Z-EDGE INFINYX UG40P

Introduction

Z-EDGE (Zero Edge Technology LLC) is a global display brand you may be less familiar with at the moment, but a brand who are making a push to expand both its product line-up and international presence this year. Leading that charge is their new UG40P, a new ultrawide, curved display unveiled under the brand’s INFINYX gaming series a couple of months ago. The UG40P is designed as a large-screen all-rounder, combining high-performance gaming capabilities and specs with the screen space and connectivity needed for productivity and entertainment.

The UG40P features a 40″ ultrawide VA LCD panel with a 1000R curvature and offers a 5120 x 2160 “5K2K” resolution and a native 180Hz refresh rate. For competitive gaming situations the screen also supports a dual mode function allowing you to switch to a lower 2560 x 1080 (WFHD) resolution while doubling your refresh rate to 360Hz. It’s also packed with a wide range of modern connectivity and convenience features, and all available at an attractive price point.

#affiliate. We may earn a commission if you purchase from our affiliate links in this content – TFTCentral is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.ca and other Amazon stores worldwide. We also participate in a similar scheme for Overclockers.co.uk, Newegg, Bestbuy, Walmart, B&H and some manufacturers.

Key Specs

• 40″ ultrawide (exact 39.7″) with a 21:9 aspect ratio and 1000R curvature
• VA LCD panel technology
• 5120 x 2160 “5K2K” resolution with 140 PPI pixel density
• 180Hz native refresh, and dual-mode WFHD (2560 x 1080) at 360Hz
• 3300:1 contrast ratio spec
• Wide colour gamut with 95% DCI-P3 coverage
• Video connectivity: 1x DisplayPort 1.4 (with DSC), 2x HDMI 2.1, 1x USB type-C (DP Alt mode and 90W power delivery)
• Other connectivity: 2x USB-A data ports, 1x headphone
• Special features: KVM switch, PiP/PbP support, 2x 5W integrated speakers, ambient light sensor

Design and Features

The UP40P comes in a silver and black design. It has a 3-side “borderless” panel with a thin ~3.5mm black plastic edge, and a black panel border before the image starts which gives you a total ~12mm overall border around the sides, a little thinner at ~9.5mm along the top, and then a thicker standard plastic bezel at the bottom giving a ~23mm border. There’s no labels or logos on the front bezel, only a small white power LED in the bottom right hand area which can be disabled from the OSD menu if you want.

The rear of the screen is encased in a matte black plastic with a mostly smooth finish. The stand attaches in the middle via a quick-release mechanism, or can be removed in favour of VESA 100 x 100mm mounting if you’d rather.

The stand is a light silver coloured metal for the arm and foot, and provides a very strong and stable base for the larger and quite heavy screen. There’s a detachable cable tidy clip on the back of the stand as well which is useful.

The side of the arm has a “Z-EDGE INFINYX” logo on it as you can see from the photo above. There are tilt, height and swivel adjustments available from the stand (no rotate) and these are all smooth and easy to use.

There’s a little wobble from the screen as you move it around, pretty much unavoidable on such a large screen size, but overall it feels sturdy and well built, and we were impressed with the stand and build quality really considering the competitive price point.

Connectivity

On the back of the screen there are a good range of modern connectivity options. This includes 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 2x HDMI 2.1 and 1x USB type-C (with DP Alt mode and 90W power delivery). The USB type-C port is useful for connecting laptops and other devices with a single cable, and makes this screen well-suited to multiple device inputs and work uses. Additionally there are 2x USB-A data ports, a USB-B upstream to connect back to your PC and a headphone jack on the back. We’ll talk about some of the other related features and extras a bit later in the review.

OSD menu

The OSD is controlled through a joystick toggle on the back right hand side of the screen, and this provides simple and intuitive access around the menu. It’s pretty snappy as well, and there’s a good range of options and settings available.

There’s also quick access to key settings via the directions on the joystick (rather than pressing it in to open the main menu), which can be customised as well if there’s certain things you need to get to regularly.

