MSI launched six QD-OLED displays at CES 2024 in one go, covering 27 to 49-inch product lines, belonging to the MPG and MAG series, the most special of which is the MPG 491CQP, which is a 32:9 ultra-wide curved screen with a resolution of 5120*1440 (DQHD), compared with the more common 21:9 ultra-wide screen, the 32:9 monitor has a wider lateral field of view. Its aspect ratio and resolution are just equal to two 16:9 spells together, and can be directly split into two screens, which is very useful in some specific occasions.
The Samsung QD-OLED panel used in the MSI MPG 491CQP is an upgraded version of OLED, which has made breakthroughs in both technology and quality. Compared with ordinary OLED, QD-OLED can display more realistic and accurate colors, and the performance is better in both brightness and darkness. Because QD-OLED also introduces quantum dot technology, the color gamut is wider and the color purity is higher, which can accurately restore more colors and bring better digital images and first-class effects.
First of all, let's introduce this MSI MPG 491CQP, it uses Samsung's new generation of original QD-OLED panel, it is a 32:9 49-inch screen, with a resolution of 5120x1440, the refresh rate is up to 144Hz, and the screen arc is 1800R, and Samsung's QD-OLED is a piece that adds a quantum dot color transfer film, using blue light OLED to excite red light and green light on the color transfer film, and blue light will be straight out, QD-OLED can have a better color gamut than OLED.
So MSI MPG 491CQP also has good data in terms of color gamut, the panel is native 10 bit color depth, it has up to 99% DCI-P% Adobe RGB color gamut coverage and 146% SRGB color gamut volume, which is quite good for a gaming monitor. In addition, the OLED panel only needs to be lit up and turned off to achieve pixel switching, so the response time of the OLED panel is very fast, and the GTG response time is only 003ms, with 144Hz high refresh rate, there is almost no dragging, it looks very comfortable, the display has passed the VESA ClearMR 8000 certification, to ensure the smoothness of competitive games and clear dynamic pictures, and supports Adaptive Sync, which can effectively prevent screen tearing after opening.
The MSI MPG 491CQP has a maximum brightness of 250 nits in SDR mode, while its HDR mode has two options, one is 1000 nits peak, and the other is a VESA HDR True Black 400 certified mode, although the peak brightness is not so high, but it can obtain purer blacks, which is thanks to the non-illuminating nature of OLED Black, with a contrast ratio of up to 1500000:1 and a stronger contrast between light and dark.
MSI's power supply for this monitor is built-in, so you don't need to worry about the placement of the power supply when using it, **In terms of interfaces, the MPG 491CQP provides two HDMI 21 and a DisplayPort 14A port, there is also a full-featured USB Type-C port, which can be used as a DP** input interface, and the interface also supports 90W PD fast charging, which means that you don't even need to use the power supply that comes with the laptop when you connect this interface to this display.
Other interfaces include an uplink USB 20 Type-B as well as two USB 20 Type-A, these two ports are basically for you to use the mouse key, MPG 491CQP also supports KVM and PIP PBP split screen function, use a set of keyboard and mouse connected to the monitor to control two PCs connected to the monitor, of course, one device must use the USB Type-B port, and the other must use the USB Type-C port to access.
The MSI MPG 491CQP is a 49-inch monitor, coupled with an ultra-wide aspect ratio of 32:9, so even with its curvature of 1800R, it still looks very long, and the screen width is close to 12 meters, to place this monitor you first need a relatively large table. The design of the display is the same as other MSI monitors,The front is very simple,The screen part of the display uses a 3-sided narrow bezel design,At the bottom of the front**Only MSI, the English name of MSI,And the one below the screen** is the power indicator。 On the back, there are a lot of decorative patterns, and there is a huge MSI dragon logo on the first side, and the words "49 QD-OLED" on the other side indicate that this is a 49-inch QD-OLED display.
The stand is a forked stand used in gaming monitors, although this kind of stand occupies a relatively small number of places, but when you place it, you need to empty the place on the table a lot, otherwise it will easily press things, and it is not easy to place things in the middle of the triangle area. This bracket can be raised and lowered up 100mm, the left and right rotation range is plus or minus 30 degrees, the pitch adjustment range is -5 ° depression angle and 20 ° elevation angle, and there is a hollow part in the middle of the bracket, which is a cable management hole left for the player.
