Corsair Xeneon Flex monitor review: The ultimate in gaming immersion

Price When Reviewed

$2,000

Best Prices Today: Xeneon Flex

There are numerous fancy numbers and specs you need to use to explain Corsair’s radical Xeneon Flex 45WQHD240 monitor. Roughly 5 million individually lit pixels, every able to flipping off at a moments discover to ship the deep, inky blacks OLED is legendary for, paired with HDR capabilities. An immersive 3440×1440 ultrawide decision, stretched throughout an much more immersive 45 diagonal inches—this can be a huge show. Blazing-fast 240Hz refresh charges, bolstered by near-instantaneous pixel response occasions for the last word in movement readability. And did I point out that is the world’s first bendable show, permitting you to fine-tune the right curve for your particular person setup (or no curve by any means)?

All of that issues, and the Xeneon Flex wouldn’t be the Xeneon Flex with out it. But the second I booted up Forza Horizon 5 and witnessed lush Mexican hills stretched out earlier than me, unique supercars roaring previous in good movement as the colourful solar slowly settled right into a pitch black night time, none of these numbers and specs mattered. What mattered was my monkey mind shutting off and whispering: Whoa. What mattered was the expertise.

The Corsair Xeneon Flex delivers a vivid, actually immersive gaming expertise in contrast to any I’ve had earlier than—and I play a lot of video games on a lot of displays. A few these spec selections stop this beast from being a really do-it-all show—discerning spreadsheet warriors will need to look elsewhere—however in the event you’re prepared to spend $2,000 for jaw-dropping immersion and picture high quality, the Xeneon Flex will depart you grinning from ear to ear.

Just make sure to wipe the drool off your chin if you shut down Steam.

Further studying: See our roundup of the best ultrawide gaming monitors to find out about competing merchandise.

What are the Corsair Xeneon Flex specs?

Okay, fantastic, we actually ought to speak concerning the numbers. They’re damned spectacular. Virtually any gaming-related spec you could possibly ask for is supported (and sometimes maxed out):

• Display measurement: 45-inch ultrawide
• Native decision: 3,440 x 1,440 (21:9 facet ratio)
• Panel sort: Bendable LG OLED with matte coating
• Refresh fee: 240Hz
• Adaptive-Sync: AMD FreeSync Premium, Nvidia G-Sync Compatible
• HDR: Yes, HDR10, rated for as much as 1000 nits
• Ports: 2x HDMI 2.1, 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x USB Type-C with DP Alt-Mode, 2x USB-A, USB Type-C with upstream (for powering USB ports) on rear | 2x USB-A and 3.5mm audio on entrance
• Stand adjustment: Tilt solely
• VESA mount: No
• Speakers: No
• Price: $2,000 MSRP

This is a giant, badass panel—virtually staggeringly so. You’re going to wish a hefty desk to accommodate it. (In reality, it’s so huge that I couldn’t simply take footage of the show in my tiny workplace, so I’ve had to make use of Corsair-supplied footage all through this assessment.) It measures about 42 inches large and 22 inches tall when flattened, or a bit much less when curved, with a thick, sturdy stand that homes a lot of the show’s electronics and comes with a considerable footprint—each large and deep—of its personal. Brace thyself.

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One of the Xeneon Flex’s highlights needs to be its namesake flexibility. In a radical transfer, Corsair designed its OLED stunner to bend to suit your wants. It ships flat, however you may pull a pair of plastic handles out from the perimeters, regulate the display as much as an aggressive 800R curve, then slide the handles again into place to lock in your chosen type issue.

It’s a little bit of a terrifying prospect—doubly so as a result of it’s worthwhile to apply some power to wrestle it into place, whereas the handles really feel low-cost and wobbly, and did I point out this monitor is $2,000?—however it works nicely in apply. Corsair charges the Xeneon Flex for 10,000 to 15,000 bends. Even in the event you regulate the panel just a few occasions a day, which means it ought to final years with out situation (in principle).

The bendable show is an distinctive function, nonetheless.

