Asus PG43UQ blurry text, smearing issues

[sergio77]

I've bought Asus PG43UQ, and I'm disappointed. I'm wondering why did I paid premium price for this monitor.

* Known issues from XG438U are also reproduced on my PG43UQ
I can confirm that issues with blurry text are still present and also other VA issues fixed like smearing or inverse ghosting. Overdrive still isn't doing anything useful.

* Blurry text
To partially fix issues with fonts clarity issued I had turned on ELMB and set Blur Clarity to 100.Also I had to apply registry BGR fixes on Windows 10. Apps with Dark mode works well with those settings, the glow effect doesn't exist, but the picture brightness is very low. A text with small fonts and 100% scaling are good, but still not sharp. It still looks like on some cheap Korean monitor?

* Text rendering issues
I think that some processing from the monitor side is creating font rendering issues, and not 'BRG' like in many posts users are referring to. Even with scaling set to 125% in Chrome browser text on Web pages looks like some processing has been done, some pixels are misinterpreted or missing from letters.
For an unknown reason the upper third of the panel is more weirdly blurry then the lower third part. I've done some short testing in Windows. I saw that Windows 10 UI forms are having problem showing descriptions in gray color (under dropdowns or buttons). Strange issue with letters that are cut from the top. If I moved my head a few inches to upper positions the grayed text looked normal.
I have tried many settings to fix fonts rendering, also ones from Level1Tech posts but nothing helps.
https://forum.level1techs.com/t/asus-xg438q-review-perfect-monitor-settings/147701/18

Scrolling text in a browser or editors was very blurry also. When I set overdrive to values 1-4 I have some grayed blur instead of text on a Web pages while scrolling in Chrome browser. And if I set OD to value 5 I saw yellow blurry trails instead of text while scrolling.
'1ms - 144Hz' should produce smooth scrolling, but on this monitor it is misspelled.

I don't expect miracles from VA panel for gaming. But for the premium price I've paid I would expect sharp text without scaling in 4K, and I just got a cheap Korean blurry monitor.
I have been buying Asus products for years, but after this monitor...

[Kronodeus]

I am also disappointed with this monitor, for some of the same reasons you mentioned, but not all. I was hoping for this monitor to be a great monitor for gaming as well as working, and as a programmer I am looking at lots of text all day long. The text clarity issue is seriously bad, worse than any monitor I've ever had. It is hard to capture in a photo but it's particularly noticeable for underlined text, so I attached two photos of the same text. One is from the upper half of the monitor, and the other is from the lower 10% which for some reason is not nearly as bad.

The smearing/ghosting, on the other hand, I have to admit is pretty good for a 4k VA monitor. I knew what I was signing up for when I bought a VA panel, and I decided that I was willing to tolerate some of this in exchange for vibrant colors and good contrast. The 144hz refresh rate really compensates for this IMO and I find it 100% tolerable in most games. I find it to be a truly awesome gaming experience.

I really hope ASUS will listen to its customers about the text clarity issues, because it is not hard to find complaints about it all over the internet. I even knew about it before purchasing because pretty much every review on YouTube mentions it, but I underestimated the severity and thought (wrongly) that I would get used to it. I was able to improve the situation somewhat by changing some settings on the monitor but I am still really bummed that I spent $1,500 for this.

If this was a TV, it would be completely acceptable. However, this is a computer monitor. Getting something as basic as text so wrong is not acceptable, especially at this price point. Even the $300 40" Samsung TV I used before was able to display text and fine details perfectly. Was hoping this would be a major upgrade but I am left feeling disappointed.

I strongly recommend to anyone considering buying this monitor, do NOT buy it unless you are only going to use it for gaming and nothing else. Wait until ASUS steps up and acknowledges the issue and (hopefully) fixes it.

[symplu]

To late for me. I bought already, and is horible.