I regret my purchase... - MSI MEG 342C

Plouffe loves his Alienware AW3423DW monitor. It's got a high refresh rate, QD-OLED panel, nicely curved screen, and a great design... but now there's competition! MSI's new MEG 342C has a tasteful black and gold colour scheme, a nice touch of RGB, and a high-powered USB-C port while still maintaining the excellent QD-OLED panel the Alienware does. Is Plouffe's favourite monitor about to change?

Purchases made through some store links may provide some compensation to Linus Media Group.

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CHAPTERS
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0:00 Plouffe has a monitor
0:31 Unboxing
1:47 Installing the stand
3:06 Display specs, design, and ports/buttons
6:11 Sponsor - Secretlab
6:41Shoutout to the included cables
7:17 HDMI woes
7:53 HDR impressions
8:59 OSD settings
12:08 Stand adjustments and hot key
13:33 Gaming - Counter-Strike
14:11 Why ClearMR is important
15:09 Gaming - Resident Evil 4 Remake
17:11 Pricing and overall thoughts
18:13 Outro

[IcHamza]

NO PLOUFFE.. NO! Every unboxing you regret buying something you bought after a previous unboxing.

[morgantosh]

Loving the built-in KVM trend. As someone who works from home, I'd love to see it become standard across monitor manufacturers

[Neoxon]

At least this monitor actually has HDMI 2.1, but I’m just glad that more OLED monitors are coming out now.

[Terrobility]

They lock color temperature control in the HDR presets. So that means you can't calibrate your expensive monitor as it's all locked out :(

[ronochow]

It looks like a vesa mount stand which means that even when your monitor dies, you can reuse the stand which is nice

[Just_a_commenter]

Another monitor review, another time we are reminded this lad has an AW3423DW.

I wouldn't have it any other way. c:

[sceanic]

Stop with the delibrately misleading clickbait, please.

[chickenpie]

Can't wait for this stuff to get cheaper tbh, I remember forking out for a 'nice TN' with 144hz years ago when it was pretty much a choice between 1080p 144hz or 1440 60hz unless you were going to really splurge. Yet now I'm sat with an ips 1440p 165hz monitor which wasn't much more than my old 1080p one. Don't get me wrong, it's cool looking at this higher end stuff but I love seeing the tech trickle down over the years

[BeastyboyRBLX]

I wish they would demo the KVM functionality. As someone who has a KVM for work n play, I wanna know how if it works well before I buy it. Could be a small demo they could do in the future

[CheekSoda]

I'll fully believe it when I see documentation that states it in writing, but this is claimed to have a 3 year warranty with burn-in coverage, at least according to MSI's own livestream for the release of this monitor. While it's 1100 USD, in Europe this has a 1499 EUR MSRP price tag (assuming included 20% tax). Very hard to swallow when it's competing against the Samsung OLED G8 (1299 EUR), Alienware DW (1199 EUR), DWF (1099 EUR).

[MrArrakis]

@ 13:10 ... so that is actually a bug in windows. If you set your refresh rate first then switch to portrait mode you can have a high refresh rate on your monitor. for some reason when you switch to portrait mode in windows it locks your refresh rate to whatever it was previously set at.

[IrocZIV]

I have the original G9 and even though it only has like 9 dimming zones, the HDR looks super good in games that support it. I love how headlights in Forza actually look like they are emitting light.

[CheekSoda]

@4:52 One more thing - this monitor is supposed to have 4× USB-A ports. There are 2× USB-A near the DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.1 ports, and another 2× USB-A ports on the side of the monitor.

[RASS-]

Plouffe…. LMG obviously needs to just provide your home monitor as THE monitor guy. No more FOMO etc. Thanks for your killer work as always

[kjaesp]

oled has me apprehensive af especially for a monitor. Buying a 1k+ display and hoping it'll last 5 years without your screen degrading is just a strange concept to me.

[gryyphyn]

The back of this thing looks like the inside of a Goa'uld ship from Stargate and I love it.

[pilotkaboom]

OLED panels might just bring back screen savers. I've been running a screen saver again for a while now, and honestly it's kinda great and nostalgic.

[Justin-rouj]

Coming from a 34in 1440p UW to a 42in LG C2 I have to say that I like the C2 better in almost every way. No wasted space/black bars, super sharp, and if you really want you can emulate an UW with a custom resolution.

Also I bought my C2 new for $800, $1100 seems too high even if it is QD-OLED.

[piplup]

11:34 That is one of my favorite videos you got on display there, I absolutely love watching those tour videos or the like in a big high resolution screen and just relaxing. I watch a lot of bus tours and things like that after a long day at work cause I find it relaxing to just sit back have my meal and then turn in for the day. I personally can't drive anymore due to an accident and I used to like my trip to work cause it was a short drive through the valley or back roads and so this is kind of an extension of that. I miss those daily trips there was a river alongside near my place that I got to stop by and it meant I was near home.

[austinisakson]

I think the I/O for this monitor is really good. I got the Samsung G8 OLED version of this panel and their I/O is MiniDP, MicroHDMI, USB-C (65W DP), and USB-C 15W and that's IT. Then they included a MiniDP to DP cable which would be fine with a GPU but I only had my laptop at the time so I had to go hunt down a Thunderbolt/high throughput USB C cable. Wish Samsung just included one of those or an HDMI cable instead as that seems more standard. But I will say having the USB-C inputs is really cool for sharing my keyboard and for DP/power delivery with my work laptop.