OSD Menu
Joystick toggle controller
Quick and snappy
Intuitive to use
User updatable firmware
Software application

Testing Methodology Explained (SDR)

Performance is measured and evaluated with a high degree of accuracy using a range of testing devices and software. The results are carefully selected to provide the most useful and relevant information that can help evaluate the display while filtering out the wide range of information and figures that will be unnecessary. For measurement, we use a UPRtek MK550T spectroradiometer which is particularly accurate for colour gamut and colour spectrum measurements. We also use an X-rite i1 Pro 2 Spectrophotometer and a X-rite i1 Display Pro Plus colorimeter for various measurements. Several other software packages are incorporated including Portrait Displays’ Calman color calibration software – available from Portrait.com.

We measure the screen at default settings (with all ICC profiles deactivated and factory settings used), and any other modes that are of interest such as sRGB emulation presets. We then calibrate and profile the screen before re-measuring the calibrated state.

The results presented can be interpreted as follows:

• Gamma – we aim for 2.2 gamma which is the default for computer monitors in SDR mode. Testing of some modes might be based on a different gamma but we will state that in the commentary if applicable. A graph is provided tracking the 2.2 gamma across different grey shades and ideally the grey line representing the monitor measurements should be horizontal and flat at the 2.2 level, marked by the yellow line. Depending on where the gamma is too low or too high, it can have an impact on the image in certain ways. You can see our gamma explanation graph to help understand that more. Beneath the gamma graph we include the average overall gamma achieved along with the average for dark shades (0 black to 50 grey) and for lighter shades (50 grey to 100 white).
  
  
• RGB Balance and colour temperature – the RGB balance graph shows the relative balance between red, green and blue primaries at each grey shade, from 0 (black) to 100 (white). Ideally all 3 lines should be flat at the 100% level which would represent a balanced 6500K average colour temperature for all grey shades. This is the target colour temperature for desktop monitors, popular colour spaces like sRGB and ‘Display DCI-P3’ and is also the temperature of daylight. It is the most common colour temperature for displays, also sometimes referred to as D65. Where the RGB lines deviate from this 100% flat level the image may become too warm or cool, or show a tint towards a certain colour visually. Beneath this RGB balance graph we provide the average correlated colour temperature for all grey shades measured, along with its percentage deviance from the 6500K target. We also provide the white point colour temperature and its deviance from 6500K, as this is particularly important when viewing lots of white background and office content.
  
  
• Greyscale dE – this graph tracks the accuracy of each greyscale shade measured from 0 (black) to 100 (white). The accuracy of each grey shade will be impacted by the colour temperature and gamma of the display. The lower the dE the better, with differences of <1 being imperceptible (marked by the green line on the graph), and differences between 1 and 3 being small (below the yellow line). Anything over dE 3 needs correcting and causes more obvious differences in appearance relative to what should be shown. In the table beneath the graph we provide the average dE across all grey shades, as well as the white point dE (important when considering using the screen for lots of white background and office content), and the max greyscale dE as well.
  
  
• Luminance, black depth and contrast ratio (static) – measuring the brightness, black depth and resulting contrast ratio of the mode being tested, whether that is at default settings or later after calibration and profiling. We aim for 120 cd/m² luminance which is the recommended luminance for LCD/OLED desktop monitors in normal lighting conditions. Black depth should be as low as possible, and contrast ratio should be as high as possible.
  
  
• Shadow detail – this is evaluated with the screen configured to a 200 nits white luminance for consistency between different monitors, and viewed in a dimly lit room. This first 16 greyscale shades are measured using our UPRTek MK550T spectro device (0.002 nits lower limit) for shades near-black, and the results are plotted on a graph relative to a target gamma curve (usually 2.2 gamma). Where the measurement line crosses the 0.01 nits point on the Y-axis is typically the visual threshold for where we would start to be able to detect luminance compared with black (0.00 nits). We combine these objective measurements with visual tests using a grey shade test pattern to determine the first visible shade, and then rank the shadow detail performance accordingly.
  
  
• Gamut coverage – we provide measurements of the screens colour gamut relative to various reference spaces including sRGB, DCI-P3, Adobe RGB and Rec.2020. Coverage is shown in absolute numbers as well as relative, which helps identify where the coverage extends beyond a given reference space. A CIE-1976 chromaticity diagram (which provides improved accuracy compared with older CIE-1931 methods) is included which provides a visual representation of the monitors colour gamut coverage triangle as compared with sRGB, and if appropriate also relative to a wide gamut reference space such as DCI-P3. The reference triangle will be marked on the CIE diagram as well.
  
