Acer Predator Z57 review

There is no single display technology that does everything well. That’s an objective fact and something the stupendous, incredible and delightful new Acer Predator Z57 does absolutely nothing to change. Along with the closely related Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 G95NC, this is one of if not the most spectacular gaming monitors available today. And yet it’s also pretty clearly flawed.

Hold that thought while we cover off the basics. What you’re looking at here is a monstrous 57-inch dual-4K monitor. The resolution clocks in at 7,680 by 2,160 pixels, so it’s literally two 4K pixel grids fused together.

Where a 4K monitor as as 16:9 aspect ratio, this thing is twice as wide at 32:9. The pixel density on the 57-inch panel works out at 140 DPI. That means this display is exactly equivalent to a pair of 32-inch 4K monitors, side-by-side. It is, in a word, bananas.

In that regard, it’s similar to the various 49-inch ultra-wide monitors that have been available for some time, such as the Samsung Odyssey OLED G9, just taken to a whole new level. Those monitors offer 5,120 by 1,440 pixels and are essentially two 27-inch 1440p panels in one.

Anyway, the appeal here is the pixel density of a 32-inch 4K monitor but on a much, much grander scale. Of course, with that epic pixel count comes equally outlandish GPU load. If 4K doesn’t already beat GPUs into submission, how about two times 4K? Better get that DLSS and triple-pumped frame gen spooled up, eh?

It’s a lot for any graphics card to deal with when it comes to achieving playable frame rates in modern games. Which is why we can probably forgive the relatively modest 120 Hz refresh rate. You’re not exactly going to be playing Half-Life 2 RTX at 300 fps, even with upscaling and frame gen, on this thing.

That said, the 120 Hz is the first obvious divergence between this Acer and the aforementioned Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 G95NC. To the best of our knowledge, this Acer uses the same Samsung-supplied VA panel. But the G95NC rocks a 240 Hz refresh courtesy of being one of the first displays to offer DisplayPort 2.1.

The Predator Z57 only has DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.1, neither of which are good for 240 Hz at this resolution. To put it into context, running this monitor at 240 Hz is equivalent in bandwidth terms to eight 4K monitors at 60 Hz. Ouch.

One other area of differentiation involves the mini-LED technology that powers both displays and that is also the source of their most obvious issues. The Samsung G9 has 2,392 zones while this Acer sports 2,304 zones. It seems unlikely that they actually have different mini-LED backlights, so the slight zone count difference may be down to how the individual mini-LED lights are addressed and controlled.

Either way, this monitor offers the same 1,000 nit peak HDR brightness and VESA DisplayHDR 1000 certification, though Acer claims a superior 98% coverage of DCI-P3 to the Samsung’s 95%. In practice, these are very similar displays, only the Samsung’s 240 Hz support is really material.

Another element that’s shared across both monitors is very challenging ergonomics. This is a huge monitor that demands copious desk space. Just getting it out of the box is quite the ordeal. I’d rather not go into the sordid details, but let’s just say I learned the hard way how not to do it with the similarly proportioned Samsung. Whoops.

Still, you do get decent connectivity. Along with the DisplayPort and HDMI inputs, there’s USB-C with 90 W of power delivery, plus a KVM switch and picture-in-picture and picture-by-picture support. So you can use this monitor with two PCs at the same time, each with a 120 Hz 4K pixel grid. Nifty!

However, it’s really as a single high-DPI monitor on a huge scale where this monitor makes most sense. And, boy, is it impressive. Once you’ve experienced this much display with this kind of pixel density, it’s hard to go back to almost anything smaller and less detailed.

This monitor gives you such a huge canvas for doing daily duties. As a productivity panel, it’s a luxury that quickly feels like something you’d never want to give up. It’s very punchy and nicely calibrated in SDR mode, too, making it a fabulous daily driver. However, even in that regard, it’s not perfect.

Such is the scale of this monitor that even with the tight 1000R curvature, the extremities of the panel can feel rather distant. It’s also worth noting that the curve isn’t consistent. Just like most 49-inch ultrawides, this display is actually flat on both ends and has quite a heavy bend in the centre. Roughly speaking, only about half the panel is actually curved, with about a quarter of the panel on either side being totally flat.

The point here is that you could get two lower-end 4K monitor for a fraction of the price. There are certainly benefits to the seamless single-monitor solution. It’s one I definitely prefer. But the value proposition given the Acer’s sky-high price is tricky, to be sure. One final note in a general-use context is that Acer has enabled pixel sharpening by default. It’s easy to disable, but it looks awful on the Windows desktop. Be sure to turn it off.