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I work on my monitor all day and sport on all of it night time. When I’m working in Office, enhancing pictures, or have a number of home windows open for common productiveness work, I want a flat show, as curved displays produce some distortion. That’s very true with the Xeneon Flex. Its curve isn’t fairly uniform, seemingly from the mechanisms wanted to assist bending the show—it’s flatter within the center and curves extra aggressively in the direction of the sides. It doesn’t hassle me, however I may see it infuriating some of us—and it reinforces my want to deal with my work with the display flat.

But in the case of gaming, nothing beats the immersion an ultrawide monitor can present—and that goes doubly so with the massive, all-encompassing OLED panel on the Corsair Xeneon Flex. I felt like David Bowman in 2001: A Space Odyssey the primary time I gamed on this factor, with OLED’s inky blacks and HDR’s vibrant lights solely including to the impact. I rapidly discovered myself flattening the panel throughout working hours, then bending it to my superb ratio (about 75 % of the doable curve) and flipping on HDR to sport and watch films and TV reveals by night time. (Activating HDR mutes regular Windows desktop colours on most machines, so I want to depart it off once I’m slinging spreadsheets.) It’s a wondrous functionality, and one that allows you to discover the right curvature for you—even when it’s none by any means.

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Corsair additionally loaded the Xeneon Flex with connectivity. The rear inputs embody twin HDMI 2.1 connections (good for connecting fashionable consoles), DisplayPort 1.4, a USB Type-C reference to 30W of energy supply DisplayPort Alt Mode assist to be used with USB-C displays, and a USB-C enter/upstream port for sending USB indicators to and out of your laptop. That upstream port powers two USB-A cables on the rear and two extra within the entrance of the stand, for a complete of 4. You’ll additionally discover a handy-dandy 3.5mm audio jack up entrance, alongside the facility button and different monitor controls.

Further studying: Best USB-C monitors 2023: These displays have a hidden talent

Having the controls built-in within the entrance of the hefty stand is a pleasant ergonomic contact that stops you from needing to succeed in across the again of the monitor to make changes, such as you do with most shows—an endeavor that could possibly be difficult with the large, large Xeneon Flex.

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Packing a lot performance into the monitor’s stand considerably limits its adaptability, nonetheless. You can’t regulate the peak or swivel, and might solely tilt the monitor by 22 levels. You can also’t take away the stand and mount the Xeneon Flex to a VESA monitor arm. This is finest used as a singular main show. Fortunately, the default peak ought to really feel comfy for most individuals, although plopping a webcam atop the huge monitor ends in an oddly excessive (however fairly good!) viewing angle. Folks of common peak might want to barely crane their necks to look immediately right into a top-mounted webcam, which may show fatiguing throughout particularly lengthy videoconferencing calls.

But who cares about Zoom conferences? This is a gaming monitor by way of and thru, and it rocks for that.

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All these fancy numbers and specs align in a really particular means when you begin gaming on the Corsair Xeneon Flex. This luxurious show provides image-quality and immersion excellence.

It begins with the shape issue, in fact. Having a 45-inch ultrawide panel engulf your discipline of view is a really engrossing expertise. Of all of the displays I’ve ever examined, that is the one one which ever prompted family and friends to specific sheer amazement on the panel—and 4 totally different individuals had such a response. Playing video games like Forza Horizon 5 and Star Wars: Squadrons on the mammoth show feels actually immersive in methods you may’t get in need of spending 1000’s upon 1000’s to construct a devoted sim station. And you may see a lot of the map in XCOM 2.

But it’s about greater than uncooked measurement. This is an OLED monitor, with all the advantages that know-how gives. The most putting profit is the fantastic distinction and deep, inky blacks supplied by OLED’s per-pixel mild dimming. Dimming pixels individually slightly than counting on backlighting ends in nearly good black ranges, with no “light bloom” halos showing round vibrant objects on darkish backgrounds, like you may witness on commonplace shows. It makes video games like Cyberpunk 2077 and Ghostwire: Tokyo look extra scrumptious than ever, whereas atmospheric titles like Metro: Exodus and Blair Witch completely dripped with deep, darkish vibes.