MSI has customized a graphene heatsink for the MPG 491CQP to allow the monitor to operate without a cooling fan, and the new material not only ensures heat dissipation and silence, but also further extends the life of the panel.
The control key is located in the lower middle of the back of the monitor,Just near the position of the power light,OSD is controlled through this 5-axis joystick,Up and down it are the game auxiliary keys and the on/off key,The joystick feels very good,After pressing it, the OSD's response is also very fast。
Previously said about its HMI 2 when testing the Neptune X2 14th0 human-computer interaction system can directly control part of the MSI display OSD, and MPG 491CQP supports this function, of course, you need to let the Neptune X2 14th control display have to connect the uplink USB cable, after connecting it can directly start the display's intelligent crosshair, optix sight and night vision adjustment, no need to control the display menu, it is more convenient and fast to control.
AI VisionThis function is that the display intelligently recognizes the environment to improve the brightness of the dark part of the image, adjusts the details of the dark area through AI calculation, and maintains the details of the bright area, so that the image is bright but not excessive**.
This night vision function is actually something similar to the function, but also to allow players to see more clearly in the dark scene, it and AI Vision are conflicting, you can only choose one of the two to turn on, the night vision function will change the global brightness, and AI Vision will not, which one to use depends on personal preference.
After this function is turned on, a magnified area will appear on the screen. Its main function is to allow players to see more clearly whether there is an enemy in the distance or not in a shooter game. Players can choose whether they want to zoom in 15x, 2x, or 4x, you can also choose the one that least obstructs the field of view from the 3 magnifying glass sizes.
Nowadays, in order to improve the realism, there are many shooting games that do not have a crosshair when not using the camera. The independent front sight was created to make it easier for players to aim at the enemy when firing at hip. When this feature is enabled for the MSI MPG 491CQP, an independent reticle will appear on the screen that can be adjusted so that players can aim at enemies even if they don't have a camera aiming, and the color of the crosshair can also change according to the background color, so that you can see the position of the crosshair at any time.
The QD-OLED panel is good, but it is still an OLED screen in essence, and the problem of screen burn-in still exists, so MSI has equipped the monitor with OLED Care 20, adopt a number of measures to prolong the service life of the panel, the most basic is the pixel offset, which can periodically move the picture to prevent the pixels from displaying the same image for a long time, and prevent the panel from aging. When the screen is still for a long time, the screen will automatically reduce the brightness to protect the screen.
In addition, the panel protection will be automatically activated after the display has been used for more than 4 hours, and if you select Execute, the protection program will be automatically executed, and if you are busy, you can choose to wait, and then it will display the prompt after 16 hours, which will be automatically activated after the display is turned off and enters the power saving mode.
As a 49-inch 32:9 monitor, the MSI MPG 491CQP supports picture-in-picture and side-by-side screen functions, which can be split into two 2K monitors, so that you can connect two devices at all times, in addition to connecting to two computers at all times, you can also connect to the computer on one side and PS5 or Xbox on the other side, giving full play to the role of ultra-widescreen.
Since split-screen is supported, the KVM function is indispensable, connecting the keyboard and mouse to the monitor, and then using it to control the devices connected to the monitor. In the OSD, players can freely choose whether to use the KVM function on the device connected to the USB uplink cable, or to use the KVM function on the device connected to the USB Type-C interface.
In addition to the i1 Display Pro Plus calibrator, our display tests are measured using the i1 Pro 2 luminance meter. In terms of software, we will use Calman Ultimate, which is currently one of the most professional color correction software in the industry. The MSI MPG 491CQP uses the Eco Saving mode by default, and the test was conducted using this mode.
The MSI MPG 491CQP has a brightness of 70% by default, and when I tested it, I turned it to 100% brightness and measured a peak brightness of around 265 cd m2. If the default settings are maintained, the brightness is around 200 cd m2.
Since the HDR of MPG 491CQP has two modes, TureBlack400 and Peak 1000, we will test both of them, and the ratio of this screen is 32:9, to be honest, there are very few of them at this resolution, so we will test the situation when the window is 16:9 and 32:9, and the screen is black on both sides when it is 16:9.
