Viewsonic VX3276-4K-MHD 32″ 4K UHD 60Hz Thin-Bezel Monitor

This is a review of the 32” 4K monitor with an “MVA” panel.

This is a good monitor considering how little it costs (for a 32” 4K monitor that is). It has no obvious quality control issues I’ve been able to discern. If you get something for a low price like this, and it works exactly the way it’s intended to work, then you should consider yourself lucky that you got a good deal.

Before I bought this monitor, I imagined that a 32” 4K monitor would make my computer life so much better. But I now feel that 32” is just TOO BIG for typical desktop usage. A 27” 1440p (aka QHD) monitor is the sweet spot for a desktop monitor. Most people buying this monitor would be better off with that and you’d save yourself some money or, for the same price, get a monitor that has better features and maybe better color quality and accuracy. However, I am not holding its size against the monitor, it is what you’re buying. Just advice for anyone reading this.

As an MVA panel, I had high hopes that the blacks would be jet black and not have the “glow” of IPS monitors. I was wrong about that, this panel definitely has an MVA glow, I guess you would call it. Are the blacks a little bit darker than a typical IPS panel? I don’t know for sure, I only have one other monitor to judge it against, a Samsung “PLS” monitor that I bought 8 years ago for $800. That much more expensive monitor annoyed me for 8 years with its corner glow that ruined the experience of watching fullscreen movies or videos. I am happy to say that this Viewsonic monitor does not have any corner glow and it’s much better for watching movies. Yay! But still not jet-black blacks.

The downside of this monitor having an MVA panel is that there’s a loss of contrast when viewing the corners or edges of the monitor. I would not recommend this as an office monitor (where IPS glow doesn’t matter), or for color-critical photo/video editing. But for a home monitor where you would use it in a dimly lit room and use it a lot for watching movies/TV/YouTube/Netflix etc., I think a VA type of panel makes sense. The viewing angle issue is barely noticeable most of the time, and this monitor certainly has a much better viewing angle than a TN monitor, but the issue is there.

There’s nothing horribly wrong with the panel, but the colors seem to lack punch. Also, the monitor has a really weird gamma curve that I don’t like. It seems to work better with a Mac, but when I hook a PC up to it, it looks all wrong. Hint: there’s a setting in the menu system called “black stabilization” that’s by default set to 50. Lowering it may improve the look on a PC and give you darker darks and less of a washed-out look. Other than this “black stabilization” setting, I don’t see any other way to adjust the gamma in the monitor’s menu system.

Before I bash the monitor, let me tell you what’s good about it: It has a lot of input ports, two HDMI and two DisplayPort (but I have no idea why one of the DP inputs is MDP; if you happen to have an old MacBook with an MDP port, you can just buy an MDP to DP cable which you probably already have anyway), it has an output for sound, it even has built in speakers, but the built-in speakers are pretty bad so they are mostly useless. The monitor also looks really nice. It’s very slim and has hardly any bezel at all.

OK, let’s get to the bad. The monitor has no height adjustment, and this monitor definitely needs a height adjustment because it’s so huge; the default height is too high, I wish I could lower it as much as possible so I don’t have to strain my neck to see the topmost part of the monitor.

The control system for this monitor is awful. The control buttons are on the back, and even basic tasks like changing the brightness or changing the input requires fumbling with a bunch of different buttons. In the future, I will definitely favor any monitor that has a remote control, or at least a d-pad on the front.

There’s very little documentation about what all the functions do or how to use them. I downloaded the user manual from the web in PDF format, but it doesn’t tell you that much about what all of the mysterious functions do. What you can’t do in the menus is change the gamma or set an exact color temperature that you specify with a K value or change the color saturation.

But the bottom line is that, despite the bad and the mediocre, there are no defects and it cost very little money. You can easily spend three times as much money for a 4K 32″ monitor that, at the end of the day, is still just a big high resolution monitor.

UPDATE A FEW MONTHS LATER

The image quality on this monitor is very good.

I realize now that when I wrote the original review, I was getting washed out colors with PC because the settings were wrong in Nvida control app. It was set to “RGB Limited” when it should have been “RGB Full”. Maybe this happened because I was using an HDMI cable instead of a DisplayPort cable to connect the monitor?

I stand by in hating the controls for the monitor on the back/right. It takes forever and is a real pain in the ass to adjust even something simple like the brightness.

