The 21:9 ultrawide gaming monitor format has carved out a sizable market with PC gamers in recent years. And despite console makers not budging an inch when it comes to ultrawide, the market for large, wide displays is highly competitive. HP’s latest premium entry, Omen 34c Ultrawide Gaming Monitor, goes to bat with built-in speakers, a hugely refined user experience, and a suitably premium build quality. Omen 34c Ultrawide is a 34-inch 165Hz WQHD panel that offers plenty of real estate for your desk or gaming centre.
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But, it’s the gaming experience that will likely steal the headlines. A 4.4ms typical input lag, with a 1ms gaming mode, is objectively excellent. And, Omen’s suite of gaming features only add to the gaming draw. However, at €499/$479/£469.00, HP Omen 34c Curved 165Hz WQHD Gaming Monitor has plenty to do to earn that price-tag.
Getting Started
Setting Omen 34c Ultrawide Gaming Monitor up is incredibly simple. The stand clicks on to the base, which is a heavy square footpad. The monitor itself clicks onto an interface on the stand.
The footpad is approximately 25 centimetres (10 inches) squared, so finding space on your desk won’t be a problem. This is something that first-time buyers of larger monitors should benefit from, especially. Omen 34c Ultrawide Curved Gaming Monitor is also compatible with VESA 100x100mm mount should you want to attach the unit to a monitor stand or a wall.
Helpfully, there is also a monitor alignment suite built into the display for multi-display setups. This can be used with the HP Omen Gaming Suite or in the comprehensive ‘deep menu’ on the device itself.
Quality Build
The display is suspended on a monopole stand that feels impressively solid and secure once attached. The monopole stand allows users to raise and lower their display with ease, yet stays steadfastly in place other wise.
Omen 34c Ultrawide Gaming Monitor also features a relatively small footpad. This foot is dense, and definitely heavy enough to the keep the large display and its robust monopole stand in place. The interface between the base and the stand is also lock tight with zero movement once set in place.
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The robust feel and tight tolerances show how well engineered the package is as a whole, as well as offering the level of peace of mind you need when placing a wide, expensive display over such a small footprint.
The display is light but also feels well made. There are no squeaks or groans when manoeuvring the Omen 34c Ultrawide panel from the box and attaching it to the stand. There’s very little flex when adjusting the display up or down the monopole, or tilting it forward or back.
Omen 34c Ultrawide features a four-inch vertical travel, as well as 5 degrees forward and 25 degrees rearward tilt. While there is no horizontal travel, the heavy foot inspires the kind of confidence you need to twist it around and find the right spot.
Centrepiece
Gaming gear has generally trended towards minimalist and less aggressive visual designs in recent years, with premium gear leading this movement. Omen 34c Ultrawide Curved Gaming Monitor wears a muted matte black with macro detailing providing its visual intrigue.
The bottom bezel is interrupted only by a solitary white ‘Omen’ logo, and an on-brand diamond-shaped LED indicator light. This accentuates the curve on this matte black frontplate, and, by extension, the display itself. There is minimal bezel around the screen, around 8mm on the top and sides, and this makes the display seem to pop out of its frame.
Omen 34c Ultrawide Curved Gaming Monitor quite striking, even with a browser or other boring work on screen. The dark frame and enveloping form make it visually appealing even when the device is switched off.
Input Lag Goals
The monitor features low input lag in any mode, but it also features a quick list of five display settings ordered by the input lag to expect. The five modes are really easy to access, too.
You can easily sacrifice some visual finery for a rock bottom 4.4ms of lag for your twitchy shooters or retro games, then play your glorious story-driven single-player experience with all the image enhancements enabled with a couple of clicks of the menu buttons on Omen 34c Ultrawide.
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However, even with all the bells and whistles enabled, the input lag is still very low.
Picture Quality
Omen 34c Ultrawide is, first and foremost, a gaming monitor but it will absolutely cover your other media. The unit is HDR certified, and while its 3,000:1 contrast won’t bring movies or TV epics to life like an OLED panel, there is an appreciable depth to the right content.
Similarly, the 400cd/m2 brightness is not going to match a good TV but it’s absolutely strong enough to allow you and your friends to, watch (and enjoy) films and TV from the couch during the day.
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In instances where blur is pre-applied, like in video games, the monitor fares well with motion. But for sharper content with more detail in motion, Omen 34c sometimes lacks clarity.
This is most apparent with higher-quality sources, such as well-mastered Blu-ray movies and AAA action streaming content at 4K, where quick pans and objects in swift flight lose a lot of detail, sometimes almost smearing across the image.