Since the 1% and 2% windows at the 32:9 ratio are too small, the test starts with the 5% window size, the peak brightness of the TureBlack400 mode is 480 cd m2, which can be maintained at both 10% and 25% window sizes, and the maximum brightness in the peak 1000 mode occurs at 10% window, reaching 1082 cd m2, when the window reaches more than 50%, the brightness of the two modes is actually not much different.
At the 16:9 ratio, both sides of the screen are actually black, in fact, the *** area is only about half of the screen, the maximum brightness of the tureblack400 mode can be maintained to 10%**window, while the peak 1000 mode can only be maintained to 5% window, and the maximum brightness is about the same as when testing 32:9.
Due to the characteristics of OLED, the minimum brightness of MSI MPG 491CQP is 0, which can be said to be all black, so its contrast ratio should be infinite.
In this objective quality test, we will restore the display to factory settings, and then set the brightness to 100 cd m2 to test. MSI MPG 491CQP has built-in three picture modes: SRGB, Adobe RGB, and DCI-P3, so the corresponding color gamut color will be switched to the corresponding mode when testing the corresponding color gamut.
In the default Eco mode, the MSI MPG 491CQP has a gamma value of 217, while the white balance δe is at 301, if you look at it with the gamma curve, when this monitor displays 30% white content or less, the picture will be darker, and when the white content above this is lighter.
After measurement, the color temperature of the MSI MPG 491CQP in eco mode is around 6200K, which is basically a perfect color temperature, and the display will theoretically not appear to be on the cold or warm side.
The following color gamut coverage and color accuracy tests are performed in the corresponding modes:
SRGB color gamut.
DCI-P3 color gamut.
Adobe RGB color gamut.
In terms of color gamut, the MSI MPG 491CQP has a 150% SRGB color gamut volume in the corresponding mode, while the DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB color gamut coverage are 981% and 948%。Such a color gamut is relatively good for gaming monitors.
As MSI advertises, the MPG 491CQP does a pretty good job in terms of color accuracy, with an average δE of 1 in SRGB mode47 with a maximum δe of 361, the average color accuracy of Display-P3 mode is 195 with a maximum δe of 498, the average color accuracy ΔE in Adobe RGB mode is 187 with a maximum δe of 52. The average δe of color accuracy is less than 2, which is really strong in this regard.
In terms of color saturation, the average δe in SRGB mode is 171 with a maximum δe of 373, and the average δe in Display-P3 mode is 182 with a maximum δe of 4985, the average color accuracy ΔE in Adobe RGB mode is 208, the maximum δe is 524, the performance is also quite good, and if you really want players to use it for light creation, then there won't be much of a problem.
Because MSI MPG 491CQP uses an OLED panel with quantum dot technology, the gap between the spectrum and the traditional OLED panel is still quite large, the red, green and blue spectral distribution is relatively balanced, and the peak of blue light is the lowest, while the traditional OLED panel is easy to be blue, while MPG 491CQP is a bit reddish.
The most attractive thing about MSI's MPG 491CQP monitor is definitely its 32:9 aspect ratio, which allows you to display more game screens than traditional 16:9 and 21:9 screens, such as FIFA above, and you can even see the goals on both sides directly when serving in the middle. In the flight game, you will also get a better and better field of view, in the third person vision may only be a little widened left and right, but if you switch to the cockpit vision, you will find that you only need to rotate a little bit to see the rear, and you can see almost the entire sky above when you look up, and the situational awareness is greatly enhanced.
Of course, not all games support32:9,There are also some games in which the extra game screen is of little significance,Overall, MSI MPG 491CQP is a horizontal** high-resolution high refresh rate gaming monitor,5120*1440The resolution is basically two side-by-side 2K monitors,144HzAlthough the refresh rate is not the top,But due to the characteristics of QD-OLED, its response time is only 0.03ms,There is no problem with ghosts at all,1800rThe curvature makes this 49-inch screen quite comfortable to use,You can basically see the whole screen without shaking your head。
In terms of color, it also has a good performance, and it can even be called relatively excellent, even in the absence of correction, MSI MPG 491CQP can also have good color accuracy, and players will not find the color strange when ** different content. The price of this monitor is 8499 yuan,But now if you make an appointment for the first time, you only need 7999 yuan to start,Friends who want to start have to hurry up。