  
• dE colour accuracy – a wide range of colours are tested and the colour accuracy dE measured. We compare these produced colours to the sRGB reference space, and if applicable when measuring a wide gamut screen we also provide the accuracy relative to a specific wide gamut reference such as DCI-P3. An average dE and maximum dE is provided along with an overall screen rating. The lower the dE the better, with differences of <1 being imperceptible (marked by the green area on the graph), and differences between 1 and 3 being small (yellow areas). Anything over dE 3 needs correcting and causes more obvious differences in appearance relative to what should be shown. dE 2000 is used for improved accuracy and providing a better representation of what you would see as a user, compared with older dE methods like dE 1994, as it takes into account the human eye’s perceptual sensitivity to different colours. 

Brightness and Contrast

The screen offers a very wide adjustment range for the backlight with a maximum SDR luminance measured at 490 nits which was a fair bit higher than the 400 nits spec in fact. At the bottom end of the adjustment the screen can reach 40 nits luminance which is good and should make it suitable for those using the screen in darker room conditions.

The VA-type panel delivers a very strong contrast ratio of 4075:1 average, which remains very consistent across the brightness adjustment range. This was again a lot higher than the spec of 3300:1 and represents one of the higher LCD contrast ratios available on the market, beyond the common ~3000:1 performance we normally see from this technology which was impressive. Obviously it’s still an LCD and not OLED, but contrast ratio was a strong point of this panel.

SDR Performance

Default performance

The screen comes out of the box in the ‘standard’ preset mode and offered excellent accuracy and performance – we were really impressed. Gamma tracking, RGB balance, greyscale temp, white point and greyscale accuracy were all excellent. This was one of the best factory calibrations we’ve seen for any monitor, which is really very good when you consider this is a very competitively priced display in this segment, and Z-EDGE are frankly a pretty new brand to us, and we’re sure many of you.

The screen has a wide colour gamut covering ~134% relative sRGB, and is quite a close match to the DCI-P3 colour space at 97% coverage / 107% relative. With this wide native gamut active in this mode, the accuracy of sRGB colours is impacted, still reasonable but as is normal, you end up with over-saturatation in many shades, especially reds. We’ll look at ways to more accurately work with sRGB and SDR content in a moment. With the closer match to the DCI-P3 colour space, the accuracy of DCI-P3 colours was good though, with a few outliers with a higher error.

Colour space emulation modes

Z-EDGE provide 3 emulation modes in the OSD menu in the ‘professional mode’ section, designed to meet the sRGB, Adobe RGB and DCI-P3 colour spaces. We tested each of these as well:

• sRGB
• DCI-P3
• Adobe RGB

sRGB

DCI-P3

Adobe RGB

The excellent greyscale accuracy continues in to each of the other colour space modes which was really great to see. No real changes there at all. The DCI-P3 mode is set up to the ‘Display P3’ standard with 2.2 gamma and D65 white point, like the other two modes are too.

Note that in these modes you lose access to most of the OSD controls though, like gamma, colour temp etc. Thankfully you still have access to the brightness control so that can be adjusted to your liking, and since the factory calibration is so good, you’re hopefully not going to need to change anything else anyway. We’d ideally like to see further user control on any monitor with these modes, but when they’re very well configured it’s not a deal breaker we don’t think.

• sRGB
• DCI-P3
• Adobe RGB

sRGB

DCI-P3

Adobe RGB

Each mode offers good clamping of the native colour space back to close to each target, although in each mode there was a small amount of over-clamping. We had 97.5% sRGB coverage instead of the potential 99.8% that the panel covered in the native mode for instance. DCI-P3 coverage was 95.5% instead of 97.4% and Adobe RGB too the biggest hit at 89.2% instead of 93.9%.

Adobe RGB is the weakest of the 3 modes as the backlight couldn’t cover the full colour space anyway, with 93.9% being the maximum it reached in native mode, and so you have some under-coverage in greens. Still, the colour accuracy was good, as it was in all 3 modes.

The sRGB mode especially should be useful for those looking to work more accurately with SDR content, and those who want to avoid any over-saturation in the native mode.

Shadow Detail

We tested the near-black shadow detail which can sometimes be a challenge on any monitor, especially on some LCD panels which have a weaker black depth than competing OLED panels. For these tests screen was configured to 200 nits white luminance, and we tested the screen in several colour space modes.

