Viotek GNV34DBE2 Gaming Monitor review

One-minute review

We’ve looked at Viotek’s monitors before, and the company tries its best to strike a balance between affordability and performance. The Viotek GNV34DBE2 is an ultra-wide offering that is kinder on your wallet than other models in the market.

Its low price tag is reflected in its build quality and features, but if you can look past this, you’ll in for a treat with a widescreen panel that actually performs well for gaming and media consumption. An upgraded VA panel from the previous model provides much more color uniformity, though we’re disappointed that this monitor requires quite a bit of tweaking out of the box for the best quality.

Connectivity is aplenty for both HDMI and DisplayPort devices, and the nifty Picture in Picture mode may help in certain situations. But as a general widescreen monitor for gaming, the GNV34DBE2 does a decent job, and overall quality and performance is very competitive for its price tag.

Where the GNV34DBE2 does lose points is with its actual design. The fixed stand can be wobbly sometimes, the OSD buttons are hard to press, and the overall aesthetic isn’t that pleasing, unless you invest in a separate monitor arm. While you are getting what you pay for, this is definitely a monitor that doesn’t come with any frills.

Price and availability

The Viotek GNV34DBE2 is priced at $399 and is available directly from Viotek’s website or from third-party sellers such as Amazon. That’s a very affordable tag for a monitor of this size, so for gamers who want that extra bit of screen space, this is definitely something worth snatching up.

Design

• 34” curved display
• 3440 x 1440p resolution
• Non-adjustable stand

The GNV34DBE2 doesn’t stray away from Viotek’s previous monitor designs, with the only exception being that this is a curved display. The front of the screen is mostly bare, except for the Viotek logo at the bottom bezel.

Speaking of bezels, the ones on the GNV34DBE2 provide a fairly noticeably black band around the screen. There’s the actual plastic bezel first, followed by a black band around where the panel meets. If you’re looking for super-slim bezels this isn’t the monitor for you, but we found that we weren’t too bothered by the GNV34DBE2’s bezels during everyday use and for gaming.

At the bottom right you’ll have various buttons to control the OSD and settings. As with previous monitors, these buttons are small and quite hard to press, so we hope that in the future that Viotek moves to a joystick-style method to navigate and selection options.

Viotek brings back its V-shaped monitor stand for the GNV34DBE2 which provides a bit of sturdiness to the monitor, but not by much. The display wobbles when you press the OSD buttons or if you bump your desk, and the fixed stand means that you can’t adjust the height in any way. 

You can still tilt the screen up or down slightly to improve visibility, but we found that the stand was still a bit low for our liking. You’ll have to invest in a monitor riser to get it up to eye level, or attach a monitor arm using the included VESA mount screws. At the back there’s not much to look at except a red ring light and a small red plastic hook for hanging your headset on.

For connectivity there’s 2x DisplayPort 1.4 ports and 2x HDMI 2.0 – those looking to use this monitor for next-gen consoles are going to be disappointed, so it’s best to keep it for previous-gen hardware or exclusively for PC connectivity.

Performance

• 144Hz refresh rates
• Supports PiP and PbP modes
• Motion Blur toggle isn’t effective

We have to stress that out of the box, the GNV34DBE2 is…not great. You’re going to have to spend quite a bit of time in the settings menu to adjust your brightness, color temperature, gamma, and more settings to really bring out the best in this monitor. Novice users may just cycle through some of the presets and be happy with that, but if you really want content to shine, you’ll want to take your time adjusting everything properly.

Take for example the HDR mode – when it’s off, everything looks very washed out on screen, but it’s not turned on by default. Once enabled through the OSD, colors appear more natural and vivid for gaming and watching movies, and when combined with the right calibration, you end up with a display that’s good for details and black levels. You should note that this isn’t true-HDR of course, but it comes fairly close for a monitor in this price bracket.

The viewing angles on the GNV34DBE2 are quite decent, unless you’re sitting at some bizarre angle at your desk. Despite the GNV34DBE2’s curvature, it’s not really noticeable at all when you start using the display. That’s probably one of the biggest concerns for anyone moving to a widescreen display for the first time, but we’re happy to report that the extra inches really make a difference. There is very minor backlight bleed that occurs around the corners, but in everyday use it really isn’t noticeable at all, so it’s not really something to stress about.

Games such as Destiny 2 are a dream to play, with the frozen wastelands of the planet Europa spanning across the screen in all its glory. Overwatch got a similar treatment, revealing more of the areas ahead and making it slightly easier to avoid enemies and run for cover. Movies also look equally good, with strong color saturation and decent black levels when watching Netflix. You’ll have to contend with black bars for content that wasn’t designed for this display, but if you’re using this monitor to play most modern games, you won’t run into that issue.

Whether you’ve got an AMD or Nvidia graphics card, the GNV34DBE2 supports Adaptive Sync for both brands, so you can always expect smooth framerates with whatever you’re playing. From FPS games to MOBAs, the GNV34DBE2 handles them well, making it a very responsive gaming monitor that will appeal to the gaming masses.

The GNV34DBE2 also supports Picture In Picture and Picture By Picture modes, in case you want to really improve your multitasking skills. The PiP mode lets you select either an HDMI or DisplayPort connect to pop up in a separate small window – you can then reposition the size and location of the popup window to whatever is convenient. The PbP mode lets you split the display in half, showing a different screen on either side – however you’re limited to a resolution of 1720 x 1440 for each half, which is a bit awkward to work with.

The monitor also features a gaming crosshairs function which puts various kinds of crosshairs on your screen, but after playing a few games with it turned on, it feels more like a fun gimmick than something you’d actually use. You also have an MRPT Anti-Ghosting Mode to make motion appear a lot cleaner, but turning this feature on also dims the monitor quite a bit, and the actual motion smoothing isn’t that pronounced, so we’d leave it off.

Should I buy the Viotek GNV34DBE2 Gaming Monitor?

Buy it if…

Don’t buy it if…