Samsung U32E850R review

FreeSync

It might look like a business monitor, but the E850 has plenty of gaming credentials too. We measured input lag at an impressively low 10ms with our Leo Bodnar lag tester, which will be ideal for games that rely on quick reactions and movement.

You can boost contrast and sharpness using the Game mode increasing the visibility of subtle shades to make it easier to spot hidden foes in the dark corners of rooms. It’s great for competitive gamers who want to see everything, but kills the atmosphere in games where tension and fear are your key motivators for playing.

Additionally, connecting the E850 to an AMD graphics card over DisplayPort will allow the graphics card to tell the monitor when to refresh using AMD’s FreeSync technology. This should completely eliminate frame tearing in games that aren’t running at 60fps. However, the frame rate band in which this actually works is extremely narrow; you’ll need a game that runs consistently between 40 and 60fps in order to benefit from FreeSync. You’ll still get tearing if your game dips below 40fps or above 60fps.

Also keep in mind that playing a game on a 4K monitor requires some pretty serious graphics hardware in order to play the latest games at any usable frame rate; the Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 (£400) and AMD Fury X (£440) are the bare minimum we’d recommend for playing games at this resolution.

Inputs

The DisplayPort and mini-DisplayPort inputs both support 3,840×2,160 resolutions at 60Hz, as do the two HDMI ports (one 1.4 and one 2.0). There’s also picture-in-picture and picture-by-picture modes, but only for a maximum of two inputs.

Two USB3 connectors sit alongside the display inputs, and there are two more easily reachable on the rear of the monitor, facing to the left. This is an improvement on previous Samsung designs where the ports were all facing backwards and extremely hard to reach.

Conclusion

The Samsung U32E850R is an expensive way to get Ultra HD onto your desk, especially when you consider there are smaller, cheaper and more practical models such as the 34in AOC Ultrawide U3477PQU or the 27in Asus PB279Q. In addition, the backlight uniformity issues put a small dent in its otherwise impressive image quality. As an office monitor, though, it’s hard to beat the Samsung U32E850R in terms of practicality.