I just got a brand new 32 inch LCD monitor… again. I didn’t expect having to get a new monitor, but the Pixio monitor (that I won from a sweepstakes) died suddenly after only 1.5 years of use. Since I’m used to having two big monitors now, I just went online to look for the least expensive 32 inch, 1440p (QHD) monitor with a recognizable brand. I ended up buying ViewSonic VS3225-2K, and here are my first impressions.
The VS3225-2K came in the usual cardboard box. No fancy packaging, but the box has a graphic of the ViewSonic birds. Inside there’s a power adapter, the base with tool and screws to assemble, 1x HDMI cable and the monitor itself.
The VS3225-2K has a black color. The ports are the back facing downwards. There’s 2x HDM1, 1 DisplayPort, and an audio output. The monitor has built-in speakers, but sound quality is about the same as my laptop speakers. The control and power buttons are in bottom right of the front. Overall, nothing fancy but everything is there.
I’m putting the monitor on a monitor arm, and the nice thing about this ViewSonic is that the VESA mount point is right in the middle of the backside, so it’s you get better weight balance after mounting. Putting the panel on the monitor arm is pretty simple once I found the right screws.
The only gripes I have about this monitor so far is about the power adapter. Firstly the power cable is a little short so I can’t run the line through all of the cable management clips on the monitor arm and the plug reach the power strip on the other side of my desk. Secondly, the power block/converter and the plug are in one piece, which means the plug is pretty big and blocks the adjacent sockets on the my power strip. Minor annoyances that I can live with.
Once all connected, the VS3225-2K worked as expected. Quality and colors look decent with the IPS panel. Maybe not as sharp as the 4K Pixio but it’s fine. One thing the ViewSonic is an improvement over the Pixio is that it has no trouble detecting the signal coming from my laptop through the Thunderbolt docking station. The Pixio had an annoying problem where it would not detect the signal again after my computer goes to sleep and then wakes again, which meant I had to unplug and replug the Thunderbolt cable. It’s nice not to have that issue anymore.
So here are my first impressions of the ViewSonic VS3225-2K. I’m glad to have the two big screen setup back. Hopefully it lasts a long time unlike the Pixio that died. The Dell 24 inch monitor I bought in 2013 still works at my parents’, so hopefully the Pixio is just an one-off bad example.