Premium Gaming Experience
Moving Picture Response Time, or MPRT, is a black frame insertion system. This inserts black frames between drawn ones to reduce motion blur. It’s effective but comes at the expense of a darker picture.
The Omen Gaming Suite allows for five levels, as well as ‘off’, to find the sweet spot for you and your room.
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Omen 34c Ultrawide comes with several useful overlays. You can pick from eight high-contrast colours, and compose your crosshair from five elements. HP Omen 34c’s Gaming Suite also features Dynamic Color [sic.], which changes the colour of the reticle in real-time to maximise visibility.
We would have liked to be able to resize the target reticle, as some elements are a little too big and one seems a little small. But the colours and customisable forms make the overlaid aiming assist useful as they are.
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An FPS counter can be placed in any of the four corners, in one of eight colours. Interestingly, there is a timer to remind you to turn off Age of Empires II and get back to the real world. However, you can’t have the timer and the FPS counter running at once.
There are eight picture modes built-in. The usual templates are here – warm, cool, cinema, standard etc. There’s also a Native mode for the most transparent image, as well as a premium HP+ setting exclusive to the company’s gaming monitors.
This HP+ setting seems to use image processing to bring out detail in darker areas, and in noisy patterns often seen in natural or artificial textures. Your mileage may vary when it comes to the templates but they cover a wide range of base image preferences, with plenty of granular options to tune to taste.
Menu Minder
While there’s a whole array of features and dials within the Omen Gaming Suite to make the most of 34c Ultrawide, a great deal of care has clearly gone into the hardware menu and its button layout.
There are six buttons on the rear on the device close to the right-hand side as you face the display. A power button stands on its own, easy to find. And next to this is huge rounded menu button and four arrow-shaped directional buttons around it. Once you find these buttons once, you’ll never miss them.
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Hitting any of the direction keys or the main button brings up a four-spoked menu. One to select input, one to select from the eight colour pre-sets, one brings up the audio volume, and one brings up the brightness.
This means all the most useful options are only two clicks away, which really streamlines the experience. You can even swap out the quick menu options.
You can, of course, enter a much deeper menu on the monitor. And this hosts the vast majority of functionality available in the Gaming Suite, so console gamers can tailor the device to their liking.
Made to Share
The 1,500R radius does confine the best viewing angles to a narrower cone in front of the display but, generally, Omen 34c Ultrawide is made to share. The brightness allows you to sit back on the couch while the 3W speakers can fill a small room with decent audio.
The panel itself can be titled forward and back easily. While it doesn’t have much forward travel, just a few degrees, the 25 degree rear tilt is ample. The four-inch vertical travel also adds to the shareability. And it, too, is very easy to adjust. The incredibly stable platform at its base allows you to confidently turn it on your desk.
Omen 34c Ultrawide Gaming Monitor Specifications
| Panel: | 34 inch diagonal, WQHD (3,440 x 1,440 resolution) |
| Contrast Ratio: | Static – 3,000:1 Dynamic – 10,000,000:1 |
| Aspect Ratio: | 21:9 |
| Curvature: | 1,500R |
| Brightness: | Up to 400 cd/m2 |
| Response Time (Typical GTG): | Minimum 1ms |
| Input Lag: | Minimum 4.4ms |
| Colour Space: | DCI-P3 (90% coverage), 99% sRGB |
| Frequency – Vertical: | 24-165Hz |
| Inputs: | 1x DisplayPort 1.4 2x HDMI 2.0 |
| Audio: | Built-in Stereo 3W Speakers 1 x 3.5 mm Audio Jack (Audio Out) |
| Physical Adjustment: | Tilt: -5°/+25° Vertical Travel: 10cm/4in |
| Synchronisation Standards: | VESA Certified Adaptive Sync, AMD FreeSync Premium |
| Viewing Angles: | 178º horizontal, 178º vertical |
Gamer by Day/Casual Video Consumer by Night
HP Omen 34c Ultrawide is, first and foremost, a gaming monitor. But, it’s a gaming monitor that does a fine job with other media. The three inputs allow Omen 34c Ultrawide to act as a centrepiece in a media and gaming centre. Alternatively, the built-in speakers open the monitor up to simply sharing from your desk.
The gaming features suite, and how readily you can access and customise them, elevate Omen 34c Ultrawide above its peers. And as a foundation underneath it all, the unit’s build quality offers peace of mind. At €499/$479/£469.00, HP Omen 34c Ultrawide Curved Gaming Monitor had high expectations but justifies the cost.