Cyberpunk’s neon lights dazzled as a lot because the darkness due to the Xeneon Flex’s distinctive shade efficiency. The panel covers 100 % of the sRGB shade gamut, 97 % of the DCI-P3 shade gamut, and 92 % of AdobeRGB, and comes pre-calibrated from the manufacturing unit with certification paperwork (full with efficiency graphs) within the field. It’s additionally a 10-bit show, so it could possibly show a wider shade vary than typical 8-bit panels.

But that’s not all. Thanks to the panel’s blistering 240Hz refresh fee (bear in mind to manually change it in Windows!) and the nearly instantaneous gray-to-gray pixel response occasions OLED gives, the Corsair Xeneon Flex provides actually elite movement readability. Even fast-paced video games like Forza Horizon 5 look crystal clear on this beast, and fantastic textual content like character names seemed impeccable in Dota 2 at excessive speeds. (MOBAs are a standard bother space for movement readability, and sometimes utilized by GPU distributors to showcase movement readability enhancements.) I arrange a 120Hz ultrawide with an equivalent decision subsequent to the Flex and the distinction was obvious.

Corsair additionally geared up the monitor with AMD Free Sync Premium Pro and Nvidia G-Sync Compatible certification. Paired with the superb movement readability, gaming on the Xeneon Flex is as clean and spectacular because it will get.

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Corsair didn’t get a VESA DisplayHDR certification for the monitor however claims it helps as much as 1,000 nits. In apply, the Xeneon Flex didn’t hit wherever close to that peak brightness, showing a bit dim with the lights on in my room. Smaller areas of brightness do handle to hit vivid ranges, particularly with the lights off, however its HDR efficiency excels nonetheless due to OLED’s inky blacks and per-pixel dimming. The distinction in HDR films, reveals, and video games seems to be completely superb, although the restricted brightness does maintain it again barely.

The one space the place the Xeneon Flex doesn’t fairly nail picture high quality? Sharpness. By stretching the usual 3440×1440 ultrawide decision out to an enormous 45 inches, up from the same old 34 inches, sharpness takes a little bit of a success. It’s not one thing you’ll discover whereas gaming or watching movies in movement, particularly in the event you’re working antialiasing (as most video games ought to), however I observed it a bit on far-away stairs in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’s Embassy stage. It’s a much bigger downside if you’re engaged on the desktop, although.

How is the Corsair Xeneon Flex for productiveness?

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The Corsair Xeneon Flex isn’t a nasty productiveness monitor by any means—taking a look at a spreadsheet stretched out on this factor is awe-inspiring—however a few these specs and numbers that make it so majestic for gaming make it much less interesting for individuals who work on their laptop all day.

The greatest situation is sharpness. The large LG-made OLED panel sticks to the usual 3440×1440 ultrawide decision regardless of its humongous measurement, giving it a paltry 82 pixels per inch. That’s roughly similar to a 27-inch 1080p monitor, which don’t present the crispest photographs. By comparability, Philips’ new 44.5-inch ultrawide bumps the decision as much as 5120×1440 for a tighter 119ppi, which is similar to most high-end gaming displays. It’s unlucky for general-purpose duties that LG (and thus the Xeneon Flex) didn’t observe swimsuit, particularly given the panel’s excellent shade accuracy.

Those sharpness issues are exacerbated by LG’s choice to go for a RWBG subpixel format slightly than the usual RGB. As we’ve explained before, utilizing non-standard pixel layouts causes Windows to freak out and harms textual content readability. Fine textual content on the Xeneon Flex seems to be a bit spindly and pixelated, and you’ll usually see some crimson or inexperienced “ghosting” round many characters, particularly bigger ones, as proven within the slideshow above. My eyes adjusted to it a bit after a pair weeks of day by day use, however I nonetheless discover it. My commonplace twin 4K monitor setup supplied a a lot crisper productiveness expertise, and the Xeneon Flex’s ultrawide decision couldn’t scale throughout software program fairly as nicely, even utilizing Windows Snap to section totally different purposes across the spacious display.