We’ve already measured the high native contrast ratio of this panel earlier (~4075:1) and this helps ensure very good shadow detail on this LCD panel. The first visible greyscale shade was RGB 2, and this was consistent in each of the professional preset modes we tested, including the sRGB, DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB emulation modes. Each had excellent near-black gamma tracking which was great.

Calibration

Calibration and profiling can produce some very good overall results and could be useful if you wanted to operate the screen within its native wide gamut mode, but then map the colour space back to something else like sRGB or Adobe RGB for instance for colour-aware applications (e.g. Photoshop). You would need a suitable calibration device and software for this, or you could also try our calibrated ICC profile.

The screen was profiled to 2.2 gamma, 6500K colour temp and to the sRGB colour space. The screen was left in its native wide gamut mode, but this profile will be used in colour-aware applications to map back to sRGB in this instance. Overall the calibrated results were excellent as you’d hope.

beenhere

ICC Profiles and Monitor Calibration Database

Find the recommended settings and a calibrated ICC profile for your display.
[View here]

Best Settings Guide

• On our Patreon Insider tier and above you can find our full ‘Best settings guide’ for this screen which includes all our recommended calibrated settings and ICC profile for SDR mode, as well as other best settings guidance for other configurations, modes, HDR, gaming and everything else.
• Please note that you have the option to either join our Patreon on a subscription basis, which will also open up access to other locked posts on our page; or you can purchase just the single post for these best settings as a one-off if you’d rather.
• If you only want just our standard SDR settings and calibrated profile, that is available via our ICC database (without all the other best settings guide).

General and Office

The screen is very well-suited to office and general uses thanks to its large 40″ ultrawide screen size, high 5120 x 2160 “5K2K” resolution and decent 140 PPI pixel density. This gives you a massive desktop area to work with and some people may be ok with using this resolution at 100% OS scaling, although the text is pretty small. Others may want to use something like 125% scaling for more comfortable text size and a decent desktop space to work with, which is the equivalent to a theoretical 4096 x 1728 resolution and at a very similar text size to a common 27” 1440p monitor, although with a better pixel density and sharper image. That’s a good balance we felt and provides a really crisp and clear image. Being an LCD panel it has a standard RGB-stripe sub-pixel layout so there’s no concern there like there is on some OLED monitors.

The ultrawide format is great for multi-tasking and split screen work, and the 1000R curvature increases comfort and immersion relative to a flat display. It may be a little steeper than some people would like, although on a large screen like this it is not too over-bearing we don’t think. We’d prefer something slightly more subtle, like perhaps the 1500R curvature of the recent OLED ultrawide screens of this size, but you do get used to the 1000R pretty quickly. If you’re working with lots of straight lines in design work, spreadsheets etc you may find the curve a problem though.

The panel has a standard matte anti-glare (AG) coating and so it handles glare and reflections well, and on a curved screen it’s a good option as otherwise reflections get stretched and distorted. It’s a light AG coating so it doesn’t add unwanted grain to the image which is good news.

Viewing angles are more restrictive than IPS LCD and OLED panels with a more more noticeable washout and gamma shift from a wide viewing position, but it’s not an issue from a normal head-on position and the image looks good. The curve of the screen helps bring the edges a bit nearer to you and reduces the visible gamma shift as well that might otherwise impact the sides.

You do get some familiar VA gamma shift where some dark detail can get crushed a bit when viewed head-on, but improves as you move to the side slightly. That’s the same as on any VA panel. The viewing angles are better on darker content than most IPS panels though, free from the pale “IPS glow” you get on that technology, and this, along with the higher contrast ratio, makes it more suitable for darker content and dimly lit rooms.

	Features	Notes
USB type-C connectivity (DP Alt mode)
USB type-C power delivery		90W
Daisy chaining support
KVM switch
PiP and PbP support
USB data ports		2x USB-A
Easy access USB data ports
Integrated speakers		2 x 5W
Audio output / headphone out
Mic input
Integrated webcam
Ambient light sensor
Motion sensor
Stand adjustments		Tilt, height, swivel (no rotate)
VESA mount support		100 x 100mm
Integrated power supply		External brick required
Tripod socket
Firmware updates
Fan-less design

There’s a great range of modern connectivity options including 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 2x HDMI 2.1 ports and 1x USB type-C with 90W power delivery. You can use this screen at full spec from a DP 1.4 graphics card courtesy of DSC, so there’s wide support for older systems still, just keep in mind the demands on your system of powering this spec for games. We’ll talk more about those considerations later.

