Boutique gaming systems and components maker NZXT has added high-performance displays to its product line with 27-inch and 32-inch screens. The Canvas line includes 27Q (flat) and 32Q (curved) monitors, the latter of which is reviewed here. It runs at 165 Hz with QHD resolution and features a high-contrast VA panel with Adaptive-Sync, HDR, and wide color gamut. It’s available in multiple combinations of white and black, either as a stand or as a monitor arm. And the price is competitive with other established brands. Will it work? Let’s see.
NZXT Canvas 32Q Specifications
| Panel type/backlight | VA/W-LED, edge array |
| Screen size/aspect ratio | 32 inches/16:9 |
| Curve radius: 1500mm | |
| Maximum resolution and refresh rate | 2560×1440 @ 165Hz |
| Free Sync: 48-165Hz | |
| G-Sync compatible | |
| Native color depth and color gamut | 8bit/DCI-P3 |
| Response time (MPRT) | 1ms |
| Brightness (mfr) | 300 nits |
| Contrast (mfr) | 3,000:1 |
| speaker | none |
| video input | 1x DisplayPort 1.2 |
| 2x HDMI 2.0 | |
| 1x USB-C | |
| audio | 3.5mm headphone output |
| USB3.0 | 1x up, 2x down |
| power consumption | 31.8w, brightness @ 200 nits |
| Panel dimensions WxHxD (including base) | 28 x 19.1-23.8 x 10.4 inches (711 x 485-605 x 264mm) |
| panel thickness | 4.4 inches (112mm) |
| bezel width | Top/Side: 0.4″ (10mm) |
| Bottom: 0.8 inch (20mm) | |
| weight | 18.6 lbs (8.5kg) |
| guarantee | 3 years |
With the advent of so many fast IPS screens, less and less VA panels are used in gaming monitors. It’s a shame because it delivers all colors and offers about 3x the contrast of the best IPS monitors. NZXT uses the VA part on the Canvas 32Q and offers around 4,000:1. That’s higher than any IPS and better than many VA displays I’ve tested. This adds a lot of impact to both SDR and HDR content. Canvas 32Q accepts HDR10 signals but does not use dynamic contrast or high power backlighting. But its HDR quality is still better than common IPS monitors that can gather 1,000:1 at best.
The color gamut covers about 88% of DCI-P3, which is average for affordable screens. As with most wide-gamut displays, it’s a little lacking in the green primary. Blues and reds are highly saturated and Canvas 32Q is very colorful with all types of content. Accurate enough out of the box that no calibration is required. I’ve found that only gamma adjustment is necessary to provide a good image.
Gaming performance is guaranteed by a 165 Hz refresh rate. QHD resolution can easily be met when driven by a mid-range to high-end video card. It has a pixel density of 93ppi but renders sharp images that work equally well in gaming and productivity. The high contrast makes fine details and color shading stand out.
The screen’s 1,500mm radius of curvature is in the middle of the picture without distortion, yet uses just enough curves to immerse the viewer. At 32 inches diagonal, it has plenty of height and width to fill your peripheral vision.
The Canvas 32Q clearly has gaming intentions, but leaving out the speakers and LED lighting saves buyers a bit of money. can be obtained.
assembly and accessories
When you buy your Canvas 32Q directly from NZXT’s website, you can choose between a stand or an arm. The panel and stand can be selected from two colors, black and white, so four combinations are possible. Stands are $50, arms are $100 for single models, and $170 for dual models. The panels alone are $400 for white and $380 for black. NZXT shipped everything in black along with the stand and arm. All components are assembled easily and quickly without the need for tools. Extensive cable bundles include HDMI, DisplayPort, USB-C, standard USB and external power.
Products 360
image 1 of Five
The Canvas 32Q’s styling is simple and functional. The uprights look a bit like machine gun flash suppressors, with a row of holes. Although it is slim, the base is solid with a thick metal plate. Ergonomics include 120mm height adjustment, 20 degree swivel and 5/20 degree tilt. No portrait mode. The back includes a 100mm VESA mount for your solution of choice. It also has his OSD joystick on the back and proudly displays his NZXT logo on the top.
The top view shows a curvature of 1500R. Somewhere between subtle and extreme, it’s the perfect balance between immersion and image quality. With no visible distortion, Canvas 32Q’s large screen area makes working with documents and spreadsheets comfortable. You can see ample cooling grills that keep the internal temperature just above ambient. A small clip for cable management is attached to the stand.
