Iiyama ProLite XUB3293UHSN-B5 monitor review

It's fashionable in the monitor market of late to big up everything from gaming and content creation prowess to multimedia features and HDR sizzle. But not the new Iiyama ProLite XUB3293UHSN. This monitor comes with a pure productivity pitch and is arguably all the better for it.

Up front and center is a large 32-inch IPS panel with full 4K resolution. Having tested out the best business monitors, this display is going to provide plenty of desktop space for viewing multiple documents, accommodating lots of apps and toolbars and generally allowing for smooth multi-tasking.

On top of that, there's strong connectivity with DisplayPort, HDMI and USB-C all catered for. The latter includes 65W of power delivery, enabling single-cable docking with a laptop, a feature that's hard to live without once you've experienced it. There's also a USB hub and ethernet to maximise that single-cable simplicity.

Adding even more flexibility is a full KVM switch. So you could, for instance, connect both a desktop using the DisplayPort or HDMI socket and the USB-A port and then a laptop over USB-C and share keyboard, mouse and other peripherals like external storage across the two machines.

What you don't get are any visual frills like HDR or eye-catching color coverage claims, built-in media streaming or any gaming pretensions. This is unapologetically an SDR monitor made for getting stuff done. That's one reason why it's much cheaper than an otherwise equivalent 32-inch 4K monitor like the BenQ SW321C. Iiyama isn't promising the last word in color accuracy, refresh or HDR pop. 

Iiyama ProLite XUB3293UHSN-B5: Design & features

• Well built
• Excellent connectivity
• Thoroughly anonymous aesthetics

With slim bezels on three sides of its 32-inch IPS panel, the Iiyama ProLite XUB3293UHSN looks reasonably contemporary. It's nicely put together, too, and sports a robust stand with a full range of adjustments, including pivot into portrait mode. But the all-black, frill-free design language is utterly anonymous and just a little joyless. 

Where the ProLite really scores, however, is usability. Along with the HDMI and DisplayPort sockets is a USB-C port. That supports single-cable connectivity with 65W of power delivery, allowing a laptop to drive the display and charge at the same time.

There's also an ethernet port, which can be passed through over the USB-C interface, too, and a USB-A hub, so there's full docking functionality. Just plug the USB-C cable into your laptop and all the peripherals attached to the display are included in the docking.

Even better, there's a KVM switch, too. That means you could, for instance, have a desktop PC permanently connected to this monitor and then connect any of the best business laptops as you come and go, sharing peripherals like keyboard, mouse, and external storage across the two PCs. 

Iiyama ProLite XUB3293UHSN-B5: Performance

• Lovely 4K panel
• Good factory calibration
• Limited color space presets

With a maximum quoted brightness of 350 nits and no local dimming, this is unambiguously an SDR rather than HDR display. And that's just fine. Too many so-called HDR monitors fail to deliver anything close to a true HDR experience.

What's more, 350 nits is plenty for all but the brightest ambient light conditions. This monitor has plenty of pop. It also has plenty of pixels, with 3,840 by 2,160 and therefore full 4K native resolution. That means nice, crisp fonts in both Windows and MacOS. Regarding the latter, it's worth noting that MacOS recognises the display correctly and offers a full range of Retina resolution options, something that's not always the case with 4K monitors.

The refresh rate, meanwhile, is limited to 60Hz, which looks a little pedestrian by today's standards. But arguably, it's plenty for most productivity needs. More importantly, the factory calibration in default SDR mode is very nice indeed.

This absolutely isn't a monitor aimed at pro image editing. But it's still pretty accurate and could very much turn a hand to some generation content creation. Moreover, it's vibrant and punchy and just great to look at. As an IPS panel with no local dimming, the contrast is OK rather than outstanding. But the overall image quality is excellent for this class of display.

The only slight snag is that the color space presets. There's no Adobe RGB or DCI-P3 preset, for instance, so you'll need to look elsewhere for the best monitors for photo editing, design, and content creation. There's full RGB adjustment and you can, of course, manually calibrate this display.

In terms of speed, the relatively low refresh aside, Iiyama claims 4ms response times and there are fully five different overdrive levels available in OSD. That's probably overkill for what absolutely is not a gaming panel. Indeed, the fastest setting suffers from some very obvious overshoot to the extent that it's hard to imagine anyone using it.

Still, this is a decently zippy display in pixel response terms and can actually make a decent fist of some gaming on the side. OK, it's limited to 60Hz. But then with that 4K resolution, you'd need some very serious graphics hardware for that to be an actual impediment.

Iiyama ProLite XUB3293UHSN-B5: Final verdict

You could pay an awful lot more for a 32-inch 4K monitor. But unless you have fairly particular needs when it comes to content creation and color accuracy, you wouldn't necessarily get a lot more usability and functionality for your money.

The Iiyama ProLite XUB3293UHSN-B5 serves up a really lovely IPS panel with that razor-sharp 4K image quality, plus excellent connectivity, all for an extremely reasonable price. It's particularly good value considering it includes not just a USB-C interface with 65W of power delivery, but also full KVM switch functionality, complete with an ethernet port.

As an all-round workhorse of a display, then, the Iiyama ProLite XUB3293UHSN-B5 is one of the best monitors we’ve tested. And while it isn't explicitly sold on image or color accuracy and indeed lacks HDR support or native DCI-P3 calibration, this is still a nicely setup monitor with excellent image quality that makes for an extremely pleasant working companion for both PC and Mac. 

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