Corsair Xeneon Flex 45 Inch Bendable OLED Gaming Monitor (45WQHD240) Review

Corsair Xeneon Flex 45 Inch Bendable OLED Gaming Monitor (45WQHD240) Review

Buy it at Amazon: Corsair Xeneon Flex 45 Inch Bendable OLED Gaming Monitor (45WQHD240) [Affiliate Link]

Takeaway: Large display, gorgeous colors and contrast, customizable flex.

This monitor comes with a DisplayPort cable, HDMI cable, USB-C cable, power brick/cable and USB-C to USB-A cable. To assemble place the monitor 24"" metal base and tighten the set screw on the bottom. The base's wide shape helps prevent accidental tip over and handles at the back and chin of the monitor facilitate picking up and moving it.

When assembled the monitor is 41.75” wide, 18” tall, and 12"" deep (the panel is 1/4"" thick). It has a 45” diagonal giving and ultra-wide 21:9 aspect ratio. The bezels are super thin, though there's still a ¼” gap from the edge of the screen to the viewable area. While the stand is not height adjustable, you can tilt the screen up to 22° including a slight downward angle. On the front of the stand are the integrated I/O and controls: 2 USB-A 3.2 ports, a headphone output jack, input toggle, power button, and 5-way menu joystick. At the back of the stand are two HDMI inputs, Display Port input, USB-C with DP alt mode input, two additional USB-A 3.2 ports, and a USB-C upstream port, and power input. In order for input peripherals to work, the monitor’s upstream USB-C port must be connect to your computer. There’s no VESA mount support or alternate mounting options, though Corsair says accessories are ""coming soon.""

The OLED display uses an LG panel and has a max resolution of 3440 x 1440 pixels with a pixel density of 83PPI and 240Hz refresh rate. And while not 4K, QHD at this size gives you plenty of high-quality screen real estate to work with. The response time is 0.03 ms and the monitor is compatible with both NVDIA G-Sync and AMD FreeSync Premium. It also has a 3 year warranty. You'll get the best performance and compatibility when connected via DisplayPort, though you can utilize multiple inputs if you have more than one source device, like a laptop or gaming system. When powered on, a white LED that illuminates just below the power button and it cannot be turned off or dimmed in the settings. While the max resolution isn't 4K, the pixels aren’t visible unless you're very close to the screen, and the recommended viewing distance is 2-3 feet away from the screen.

I noticed when switching between white and black backgrounds that the entire screen brightness would shift, due to the ""brightness stabilizer"" setting in the OSD system settings. This might be useful for games and movies where some scenes are dark and some are bright, but I found the abrupt switching to be a bit jarring. If it bothers you, you can turn this setting off, but be aware that this will lower the brightness of the screen overall.

For content creation, I like to keep the screen as flat as possible. This keeps things like grids and lines looking straight and parallel, so I can see what I’m working with. Since the color gamut covers 100% of the SRGB color space the color accuracy is awesome and the colors are vibrant and rich. The 1.5 mil to 1 contrast ratio also produces uniform, deep, inky-blacks without any hazy washout. When you want to use it as a curved screen, just press the button and extended the handles on either side of the screen. Then firmly grasp and pull them inward towards yourself. When you reach the maximum curve, you will hear and audible click from each of the handles, and this is an 800R curvature. To flatten it again, just press the handles towards the back. You can also set the screen to lower curvatures as well by simply stopping at an intermediate point and the monitor will hold its shape. When the screen reaches its flattest setting, again, each side will click to let you know.

This OLED screen produces zero backlight bleeding nor light halos around bright objects on dark backgrounds, making for gorgeous and immersive gaming, movie watching, and creative design experiences. However, this comes at the expense of susceptibility to burn-in or image retention. Corsair mitigates this with an OSD feature called “Orbit,” which when enabled shifts the image on the screen 1 pixel per minute in a circular pattern. If for some reason, you do experience burn-in or ghosting, try running the “Image Retention Refresh” from the OSD to try to get rid of it.

Overall, this monitor delivers a hugely satisfying gaming experience and gives you the flexibility, pun intended, between a flat or curved display at your leisure. The input toggle lets you change between multiple input sources quickly, and you can even display up to two inputs simultaneously with overlayed picture in picture or side-by-side picture by picture. It’s got a really large footprint though, so just make sure you have the space for it on your desk and that you can position yourself far enough away from the screen optimal viewing.

Buy it at Amazon: Corsair Xeneon Flex 45 Inch Bendable OLED Gaming Monitor (45WQHD240) [Affiliate Link]