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Many gaming monitors focus on just one or two things like speed or resolution. But some displays offer a little bit of everything. If you aren’t looking for the bleeding edge, you can find other perks like size and image quality. And often, these displays are a great deal.
The HP Omen 32q is a prime example of this. Like all the Omens I’ve reviewed recently, it delivers superb performance at a low price. This one also delivers a big-screen experience. If you want something tall and wide, 32 inches and 16:9 is the ticket to happiness.
The Omen 32q certainly delivers in the image quality department. HP is one of the few companies making truly versatile monitors that are accurate in the two main color modes, sRGB and DCI-P3. By default, the Omen 32q uses sRGB for SDR content, which is the correct choice. But with many users preferring the wide gamut for SDR, HP has made that an equally competent option. Native mode, though it requires some tweaking, can hit the same reference-level marks for grayscale, gamma and gamut accuracy. That’s a perk usually found only in very expensive professional screens.
Gaming performance is also much better than the Omen 32q’s price suggests. HP’s overdrive implementation is one of the best, with precise tuning that avoids artifacts and reduces motion blur to where you’d think you’re looking at a 240 Hz screen. And if you prefer a backlight strobe, HP has gotten that right as well. It’s a viable alternative to Adaptive-Sync.
The only weakness I found here was native contrast, which is a bit lower than average. That’s only a factor for SDR, and only if you don’t turn on the dynamic contrast option, which works well. In HDR mode, contrast is much higher, over 10,000:1, which puts it well ahead of nearly all the budget HDR monitors I’ve tested. If you play HDR games, the Omen 32q will do them justice while saving you a ton of money over a Mini LED panel.
If you’re lusting over a jumbo monitor but don’t want to spend more than $400, the HP Omen 32q delivers premium image quality, superb gaming performance and rugged build quality on par with much pricier displays. Definitely check it out.
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