Further studying: Ultrawide vs. dual monitors: Which should you choose?

Corsair additionally utilized a matte anti-glare coating to the panel, and a few individuals detest matte shows. That stated, it’s a reasonably good software that appears nice in vibrant rooms, with out a lot diffusion or blur, however you can discover the grain in the event you look carefully. It didn’t hassle me in any respect.

Brad Chacos/IDG

What did irk me was the aggressive means the Xeneon Flex handles luminance stability on the desktop. Moving or resizing light-colored home windows ends in drastic brightness fluctuations, which drove me completely mad whereas working. I wound up enabling a brightness stabilizer choice within the monitor’s menu and it fastened the difficulty, albeit whereas additionally darkening the show. Enabling HDR additionally reduces the colour gamut and distinction if you’re on the desktop. That’s a standard downside with Windows and HDR shows, however these tweaks meant that every day earlier than work I wanted to disable HDR, allow the brightness stabilizer, and bend the monitor flat earlier than work, then reverse the actions for an optimum gaming and video-watching expertise at night time.

Pixel burn-in can also be a priority for OLEDs, and it might give individuals who work greater than play pause, since productiveness packages and the Windows desktop maintain rather more static imagery than video games and films. Corsair imperceptibly shifts on-screen imagery and provides a three-year zero burn-in and 0 dead-pixel assure to alleviate potential issues, however between this and the general sharpness and text-clarity points, individuals who have to spend all day being productive ought to look elsewhere.

Is the Coresair Xeneon Flex 45WQHD240 price it?

The Corsair Xeneon Flex 45WQHD240 immerses you in ways in which tangibly elevate the PC gaming expertise. I’ve by no means performed on a monitor that made me really feel actually inside sport worlds the way in which this one does. Its delectable mixture of blisteringly-fast speeds, elite movement readability, sterling picture high quality, good blacks, and plush HDR will make your jaw drop, particularly enveloped throughout the custom-tuned curvature of its uniquely bendable show. The connectivity is top-notch, too.

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Yes, its $2,000 price ticket (presently discounted to $1,800) would possibly make you clutch your chest. But in the event you’re already rocking a GeForce RTX 4090 and a Ryzen 9 7950X3D, the Xeneon Flex would be the final cherry on high. Sticking to a normal 3440×1440 decision means much less highly effective {hardware} may put this drool-worthy panel to good use.

A few design selections from Corsair and panel-maker LG hold the Xeneon Flex from being the last word do-it-all show, although it comes so shut. Below-average sharpness and textual content readability stop us from with the ability to suggest it for heavy productiveness use, particularly since it’s worthwhile to tinker with software program settings to realize acceptable brightness on the desktop. (As an workplace employee I can attest that it’s positively fantastic sufficient for productiveness, although.) The large stand, steep worth, and lack of VESA mounting choices might function roadblocks to others, although I think about them minor. The mechanism (and handles) used to govern the bendable show may additionally really feel sturdier and simpler to make use of.

Don’t let that dissuade you in the event you’re a deep-pocketed fanatic who desires one of many pinnacle PC gaming experiences if you come residence at night time, although. When it involves multimedia, this monitor oozes excellence. The Corsair Xeneon Flex is likely one of the best possible gaming displays we’ve ever seen, full cease. The concept of sending it again to Corsair is already making me sob.

If any of these drawbacks—together with the worth—are dealbreakers for you, there are many different superb ultrawide gaming monitors available today, together with compelling OLED choices just like the $1,100 Alienware AW3423DWF. But don’t get it twisted: The Corsair Xeneon Flex’s mix of colossal measurement, elite velocity, impeccable picture high quality, and customizable curvature are unmatched by some other show, although LG’s 45-inch UltraGear OLED (which makes use of the identical panel) does every part however bend for $1,700. If you need to get pleasure from the perfect immersion doable in PC gaming, you’ll have to pay up for this improbable bleeding-edge show.