14 DAY TRIAL // Ultra-widescreen monitors are pretty rare, not because they are hard to make or anything but because they don't have many customers. Full HD resolutions have taken over most of the segment.
Still, ASUS is mindful of people who like to have multiple applications open at the same time, like a browser and a document editor side-by-side, to give just one example.
And since Full HD cinematic aspect ratios (16:9) don't always cut it, it has launched a 21:9 monitor called PB298Q.
In a sense, this type of display represents the widescreen aspect ratio taken to its logical extreme.
It is also an opposite of the 5:4 aspect ratio, which is even closer to being square than 4:3, which used to be the most common TV and monitor shape.
Anyway, the new monitor from ASUS has a diagonal of 29 inches and a native resolution of 2560 x 1080 pixels.
That makes it 33% wider than standard Full HD monitors, and the equivalent to two non-widescreen, 5:4 monitors of 17 inches.
The possibility of viewing more columns on a spreadsheet (up to 13 more) compared to Full HD panels is one advantage, and the other is that multitaskers no longer need to have a second display available.
The very thin edge is another asset. ASUS describes the 0.8 mm bezel design of the PB298Q as something that “helps create the illusion of a frameless, edge-to-edge display.”
Moving on, the AH-IPS has LED backlighting and viewing angles of 178 degrees, both horizontally and vertically.
Other specifications include an 80,000,000:1 ASUS Smart Contrast Ratio, a brightness of 300 cd/m2, built-in 3W stereo speakers and three video inputs: DisplayPort, HDMI, and Dual-link DVI ports.
Finally, the ASUS MultiFrame software allows users to easily organize multiple desktop windows in an orderly fashion, and the ASUS Splendid Video Intelligence Technology ensures vivid colors according to any one of six modes (a hotkey can change between them).
The ASUS PB298Q Ultra-Widscreen Display possesses an adjustable stand with tilt, swivel, pivot and height adjustment (up to 150mm). Sadly, we don't know the price.