There’s also 2x USB-A data ports on the back and a headphone jack too. It would have been nice to offer some ports in an easy-access location perhaps. The stand provides a strong and stable base for the large screen with a good range of ergonomic adjustments.

Picture in Picture (PiP) and Picture by Picture (PbP) modes are supported for handling multiple video inputs, although you need to disable ‘Free Sync’ in the main OSD before you can activate these modes which is a bit of a pain. There’s also a KVM switch function, some reasonable 2x 5W integrated speakers and an ambient light sensor too which could be useful to some people.

Backlight dimming

Flicker
Flicker free verified
PWM / flicker frequency	n/a

We also confirmed the screen operates with a flicker free backlight at all brightness settings, free from any PWM dimming which is great. There’s a very wide brightness adjustment range from the backlight as well (40 – 490 nits), allowing good flexibility for different room lighting conditions and night time usage.

Spectral distribution and blue light

Blue light output
Blue peak wavelength	456 nm
Blue light portion	31.67%
Low blue light modes available
Low blue light mode temp	Low = 5533K Middle = 4917K High = 4523K MaxHigh = 4263K

Spectral distribution is shown above at a calibrated 6500K white point. The Blue light peak is at 456 nm wavelength. There is a low blue light function available in the menu with several settings available as shown above. Each mode reduces the blue light by making the image progressively warmer, and more yellow in appearance.

Panel uniformity

Panel uniformity of our sample was mediocre, with the right and left hand edges showing a drop in luminance measurements, likely due to the curvature of the panel which often makes uniformity challenging. If you’re viewing large full screen blocks or white documents, you may notice a slight drop in brightness along the edges, but in dynamic content it shouldn’t represent an issue. These results could vary between different samples.

There were no noticeable issues with dirty screen effect (DSE), banding artefacts or other uniformity issues on our sample.

HDR

We won’t spend long talking about HDR as there are no real HDR hardware capabilities on this screen, with no backlight dimming available. You can still enable an HDR input and the screen will automatically switch to the HDR mode, where basically all of the picture and colour settings are then locked and unavailable.

Brightness maxes out at 494 nits, the same as in SDR mode with the brightness setting cranked up to maximum. With no local dimming support, the contrast ratio doesn’t improve beyond the native panel contrast though, which at least is actually very good on this display already at ~4075:1. The VA panel helps in that regard, but you cannot improve the dynamic range any further unfortunately without hardware support from the backlight.

The screen accepts HDR10 input signals and offers reasonable EOTF tracking, along with very good RGB balance, greyscale temperature and greyscale accuracy. The EOTF is a bit brighter than intended in most shades which causes some over-brightening, and the shadow detail in HDR mode is really poor too, with the first visible grey shade being RGB 12. This had been very good in SDR mode, but not so in HDR.

The screens native colour gamut remains active with no additional clamping in HDR mode and there’s good overall colour accuracy for HDR content. We wouldn’t consider this a good screen for HDR content or HDR gaming though due to its limited hardware capabilities.

Gaming

The UG40P is positioned by Z-EDGE as being suitable for both work and gaming, and there’s a range of interesting specs and extra features to support the latter. The large, curved, ultrawide screen provides an immersive experience, especially in games which support the 21:9 aspect ratio, as you get a really nice ultrawide field of view. It’s a nice step up in size as well compared with common 34″ ultrawide screens, giving you a more immersive experience which is really nice. The steep 1000R curvature means the screen is best viewed from a head on, central viewing position though.

The VA LCD panel provides a high contrast ratio and our testing earlier showed very good shadow detail, making this well suited to handling darker games if needed. Viewing angles are moderate, but again it’s best to view the screen from a head-on position to minimise gamma and colour tone shifts.

Gaming considerations

The 5K2K resolution can provide a sharp and clear image, along with support for high resolution content very nicely, but at the same time it will be a challenge to run higher frame rates at this high resolution natively. There’s 33% more pixels in fact than a 16:9 4K screen, so that’s even more demanding on your system. You’ll need a high end system and graphics card to run games at that 5K2K resolution for sure. It allows for native support of 4K games, even if you have to run them in 16:9 aspect ratio, and will support 1:1 pixel mapping thanks to its 2160px vertical resolution.