I also stand by not liking the cheap stand that can’t be vertically adjusted.

I also stand by 32″ being too big, but that’s not the fault of ViewSonic, it’s what I bought.

Everything else about this monitor is great for the price. Especially great for watching movies or TV if you push your chair back about 3 feet form the monitor.

Updated: Lots to like about this monitor, however after only two days it has a flicker. See attached video. Its most pronounced on the windows login splash screen. I don’t know if its broken or its simply trying to self adjust and is in some weird loop, but either way its not working properly. Its not always as pronounced as that screen, but that screen has a lot of black on it. I have a GeForece GTX 1060 6GB video card, not top of the line, but no slouch either.

Original Review:
It has 4 inputs and that super amazingly awesome! I connect three different computers to it, so having at least 3 inputs is super important. 4 is way above average on monitors. However the interface to switch inputs is via a crappy menu system and not a single button like others. This could drive you nuts. Also if an input is no longer there it will auto switch to something with an input. I cannot find any way around this in the menus. The information I was able to find before I purchase “implied” that it was a single button to switch inputs. So that part sucks when switching between computers.

The screen is okay. There isn’t anything bad about it. I find flesh tones are too red saturated. I would not use this for Photo/Video Editing. This is not that monitor, don’t even attempt it, you will be disappointed.

On the other hand for the price point, web-surfing and office type work is great. Compared to my 2k (1920×1200) monitor this is quite the upgrade and you will love real 4k and all the space you have. I bought the 32″ and not a 27″ and I think that was a good move. On Windows 10 you can scale everything on the desktop so it’s not super tiny small. I found 150% is my sweet spot. 32″ gives you a bit more room to maximize the zoom vs amount of desktop space in use. I might have needed 175% on a 27″ monitor to get things to look the same size. Even though the pixel count is the same you need to factor in the actual size of icons and whatnot. 32″ for me gives me more space. Text from applications is crisp sharp, there are no pixels that I can easily see. Compared to my old 2k monitor this is amazing!

This is not an IPS panel, but instead, its MVA technology. The screen is really large, which is awesome, but its so big in fact that the viewing angle becomes important. The left and right if I’m sitting center is no longer 100% perfect because of the viewing angle. Not outrageously bad, maybe 10% worse to the right or left of what you are working on. I suspect IPS is better, but I didn’t read up on it so I don’t know.

Finally it has VESA mounting holes (100mm x 100mm) and I was able to mount it on my monitor arm. I added the spacers since it could bump into their bracket if used without the spacers. There were no specs on the screws (it would be nice to put a sticker or put it in the manual so you knew what max length was supposed to be). I used M4x16’s (x4 of them) (which is 16mm long) and that seemed to work just fine. That was through my VESA backing plate and spacers and it didn’t seem to hit anything on the inside. It would have been super nice if they included 4 screws.

Other than that its a good price for a brand name monitor, but there are plenty of monitors in the price range. I’m happy I have it, but I probably should have splurged for a more expensive display. If you are doing Office work you will be very happy once you get the settings adjusted to your liking. The thing that held me back from other brands was the lack of a dedicated input select button, which in the end this one doesn’t have.

I did not buy this monitor for gaming so I cannot speak to the gaming quality here but I can speak to its compatibility with the monitor arm I have and the picture quality. Both are 5 of 5. This 4k monitor is super slim and low profile. Not much to say really except a lot of the reviews on this monitor’s amazon page are for the lower resolution versions. Lots of people were talking about lack of monitor arm compatibility, back light bleed, and I think I even saw some dead pixel stuff. I do not have ANY of those problems. Word of advice when reading reviews for this monitor make sure you are reading the reviews for the exact resolution you are interested in. This monitor is definitely worth the money in my opinion.

I purchased the ViewSonic VX3276-4K-MHD 32 Inch 4K UHD Monitor in June of 2022. 6 months later it started to go black on me.

Suddenly, while I am working on my computer the ViewSonic will just shut down and go black. I am unable to complete the task I was working on. Then it will suddenly come back on. And it will shut off again. I have checked all of my connections and that is not the problem.

I am very displeased with the quality of this monitor. I have a BENQ that I purchased before I bought the ViewSonic. The BENQ is still working perfectly. Thank goodness, because when the ViewSonic comes back on after blacking out I can bring my work over to the BENQ.

