Monitors for personal computers have come a long way – from small cathode ray tubes to modern LCD panels with huge diagonals, high resolution and high refresh rates.
With the development of technology, the user’s workspace has gradually expanded. Square screens with an aspect ratio of 4: 3 were gradually forgotten with the advent of widescreen solutions with aspect ratios of 16: 9, 16:10 and cinematic 21: 9. However, some users and this space is not enough, as a result of which they resort to connecting two or more monitors. The solution to this problem came a few years ago with 32: 9 monitors, which are not only great for working with multiple windows, but also provide an even more vivid gaming experience. Just recently, one of the representatives of the segment got to our test – an ultra-widescreen monitor Acer Nitro EI491CRP… Its average price in Russian online stores is 65 thousand rubles…
PACKAGING, APPEARANCE AND CONNECTORS
The monitor comes in a very long box made of thick cardboard, there are cutouts on the sides for carrying, but it is not very convenient to do it alone, so it is good to have a friend or girlfriend nearby. The package is in standard cardboard color with black and white monitor images on the main sides. In addition, logos of the technologies that the monitor supports are placed in the corners.
Inside, under the huge chunks of textured foam, not only the Acer Nitro EI491CRP itself is hidden, but also a disassembled leg, consisting of two parts, as well as a DisplayPort cable, power cables for British and European outlets and a monitor remote control. In addition, inside you will find a Quick Start Guide and Warranty, as well as a data sheet for Acer’s European and African offices. For attaching the stand with the base of the leg, the kit includes several regular screws, as well as several special metal stands for attaching to a VESA bracket.
The first impressions of the monitor, when it is already assembled and stands on the table, are extremely positive, especially if you have not seen similar solutions before. Despite the unusual format, its design is quite strict.
The Acer Nitro EI491CRP is positioned as a gaming one, which means that there is a backlight, but it is built into the rack on which the display is mounted. The stand is made in the shape of a cylinder, and the lighting is built into a small niche at the very top, the light is directed in all directions. The base from the bottom resembles a boomerang, which in the middle is succinctly connected to the rack. The base is made of metal, and the stand has a metal frame covered with matte plastic.
Let’s go back directly to the screen. As stated earlier, the Acer Nitro EI491CRP is notable for its 32: 9 aspect ratio. It, like all similar models, has a curved shape, since it is simply necessary to make it easier for a user sitting close enough to the monitor to cover the whole picture at such a large diagonal. In addition, this shape is familiar to our eyes.
The Acer Nitro EI491CRP has a bending radius of 1800R, which means that at a distance of 1.8 meters in front of the screen, you can look at any point of the display at a right angle. The surface of the screen is matte and has an anti-reflective coating that does its job well.
The body is made of black matte plastic, and you will find only a small glossy part on the control unit protruding from the bottom, where not only the buttons and the power diode are located, but also the infrared sensor for the complete remote control. The dimensions of the working area are 1180 mm horizontally and 336 mm vertically. From the adjustments, an inclination of 5 degrees backward and 15 degrees forward is available. Horizontal rotation and height adjustment are not provided in this model.
The bezels of the monitor are only 3 mm wide on the sides and top, if you count only the outer plastic frame, and 9 mm if you take into account the black frames of the display itself and the millimeter gap between the display and the plastic frame. The lower part of the frame is twice as thick – its size is 18 mm.
Below are the perforations of the built-in speakers and cooling. The thickness of the screen at the edges is 18 mm, and due to the rounded shape of the back panel, its thickness to the place where the leg is attached in the middle increases to about 60 mm.
There is a long perforation for cooling the monitor and the company logo at the back of the screen above the leg attachment point. The screen can be installed not only on the supplied foot, but also on VESA mounts of the 75 x 75 mm standard. With the stand, this model has a maximum dimensions of 1198 x 456 x 240 mm, while its weight is 11.4 kg with the stand and 9.3 kg without it.