Anywho, this monitor is pitched unambiguously as a gaming tool, and for that remit it’s both utterly stunning and distinctly problematic. For sheer scale and immersion, nothing else comes close, bar its Samsung sister. It’s just so much screen with so much detail and precision, it’s actually hard to comprehend what you’re looking at.

The problem, of course, is driving it. You’ll hit the 120 Hz refresh in something super undemanding like Counter-Strike 2 using, say, an RTX 4070. But you really wouldn’t want to play an online shooter like that on a monitor this huge. Meanwhile, to get anything near 120 fps in the most demanding modern games, even with upscaling and frame gen, you’ll need some really serious hardware. And even then, it will be very hit and miss, especially if you enable features like ray-tracing.

For the sheer, giddy hell of it, I did try Half-Life 2 RTX, and yeah, it looked incredible and yet a bit of a mess at the same time, what with all the scaling and frame gen smudging and artifacts. Probably the most impressive exposition of what this thing can do, however, was Total War. The sense of scale as you regard a mass of armies stretched out in front on you in high-DPI detail is not a sight you’ll forget quickly. Imagine going back to, say, a 27-inch monitor after this monster. No thanks!

Of course, Total War doesn’t support DLSS and it isn’t great at supporting ultrawide resolutions. So, immediately, you’re right back to the shortcomings and snags of a cutting-edge display like this.

Speaking of which, let’s address arguably the most problematic issue. I opened this dissertation with the observation that no single display tech does everything well. I wasn’t talking about screen formats or resolutions, but the underlying panel technology.

So, here’s the rub. The mini-LED tech used here can be an awful kludge. For proof, fire up a test video of a star field, there are plenty on YouTube. If it’s an HDR video (oddly, you have to enable HDR manually on this display), the results will be, well, horrific.

You’ll see the relatively large dimming zones (even with 2,304 zones, you’re still looking at 7,200 pixels being lit up by each zone) fizzing on and off behind the gently panning star field. In areas where there are fewer stars tracking across the sky, you can see a single zone clunkily attempting to track an individual star across the panel. It’s laughably bad.

Now, this is nothing specific to this monitor. It’s a problem with all mini-LED panels. But at this price point, it’s harder to forgive. Granted, in brighter game scenes that problem effectively disappears as the whole panel is being lit up. But then you’d get similar results with a monolithic backlight in that scenario. Incidentally, you can enable local dimming in SDR mode on the desktop, and that looks awful, too. Don’t do it.

There are some images or game scenes that mix large swathes of bright and dark elements that can look good on this class of display. But for the most part, the resolution of the backlight isn’t nearly good enough for precise HDR lighting. OLED panels with their perfect-per-pixel lighting are infinitely better.

OLED panels also have clearly superior response, though this Acer’s VA panel is pretty quick. But then OLED suffers from weak full-screen brightness and can be afflicted by burn-in. You also can’t currently get an OLED monitor on this scale with comparable pixel density.

So, we’re back to that no-one-panel-tech problem. If you want a huge screen with this kind of pixel density, OLED isn’t an option. If you want strong full-screen brightness, OLED also won’t do. On the other hand, if you want a true HDR experience with precise lighting, mini-LED like this Acer is a bad joke.

Ultimately, it’s a subjective call. Personally, I can’t really see the point of mini-LED on a display like this. The scenarios in which it really works well are so narrow and infrequent, I’d prefer to ditch it altogether in return for lower cost and very little given up in terms of the visual experience.

What I really want is a 57-inch dual-4K OLED using the latest panel tech announced at CES that can hit around 400 nits full-screen. That would, I’d wager, be a display with a real shot at doing everything well. Unfortunately, such a panel isn’t even on the roadmaps of the two companies that make the actual panels that go into every OLED monitor out there, LG and Samsung.

For now, then, you pays your money and you takes your choice. Would I buy this Acer myself? In the UK, definitely not. Right now, this Acer is going for about £2,200, while the higher-refresh Samsung can be had for £1,600, albeit while lacking a USB-C input. In the US, it’s the opposite, with this Acer going for a much more reasonable $1,600 and the Samsung clocking in at $2,200 right now.

For $1,600, it’s worthy of serious consideration if it’s a really large display you seek. My main reservation is that a new class of 5K2K 39-inch OLEDs are due, probably at the end of this year. 5K2K on a 39-incher is not as big and spectacular as 8K2K on a 57-inch panel, to be sure. But it offers essentially the same pixel density and will be easier to drive in terms of GPU load.

As an overall compromise for really high-end gaming, I suspect that will be clearly the superior solution for the time being. All of which means the long wait for the perfect high-end gaming display continues.