not gonna dazzle most desktops out there but the black scheme and simplistic design mean this monitor will pretty much go with almost all kinds of setup. That said, the Ultra-wide frame itself is certainly going to stand out.

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Set up is extremely simple. The stand just snaps so well at the back center of the monitor panel. It holds tight with no sign of tension or struggle. You also get some pretty generous vertical height and tilt adjustment.  I wish there was more downward tilt, but that’s just me. You don’t get any horizontal tilt though, so if you want more flexibility, the monitor supports VESA mounts. Note however that the Soundbar is built into the stand and not the monitor, meaning if you won’t be using the stand, you won’t be able to use the soundbar either.

Fancy Soundbar Stand

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Speaking of the soundbar, it looks sleek and sturdy. It also pretty much makes up the entirety of the monitor’s flair. The design is also minimal, but it has a single strip of bright LED that does not only have several RGB modes but also serves as the touch control panel for the soundbar. Double-tapping on the light bar mutes it while swiping horizontally adjusts the volume (the light bar will light up along with your finger).

Function-wise, it’s a decent enough speaker, certainly better than any built-in monitor speakers you’ll find in the market, but for quality sound, you’ll still want to spring for a proper soundbar and/or headset.

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The monitor also comes pre-built with dual microphones situated at the center of the top bezel and has a range of 4-meters. This ‘smart’ microphone is preset with echo cancellation, background noise cancellation, and automatic short distance enhanced control. Testing the microphone in a quiet and controlled environment, it sounds clear and loud. However, in practice, its background noise cancellation isn’t too good. Your voice could easily be picked up as distorted or low as soon as you introduce other elements into your setup (ie. fans, ambient noise, etc.). There also doesn’t seem to be any way to adjust the microphones settings, and it could clash with enhancements from platforms like discord or zoom that offers their own sound-mixing and cancellation features.

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At the bottom center of the panel, you’ll find a single 5-way that controls the OSD and also serves as the power button. It’s also got a pulsing ring light for easy access I suppose, but honestly, it’s at the bottom center so it won’t be hard to find. The OSD covers most of what you want to be able to control for your monitor. You also get a few gaming-centered functionalities such as custom crosshairs and perhaps more interestingly the Darkfield Controls, which works to brighten up dark spots making enemies more visible, for those who want the competitive edge. The monitor also supports Freesync, but it’s hidden by default and must be enabled by holding the joystick up (towards the back of the monitor) for at least 10 seconds. I’m assuming this is hidden because it’s not without issues, one I noticed, in particular, is the flickering brightness when your framerate dips below 60fps. So if your rig runs games at variable fps, probably best not to bother with Freesync. The monitor also supports 5 levels of overdrive, though level 5 is a bit excessive and produces reverse ghosting so you’ll probably keep it at 2-3 for movies. I don’t recommend overdrive for games as it causes some input latency most noticeable in competitive shooters or fighting games.

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The back panel reveals two USB Type-C ports. One is used exclusively for the power brick —something you don’t see very often in monitors but is a nice touch— while the other can be used as a USB pass-through or to hook up to your phone to charge or screencasting. Then you also have 2 HDMI2.0 ports, a DP port, and a 3.5mm 2-in-1 audio jack. Its worth noting that the display only comes with a DP cable. So you’ll need to get an HDMI cable separately if your rig doesn’t have a DP port. It does, however, come with a Type-A to Type-C and a Type-C to Type-C cable out of the box, which is still a nice touch.

GT, as in Grand Tourer

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It’s a 32″ 3440×1440 curved display. It’s a VA panel so you’re going to have some color inconsistencies when viewing from certain angles, which is thankfully well compensated by its 1500R curvature, which is pretty curvy! So long as you’re sitting front and center of the panel, the viewing experience can be quite immersive. Even though you technically get more real estate with dual monitors, Ultrawide panels have the added benefit of an unbroken line of sight, meaning you can benefit in super compartmentalized tabs, or make use of the full range for just one display (ie. for creative programs like Adobe apps and Zbrush)

Color accuracy is also quite impressive. In terms of color spaces, the MateView covers 100% sRGB but also 90% DCI-P3. I don’t see too big a difference myself, but having P3 is good as it tends to saturate certain colors, which is a plus for some that can tell the difference, particularly in gaming.

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The panel also supports HDR. Oddly enough, it still only shows as 8-bit (with dithering) when looking through advanced display settings. That being said, there’s still an obvious difference when enabling HDR compared to running content through SDR. But, if you want to set 10-bit, the only way I found to work is by dropping the refresh rate to at least 144hz, after which, you’ll be able to set it to 10-bit.

VERDICT

For a first dip by HUAWEI into gaming displays, the MateView GT is already quite the formidable contender. The display panel passes most of the current display benchmarks which are just unheard of for a 32″ Ultrawide display at this price range (P28,999.00). The soundbar is a nice touch but is a gimmick at best. Even then, the monitor itself is of great value.

If you’re after an ultrawide display that is just as good at ultrawide gaming as it is at productivity, we recommend you highly consider the MateView GT.


Dian Raval

 
Dian is a writer for Flipgeeks who, in his spare time, stares at a wall in his basement. If you'd like to discuss music, video games, or the infinite wisdom of concrete, follow him on twitter @iburnandfume or subscribe to his YouTube channel @iburnandfume. He's pretty much iburnandfume in everything. Apparently he... burns and fumes.