In the middle under the Acer logo, as mentioned earlier, is the control unit, which protrudes from the monitor by 10 mm, and its length is approximately 12 cm.
5 buttons are responsible for control here. The rightmost one – for turning the monitor power on and off. Clicking on any of the others will open the quick menu. The leftmost button causes a transition to the screen mode selection menu. The second from the left will take you to the brightness setting. The third is responsible for choosing an entrance. The button adjacent to the power returns to the main OSD menu of the monitor.
The connectors are hidden behind a special semicircular plastic cap, which is attached to the monitor with magnets. All connectors on this model are directed downward, which is very convenient if you decide to hang the screen on the wall. In addition to the power port for connecting a network cable, next to it you will find one DisplayPort version 1.2, one HDMI input 2.0, as well as 2 similar connectors, but version 1.4, and a 3.5 mm headphone slot.
SPECIFICATIONS
The Acer Nitro EI491CRP is 49 inches (124.46 cm) diagonal and uses an early 2019 8-bit VA matrix with Samsung’s quantum dot technology and a custom resolution of 3840 x 1080 pixels. In fact, these are two Full HD screens in one body. The monitor supports a maximum refresh rate of 144 Hz in overclocking mode and 120 Hz in normal mode.
The maximum screen brightness here is 400 cd / m2, making the display certified to the DisplayHDR400 standard and HDR10 compliant. The model supports approximately 90% DCI-P3 color space and approximately 100% sRGB. Static contrast is 3000: 1 and dynamic contrast is 100M: 1. Viewing angles – 178 degrees both vertically and horizontally.
In addition, the monitor supports AMD FreeSync Premium Pro and Flicker-Less technologies. The first helps prevent screen tearing and distortion in dynamic scenes on PCs with AMD graphics cards, as well as on Xbox consoles. The second reduces screen flickering.
CONTROL AND SETTINGS
The Acer Nitro EI491CRP stands out in that, in addition to the controls on the display itself in the form of outdated buttons, it has an alternative in the form of a remote control. The remote looks like counterparts from various TV boxes, such as Apple TV or Xiaomi Mi Box, and some premium TV models. Unfortunately, it does not use a Bluetooth connection to the screen, but only an infrared sensor, so you have to point the remote directly to the center of the monitor for the signal to hit the built-in sensor.
Using the remote control, you can not only turn on and off the monitor, but also switch between video inputs, open the main menu and conveniently navigate through it using the arrows on and the “OK” and “back” buttons to select and return to the previous menu, respectively. In addition, you can adjust the volume, as well as quickly open a menu with picture modes. There is also a separate button on the remote control to enable HDR mode.
If you suddenly lost the remote control, the battery ran out in it, or you just like to dig into the settings using the buttons on the monitor, then you can go to the OSD menu by two clicks on the second button on the right. Opening the menu, you will immediately find yourself in the “Image settings” section, where, in addition to brightness and contrast, you can adjust the level of black enhancement and sharpness of the picture, enable the filter of the blue light spectrum. Next comes the “Color Settings” section, where they offer to choose different color schemes, adjust gamma, saturation and the like. In the “Sound” section, you can adjust the volume or just turn on / off the speakers. The next item on the menu is various game functions such as displaying frame rate, in-screen sight and FreeSync. In the OSD tab, you can customize the OSD itself directly. In the “System” section, the developers allow you to switch between video inputs, adjust the aspect ratio, control the lighting on the stand, enable overclocking mode, configure hot keys, enable the DDC / CI function, and the image is displayed from multiple outputs using the PIP (picture in picture) and PBP (picture next to picture).