Of course you don’t have to play games at 5K2K, this seems to be something people commonly get hung up on when they see high resolution displays like this. You can enjoy this high resolution for desktop apps, office work and productivity tasks; and then there’s various approaches you could take with games. You can turn your in-game resolution down, play at lower detail settings, or use technologies like NVIDIA DSR / DLDSR and so on. The 5K2K resolution at least gives you the support should you want to run at native 5K2K for other uses or perhaps if you’re playing slower paced games where your system can manage that resolution anyway. Just turn things down for gaming if you need, and then enjoy 5K2K for other usage.

Refresh rate and dual-mode

(at native resolution)	Refresh Rate
Maximum Refresh Rate DisplayPort	180Hz (native) 360Hz (dual-mode)
Maximum Refresh Rate USB type-C	180Hz (native) 360Hz (dual-mode)
Maximum Refresh Rate HDMI	180Hz (native) 360Hz (dual-mode)
VRR range	48 – 180Hz / 360Hz
ClearMR certification tier

The UG40P has a native 180Hz maximum refresh rate in 5K2K mode, with variable refresh rates (VRR) supported via adaptive-sync with a range of 48 – 180Hz (with LFC below that). At the moment no VRR certifications are listed or promoted, and we can’t see this model listed in the databases for NVIDIA, AMD or VESA.

There is also a dual-mode function on this screen, allowing you to double your refresh rate up to 360Hz when dropping to a much lower 2560 x 1080 (WFHD) resolution. It’s available via the (somewhat strangely labelled) ‘VESA dual-mode’ function in the OSD menu and takes a few seconds to switch to the alternative operation.

In dual mode it’s obviously quite a significant drop in resolution and you wouldn’t be using it for desktop apps, but in dynamic content and gaming it is probably fine for a lot of situations, especially if you’re sat a bit further away from the screen using a control pad. It’s also potentially useful for lower end systems where driving 5K2K gaming may be difficult and you want to lower the resolution, while giving you access to a higher refresh rate at the same time. We will explore performance more in a moment.

Gaming features

	Other Features
Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) support	No certifications listed at this time
VRR Anti flicker mode
Blur reduction mode
Dual-mode support	2560 x 1080 @ 360Hz
Dual-mode integer scaling
Gaming extras	Refresh rate counter Crosshair ‘Eagle Eye’ ‘Owl Sight’
Emulated gaming sizes	24.5″, 27″, 32″ (see notes below for details)

As well as the dual-mode function, this screen supports a blur reduction mode (via the ‘MPRT’ function in the menu) which we will explore in a moment. There’s also a few gaming extras like an FPS counter, crosshair graphics and their ‘Eagle Eye’ and ‘Owl Sight’ functions.

• Eagle Eye offers you a virtual zoom or windowed magnification function that enlarges a portion in the centre of the screen, perhaps useful to magnify a common crosshair area to help spot distant enemies or fine details in that region.
• Owl Sight changes the gamma and brightness of a large central portion of the screen to make it easier to see detail in dark areas, or you can set this to run full screen if you want as well.

Z-EDGE also provide some emulated screen size options in the menu, although these are only accessible when running in the native 5K2K mode, not in dual-mode. They are labelled in the OSD menu as 24.5″, 27″ and 32″, but actually they seem to run at slightly different screen sizes as they are linked to specific resolution settings. That’s because each mode runs with 1:1 pixel mapping, leaving you with a sharp and clear image, just a smaller active screen area.

• 24.5″ mode actually simulates a ~21″ sized screen, running at 2560 x 1440 resolution
• 27″ mode actually simulates a slightly smaller ~26.3″ sized screen, running at 3200 x 1800 resolution
• 32″ mode actually simulates a slightly smaller ~31.5″ sized screen (close enough!), running at 3840 x 2160 (4K) resolution

Response times and motion clarity

There are two separate response time settings in the menu. The first is called ‘Response time’ and controls the overdrive level, with 5 settings for Off, Standard, Best, High and Extreme available. There’s an additional setting called ‘Dynamic response time’ with options for off and on. We’ll test various combinations and options to evaluate performance and identify the optimal mode.