Viewed from the side, you can see that the panel’s profile is thinner at the top. This part is covered with a metal plate that further aids in cooling. It doesn’t have speakers or side USB ports, but the Canvas 32Q doesn’t sacrifice connectivity. Two HDMI 2.0, one DisplayPort 1.2, USB-C acting as video input, and USB upstream connectivity are available. There is also a USB-B upstream port and two USB-A downstream ports. You can connect headphones or powered speakers to the 3.5 mm audio jack.
OSD function
The Canvas 32Q’s OSD is very simple, and I really appreciate it. There are only four submenus and a signal information screen.
image 1 of 3
All image and game settings are organized in the image menu. The first section has 8 image modes and brightness/contrast/sharpness along with 3 color temperatures, RGB sliders, 3 gamma presets and saturation. The second half includes overdrive, frame rate counter, MPRT (backlight strobe blur reduction), low blue light, and a black equalizer to make shadow details more visible. My only downside here is the lack of numbers for settings such as brightness and contrast, RGB, or volume. You can see the slider move up and down, but there are no numbers for later reference. I counted the clicks and each slider has 100 steps and the center point is 50. Other options like sharpness, saturation, low blue light and black equalizer have 10 steps. It’s unusual, but I got used to it after a while.
Other settings include a FreeSync toggle. It should be with MPRT, but it isn’t. Turning on MPRT cancels Adaptive-Sync as with most monitors. The backlight strobe has no fine tuning. It reduces the brightness by about 25% and produces some fading artifacts. Overdrive action is very subtle with no obvious ghosting. He/she suppresses blurring moderately.
NZXT Canvas 32Q Calibration Settings
The Canvas 32Q is so accurate that it doesn’t require calibration by default. I saw some green errors in the grayscale pattern I displayed, but the actual content looked very good with natural colors and tones. Gamma was too bright at his default 2.2 setting, so I increased it to 2.4 to visibly improve depth and dimension. I was not able to improve the white point accuracy using the RGB sliders. This is because the RGB sliders do not affect all brightness steps equally. My calibration consisted of changing gamma only. Below are the brightness settings I used for commonly selected output levels.
For the HDR signal, we automatically switched the Canvas 32Q to HDR mode and measured the color and EOTF tracking accuracy. There are no image adjustments available for HDR content, so tweaking should be limited to the in-game options available.
| picture mode | standard |
| Brightness 200 nits | 55 |
| Brightness 120 nits | twenty five |
| Brightness 100 nits | 18 |
| Brightness 80 nits | 12 |
| Brightness 50 nits | 1 (minimum 48 nits) |
| contrast | 50 |
| gamma | 2.4 |
Games and hands-on
The first thing you’ll see whenever you boot Windows is the beach scene wallpaper that’s part of Windows 10’s default graphics set. A bright blue sky reflected on the surface of the water, orange sandstone in the background, and a lone figure running on the beach. I always look at color first, and Canvas 32Q impresses with its bold, vibrant hues. The extra contrast was apparent when looking at the gentle waves in the foreground far beyond the rocks behind. For example, it turns out she was wearing three-quarter length trousers.
If you like to sit very close to your screen, the image will look a little softer with its 93ppi pixel density. Then the pixel structure becomes invisible. The anti-glare layer works invisibly without creating distortion or grain. The image is very sharp, with no obvious edge enhancement as long as the sharpness slider remains at 50%.
The productivity app is solid, with crisp text and good contrast between black text and white backgrounds. Editing the photos was easy, but there was no sRGB mode available, so I had to use software LUTs if I wanted color gamut. Watching videos was smooth, and I didn’t see any stutter or cadence issues with YouTube content.
i started game time Doom Eternal Horde mode that keeps the action moving non-stop. Overdrive did a reasonable job of maintaining motion resolution, although it could have been a little more aggressive. Light strobes are good at preserving fine detail well during fast motion, but some phase artifacts are present. I was able to compensate for the light reduction by raising the brightness slider. Frame rate management was flawless on both the G-Sync and FreeSync systems.
shadow area call of duty wwii Thanks to the accurate EOTF tracking in the Canvas 32Q’s HDR mode, it’s wonderfully dark. Detail was still clearly visible, and the true blacks made the image look three-dimensional. Colors also have an extra pop factor that makes HDR and SDR stand out even more. Highlights were a little flat compared to brighter monitors, but the Canvas 32Q is still a good HDR display for its worthy price point.
Canvas 32Q is NZXT’s solid first effort to deliver a solid gaming experience and excellent image quality in all areas of productivity and entertainment.
more: best gaming monitor
more: How to test your PC monitor
more: How to Buy a PC Monitor: The 2022 Guide
more: How to choose the best HDR monitor