Unfortunately, when the ViewSonic is exhibiting on/off blackouts I lose the advantage of having 2 screens to work on. Plus I have to stop working while I am waiting for the ViewSonic to come back on so I can move my work.

This is a random problem, and I never know when it is going to occur. I may go a day or I may go a few weeks before it occurs again.

I absolutely love my new screen. I was initially searching for a monitor that worked well with Mac since I didn’t feel like spending $1K+ for the Apple monitor or an iMac. ViewSonic has TRULY outdone themselves with this product. Besides the beauty of the edge-to-edge screen, it’s stainless steel design is truly one that will transcend time as you transform your office space throughout the years. This monitor truly shocked me with how clear everything was and its easy setup.

I highly recommend this monitor for anyone looking for an at home screen for any purpose!

Purchased monitor and recieved on 7/24. Upon opening the box there were dead pixels and pixel lines. Reached out to Viewsonic for a replacement and at every turn they were so unhelpful (referring me back to Amazon, refusing to provide a replacement without a credit card hold, informing me any replacement would be 2 weeks out because they have to do inventory) and overall lack of responses [This conversation to just try and get a replacement was still not resolved after two days] I ended up returning and ordered a monitor from a different company.

The sad part is you could see this would be a good quality monitor and was easy to set up. Customer service just ruined it with bad processes. I feel for the people who have to work in that department, it can’t be easy to be put in a position to be as unhelpful as possible.

Display is sharp, bright, and color is perfect. This monitor is paired with a 2K display that is in portrait mode. Using Nvidia Desktop Manager or Fancy Zones as part of Windows Power toys I can split the the display into 4 – 1080p displays, smaller ones for email, etc… Or use the whole display for video and photo work. Some of the comments said the stand was not stable. I don’t have that problem. The stand appears to be cast aluminum, very attractive. I put it together, and used loctite blue on the threads of the screws, and have had zero vibration issues. Very pleased with this display. Typically I prefer Benq or ViewSonic displays, and the price and quality is perfect for my professional use.

I use for casual video watching video editing and general computing tasks. I had a 32″ BenQ 2K monitor before. This is a great upgrade from that. Excellent contrast. There is a bit of MVA glow when the screen is completely black – but it doesn’t bother me at all. I went back and got another to replace my other 27″ secondary monitor.

I recommend a VESA wall mount or desk clamp arm or third party VESA stand over the include non-adjustable stand. Frees up so much desk space, and any stand that is not height adjustable or cannot be rotated to level the monitor is just silly.

Note – be sure you are reading reviews for the right type of monitor. I almost didn’t buy this when I accidentally read reviews for the non 4K versions.

First the positive – this monitor has GREAT picture quality. I don’t notice any of the backlight bleed that other reviewers have mentioned – although I do notice that most of the reviews relate to the 1080p variant of this monitor; I am talking about the 4K version.
The panel seems to be very fast; dragging windows around and gaming, I notice no smearing.
The picture is bright and clear, and the onscreen controls are intuitive.
The stand is slimline and unobtrusive.

On a negative note – the speakers SUCK. They put out worse sound than my Sinclair Spectrum computer did 30+ years ago. They’re fine for system alert sounds – dings, beeps and so on – but far too tinny for music, which sounds like it’s being played on a paper kazoo. I’m no audiophile – heck, I listen happily to 128KB MP3s – but even so, if you buy this monitor, plan on getting a separate speaker setup to go with it. I don’t expect premium sound quality from a monitor’s built-in speakers, but even by such standards, these are bad.

Overall – I’d recommend this monitor and would buy it again, but I have to deduct a star for the speakers… sorry, Viewsonic.

Product:
ViewSonic VX3276-4K-MHD 32 Inch 4K UHD Monitor with Ultra-Thin Bezels, HDR10 HDMI

Product Price: $301.78
Purchase Date: 10-25-2023
Received: 10-27-2023
Review Date: 1-16-2024

Rating: 4 stars
1) Overall the screen seems to work well. The resolution is great!
2) HOWEVER ! ! !: it does not come with a remote…this is very annoying!
3) I have the screen mounted to an arm attached to the desk,
so reaching around the screen to turn it off and on is ANNOYING!
4) I do not use this screen to play games, so I can’t expound on this feature…sorry about that!
5) And oh, did I tell you that it is annoying to not have a remote?
Well it is annoying, so be aware of this exclusion when you are looking for screen.