The following response time tests were based on our improved measurement approach described in our article here. This provides G2G and overshoot figures which more accurately reflect real-world performance than traditional approaches.

We first of all tested the screen at its maximum native refresh rate of 180Hz in each of the response time modes (dynamic response time = Off). The ‘off’ setting had fairly slow response times at 6.9ms G2G average, although unlike most VA panels we’ve tested in the past, the black smearing levels were only moderate. Black smearing is caused by slow transitions from black to grey, shown along the top row of the table. You can see they are slower here than other transitions, but not super-slow.

The response times are improved a fair bit when you enable overdrive and move to the ‘standard’ mode, now down to 5.4ms G2G average and with some improvements in the motion clarity and black smearing. There’s very little visual change as you move up to the ‘Best’ or ‘High’ modes from there, with some very slight adjustments to motion clarity but a bit more overshoot starting to creep in to the measurements. Never to the point where it becomes really noticeable, even in the ‘High’ overdrive setting.

The ‘Extreme’ setting on the other hand takes things way too far. G2G speeds are improved a lot, down to 2.9ms G2G now, but the overshoot is terrible, with really obvious and distracting pale and dark halos. That mode is to be avoided!

The above motion clarity photos capture real world perceived motion clarity at 180Hz in each mode. You can see the improvements as you move from Off > Standard, and then some small improvements as you increase the setting further. There is some moderate black smearing visible behind the red part of the UFO on the darker backgrounds, but it’s not as severe as you will see on many other VA panels. The ‘Extreme’ mode shows loads of noticeable overshoot.

For comparison here’s some pursuit camera photos of various other VA panels we’ve tested in recent times. Some models like the Cooler Master GP2711 show much more black smearing as the panel is much slower transitioning from black to grey. The Samsung Odyssey Neo G8 is one of the few VA panels which is free from this VA issue entirely with faster response times. We’d put the Z-EDGE UG40P on par with the AOC Q27G3XMN in response time performance and motion clarity, which is good as that’s a very popular model.

Response times in VRR situations

• Standard
• Best
• High

Standard

Best

High

With adaptive-sync VRR enabled we need to consider the response time performance in the 3 main modes again, to see how things perform as the frame rate fluctuates. For these measurements we left ‘dynamic response time’ turned off still for now.

There’s not a huge amount to separate the 3 modes, but the ‘Best’ setting seemed to offer minor improvements over ‘standard’, while pushing it further to ‘high’ introduced some further overshoot at the lower frame rates which was unwanted, and without any real added benefit elsewhere. The ‘best’ setting seemed to be….well, best.

Dynamic response time setting

• Best (dynamic)
• High (dynamic)

Best (dynamic)

High (dynamic)

If you enable the ‘dynamic response time’ toggle, it seems to cause a small slow down in response times overall, from ~5.2 G2G in the Best mode before, to ~5.9ms G2G here. In doing so, it also reduces the overshoot a bit which is good news, and so for that small improvement the reduction of the G2G speeds we felt was a worthwhile trade-off. It’s not operating a traditional “dynamic overdrive” as such, but it does tweak the overall performance a little to help reduce overshoot.

It’s the same story in the ‘High’ mode, the dynamic response time setting slows down the G2G speeds a very small amount, but reduces the overshoot quite nicely at the same time. Not enough additional improvement over the ‘Best’ mode we didn’t think though.

Dual-mode response times

In the dual-mode operation we settled on the ‘Best’ response time setting again, with dynamic enabled as well. This offered the best overall balance between G2G speeds and overshoot.

The trouble with dual-mode is that the response times are not fast enough to keep up reliably keep up with the increased refresh rate of 360Hz, with overall poor refresh rate compliance. That means some additional added smearing in certain situations, and it seems to accentuate the moderate black smearing unfortunately.

Here’s some pursuit camera photos comparing 360Hz dual-mode to 180Hz native mode. The image is sharper and clearer in dual-mode thanks to the higher refresh rate, and smaller details become a bit easier to make out. The black smearing is increased though in darker content as while the response times don’t really change much, the frame rate does, and there’s added smearing because of the reduced refresh rate compliance.

Overall though the dual-mode does offer improved motion experience, along with improved end to end latency and frame rate support, so it’s a viable mode for certain gaming situations if you’re happy to play at a lower resolution.

