ASUS ProArt 6K Review: $1,399 Gets You a 32-Inch 6K Display

This "review" doesn't even get the price right.

(article above got edited after I posted this)

It's $1399, not $1299



Also, how about just putting "more information" right here in the article as text instead of locking it inside a video not everyone wants to watch.

I prefer matte. Why do you like/want reflections?

No one *wants* reflections but a glossy monitors looks way better in most all measurements… except reflections. Everything else about it is better.

Damn, if only it was glossy.

Refresh rate?

60HZ. It is 6K and it seems so far that is the max frequency for these 6K 32” screens. They are not aimed at gamers etc though.

I also received my ProArt 6K this weekend. Some initial thoughts:

Pros:
- As a developer, the anti matte display is awesome. I have a LG 5K glossy display which I've heard is similar in glossiness to iMacs and I could always see my reflection in it but with the ProArt there are no reflections at all. The text to my eye looks super crisp.
- This is the brightest display I have and the colors really pop and look great.
- There are 3 USB ports that work with the KVM switching, a USB A and C on the front, and 1 USB A on the back. Works with keyboards, mice, webcams and I'm sure more.
- There is a daisy chain thunderbolt port that can support a 5K display (apparently up to 6K) but it will only send that signal to the computer connected via thunderbolt, not the one that's connected via HDMI/DP+USB.


Cons:
- The Smart KVM switch is a nice idea but it was a bit maddening for me to set up. First thing is that you have to use a thunderbolt connection for 1 and then a HDMI/DP+USB connection for the second. I didn't realize this at first but the USB you use is the one labeled USB 3.2 upstream. Luckily you can feed the HDMI/DP + USB connections into a dock- I already had an OWC thunderbolt pro dock and this allows you to maintain a single thunderbolt connection into your second computer which matches your first computers connection type.
- ASUS DisplayWidget claims it can be used to configure your Smart KVM but it cannot, at least in OS X. I'm pretty sure this software is causing weirdness when switching between the two computers because both the OS X system display configuration and the DisplayWidget seem to fight about the monitor's configuration and I'll often have my monitors oriented 90 or 180 degrees from what I expect, so you have to use the mouse in a weird way to switch the orientation back to get it to look right.
- Switching between two macbooks is a bit finicky. There's an input button on the front of the monitor to switch but if the other mac's asleep it doesn't seem to let you switch. You have to instead open the full menu and switch it in the input section.
- The OSD menu is weird- when you go to the settings part of it, it only gives you a few seconds to make the changes before the whole menu disappears. On other pages it stays up for the 20-30 seconds that its programmed to do, so I think this is a bug.
- There's apparently no keyboard command for switching the KVM switch like other Asus Smart KVM monitors. I've tried alt+s, alt+1, alt+2 and ctrl+alt+s and none of those do anything. There's no mention in the manual for an alternative keyboard shortcut that will switch it.

The silver lining is there are third party apps like BetterDisplay which can send OSD commands to your monitor so I think it might be possible to switch the KVM that way rather than using the OSD commands. In order to do that though you have to know the right values to send for switching input sources, so maybe if we could crowdsource what all the configuration settings are with this monitor, we could configure a third party app ourselves to do what the DisplayWidget should be doing. I wonder if that spec sheet is available anywhere.

Despite the software weirdness with the KVM, this is a very nice monitor!

At $1,399, the ProArt 6K is more affordable than the Studio Display and it's a fraction of the cost of the Pro Display XDR.

That means the matte-only ProArt 6K ($1,399) is $100 cheaper than standard glossy Studio Display ($1,499), and $400 cheaper than the optional matte Studio Display ($1,799). So for $100 or $400 less than what Tim Crook charges for a 27-inch 5K display, customers can instead get a 32-inch 6K display from Asus.