ASUS ProArt 6K Review: $1,399 Gets You a 32-Inch 6K Display

This "review" doesn't even get the price right.

(article above got edited after I posted this)

It's $1399, not $1299



Also, how about just putting "more information" right here in the article as text instead of locking it inside a video not everyone wants to watch.

I prefer matte. Why do you like/want reflections?

No one *wants* reflections but a glossy monitors looks way better in most all measurements… except reflections. Everything else about it is better.

Damn, if only it was glossy.

Refresh rate?

60HZ. It is 6K and it seems so far that is the max frequency for these 6K 32” screens. They are not aimed at gamers etc though.

I also received my ProArt 6K this weekend. Some initial thoughts:

Pros:
- As a developer, the anti matte display is awesome. I have a LG 5K glossy display which I've heard is similar in glossiness to iMacs and I could always see my reflection in it but with the ProArt there are no reflections at all. The text to my eye looks super crisp.
- This is the brightest display I have and the colors really pop and look great.
- There are 3 USB ports that work with the KVM switching, a USB A and C on the front, and 1 USB A on the back. Works with keyboards, mice, webcams and I'm sure more.
- There is a daisy chain thunderbolt port that can support a 5K display (apparently up to 6K) but it will only send that signal to the computer connected via thunderbolt, not the one that's connected via HDMI/DP+USB.


Cons:
- The Smart KVM switch is a nice idea but it was a bit maddening for me to set up. First thing is that you have to use a thunderbolt connection for 1 and then a HDMI/DP+USB connection for the second. I didn't realize this at first but the USB you use is the one labeled USB 3.2 upstream. Luckily you can feed the HDMI/DP + USB connections into a dock- I already had an OWC thunderbolt pro dock and this allows you to maintain a single thunderbolt connection into your second computer which matches your first computers connection type.
- ASUS DisplayWidget claims it can be used to configure your Smart KVM but it cannot, at least in OS X. I'm pretty sure this software is causing weirdness when switching between the two computers because both the OS X system display configuration and the DisplayWidget seem to fight about the monitor's configuration and I'll often have my monitors oriented 90 or 180 degrees from what I expect, so you have to use the mouse in a weird way to switch the orientation back to get it to look right.
- Switching between two macbooks is a bit finicky. There's an input button on the front of the monitor to switch but if the other mac's asleep it doesn't seem to let you switch. You have to instead open the full menu and switch it in the input section.
- The OSD menu is weird- when you go to the settings part of it, it only gives you a few seconds to make the changes before the whole menu disappears. On other pages it stays up for the 20-30 seconds that its programmed to do, so I think this is a bug.
- There's apparently no keyboard command for switching the KVM switch like other Asus Smart KVM monitors. I've tried alt+s, alt+1, alt+2 and ctrl+alt+s and none of those do anything. There's no mention in the manual for an alternative keyboard shortcut that will switch it.

The silver lining is there are third party apps like BetterDisplay which can send OSD commands to your monitor so I think it might be possible to switch the KVM that way rather than using the OSD commands. In order to do that though you have to know the right values to send for switching input sources, so maybe if we could crowdsource what all the configuration settings are with this monitor, we could configure a third party app ourselves to do what the DisplayWidget should be doing. I wonder if that spec sheet is available anywhere.

Despite the software weirdness with the KVM, this is a very nice monitor!

I received my shipment from B&H today and hooked it up. I'll give my quick first impressions here and maybe a more thorough review later when I've had some time with the monitor.

Appearance
The monitor itself looks better than I worried. I definitely would have still preferred something without the 'chin', but honestly because it's black, it's not something I even notice when using the monitor.

Matte Display / Glare
I was worried about the quality of the matte coating they have. I think they call it "LuxPixel" and I really like it. I am NOT a monitor snob, so take this all with a grain of salt, but to my eyes the screen looks amazing. I don't detect any 'graininess' and whatever it's doing to diffuse the reflections is WAY better than the cheap 4K LG monitor I was using before. With that monitor, there were obvious spots where I could see the light diffused from the glare and it was pretty distracting. I don't get that at all here. I still would prefer a glossy finish, but I personally think the Asus LuxPixel is good for me!

6k vs. 5k vs. 4k scaled to 5k
I went from a 5k iMac to a Mac Studio with a cheap 4k monitor running in a scaled 5k mode. I'm getting older and my eyes aren't the best these days. I could tell the 5k scaling on the 4k monitor wasn't great, but it wasn't until I hooked up this 6k monitor and ran it at the proper scaling that I realized how bad I had it!

The 6k resolution is really great. The extra real estate is definitely noticeable and the text is still super-crisp. I'm a software engineer by trade, so good looking text is essential for me and this monitor hits all the marks!

6k 32" is definitely a sweet spot!

Stand / VESA Mount
The stand seems really sturdy, but I didn't hook it up at all. I have a VESA monitor arm and normally have my monitors a little taller than most stands support. The stand inset on this monitor is a little deeper than normal and it took some time to get the VESA mount connected to my arm. Not sure why it's inset so much, but I'm assuming they know better than I do and most monitor arms would be fine.

Monitor Settings
The Mac Display Widget software works great. While I do appreciate the convenience of the front monitor buttons, I would choose a cleaner look any day especially since the display widget seems to do just about everything I'd need the buttons on the front for.

Any questions out there?? I'd be glad to try and answer.