Separately, I would like to note that Acer has a special application called Acer Display Widget, which will partially facilitate the monitor setup. To work with it, you need to enable the DDC / CI function so that the PC and monitor can transmit commands to each other via the connected video cable. There are only three tabs in the application: Game View, Game View Sync and Split Screen. The first gives quick access to game modes with monitors with the ability to fine-tune each of them. In the second, you can bind the desired mode to the corresponding application, and you can choose an application from those that are running and available in the task manager, or simply by specifying the path to the .exe file of the required program. The last tab, personally in my opinion, is the most useful for monitors of such non-standard formats. Unfortunately, the Snap Assist feature in Windows 10 allows you to split the screen in either half or four equal parts. If in the first case you get two 16: 9 windows, then in the second you get three flattened windows due to the screen length. Finally, Split Screen in the application allows you to split the screen in a variety of ways, for example, into three equal vertical windows. This allows you to more conveniently organize the available workspace on such a giant.
TESTS AND GAMES
We’ve been able to test the display on PC, Xbox Series X, and PS5 on projects such as Forza Horizon 4 (PC), Gears 5 (PC), Doom Eternal (PC), Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (XSeX), and Demon’s Souls (PS5).
The PS5 was able to deliver a maximum 4K 60Hz resolution and suggested HDR tweaks and screen edges adjustments. The Xbox Series X could be set to both 4K @ 60Hz and 1080p @ 120Hz. Also, when the FreeSync option was enabled in the settings on the Xbox, the function of eliminating interruptions and tears was active. At the same time, the aspect ratio in both cases was 16: 9, since neither the console from Sony nor the set-top box from Microsoft support ultra-wide displays.
In the display settings, you can stretch the picture to full screen, and the result is presented in the screenshots in our gallery.
The monitor showed excellent results on a PC, showing a very smooth and exciting picture both in shooters and in races, where this form factor is supported and adds a wow effect.
Gears 5 (PC)
Forza Horizon 4 (PC)
DOOM Eternal (PC)
Demon’s Souls (PS5)
Assassin’s Creed Valhalla (Xbox Series X)
In terms of performance, the Nitro EI491CRP is capable of 144Hz overclocked DisplayPort and 120Hz over HDMI. The minimum response time for this matrix, when it switches the brightness to gray from the minimum to the maximum value, is 4 ms. With the viewing angles everything is in order here, and the color rendering of viewing remains at a fairly high level, for which thanks to the good VA matrix. But the matrix has flares of various sizes and degrees of luminescence, which are slightly visible in dark scenes.
The monitor has passed DisplayHDR400 certification, which requires an 8-bit matrix with at least 400 cd / m2 brightness and general backlight control. HDR is displayed in 8-bit anti-aliasing (FRC) mode with a maximum available frequency of 144 Hz. In the DisplayHDR Test program, we were able to see the maximum effective value at 676 (435.284241 nits), and the minimum at 57 (0.077598 nits). HDR was tested not only on PC, but also on PS5 with Xbox Series X. On all platforms, an increase in contrast and image detail was noticed.
I also want to praise this model for the PBP function, which allows you to display an image from one source next to the second, dividing the monitor screen in half. This converts your 32: 9 monitor into two with a 16: 9 ratio.
So, we connected a PC via DisplayPort, and PS5 via HDMI, which can be useful, for example, if you get trophies in a game and watch a guide on a PC. However, it is worth remembering that for correct display in the same format, it is necessary that the resolution on the consoles and the PC be set to the same.
As for the PIP function (picture in picture), everything is not so rosy here. It was not possible to establish the correct aspect ratio, and the additional image is displayed only in the window with a 32: 9 ratio, while the main one is in 16: 9 in the middle of the screen.
TOTAL
The Acer Nitro EI491CRP is a very interesting monitor that immediately attracts attention with its unusual format. The immersion effect in PC games is simply incredible, and thanks to the proprietary application and the Split Screen function, you can effectively use it with various programs. PBP can also be useful if you need to use multiple devices at the same time. In a professional environment, this screen will appeal to those who are engaged in video editing, layout or programming.
Author: Sergey Dyakonenko (Madnfs)
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