MPRT blur reduction mode

Motion Blur Reduction Mode
Motion Blur Reduction Backlight
Refresh rates supported	120, 144, 165, 180Hz (native mode) Plus 240, 300, 320, 360Hz (in dual-mode)
60Hz single strobe operation
Blur reduction available with G-sync/FreeSync VRR
Strobe length control
Strobe timing control
Available in SDR mode
Available in HDR mode
Brightness capability (SDR, max refresh rate supported)
Independent brightness control available
Motion blur OFF – Max brightness	490 nits
Motion blur ON – Max brightness	74 nits

Z-EDGE provide a motion blur reduction mode via the ‘MPRT’ function in the OSD menu. To get access to this you need to disable FreeSync VRR first of all, and be running at a supported refresh rate. It’s available at basically all the detected refresh rates in native and dual-mode, apart from 60Hz. If you want to use this mode you will need to determine a realistic fixed refresh rate for your system and games. The strobing of the backlight is in sync with the refresh rate of the screen as intended.

Once enabled, you lose access to many of the screen settings, including the response time controls, game modes and gaming features other than the crosshair graphics. The main thing you lose access to though is the brightness control and this mode has a very limited brightness of ~74 nits which makes it restrictive for many gaming situations. It doesn’t matter what you set brightness to before you enable MPRT, it always switches to the same brightness once turned on. Given the max SDR brightness with this feature turned off is a high 490 nits, we’re not sure why the brightness with it turned on is so low, it’s a drastic hit unfortunately.

There are some improvements to some aspects of motion clarity with MPRT enabled as you can see above. The outlines of the moving image become sharper and clearer, and small parts like the moving text also become a clearer which is good. However, in native 180Hz mode there is a fairly obvious ghost image introduced which is potentially distracting and may outweigh the other benefits. The centre of the screen is a bit clearer than the top and bottom areas as well due to strobe timing.

The ghosting image is not really visible in the dual-mode at 360Hz (and other high refresh rate settings) and there’s good improvements in sharpness and clarity again. However, it can’t mask the increased black smearing present in dual-mode, caused by the response times being too slow to reliably keep up with the frame rate.

VRR Flicker

VRR flicker is something you often see talked about on OLED monitors, and something we’ve explored in depth in the past. It’s not exclusive to OLED panels though, and some LCD’s can sometimes show the same issue. We’ve not seen any IPS monitors that show any noticeable flicker so far, but we have seen a couple of VA models exhibit some, so we tested that here as well.

• Native mode 180Hz
• Dual-mode 360Hz

Native mode 180Hz

Dual-mode 360Hz

In both native and dual-mode operation there didn’t seem to be much visible flicker at all if the frame rate stayed above around 100fps which was good news. That’s especially true in dual-mode where it gives you a very wide 100 – 360Hz range without any real flicker. Only where frame rates drop below ~100fps did some minor flicker start to appear, mostly visible in darker scenes we found. Nothing major here to be honest.

Console support

	Console Gaming
Native panel resolution	5120 x 2160 “5K2K”
Maximum resolution and refresh rate supported	4K @ 120Hz
4K at 24Hz support
4K at 50Hz support
HDMI connection version	2.1
HDMI connection bandwidth	40 Gbps
HDMI-CEC auto switch
VRR (variable refresh rates)
Auto Low Latency Mode (ALLM)
HDR10 support
Dolby Vision HDR support
Display aspect ratio controls for 16:9
Blur reduction mode available	at 120Hz only
Integrated speakers
eARC sound over HDMI
Headphone connection
Ultra high speed HDMI 2.1 cable provided

The screen has reasonable support for games consoles. Because of the 21:9 aspect ratio, you will need to enable the ‘auto’ aspect ratio control option in the OSD menu to avoid 16:9 aspect console inputs from being stretched horizontally. Thanks to the 2160px vertical resolution of the panel there is native 1:1 support for 4K resolutions without any scaling which is great, and 4K 120Hz is supported fine.

Oddly even though you can set the screen to 4K 120Hz without issue, the Xbox Series X display details tells you that 4K 60Hz cannot be supported at 10-bit, only 8-bit if the content allows it. If you enable “Allow YCC 4:2:2” from the Xbox settings, this message goes away but that suggests that although 4K 60Hz 10-bit is now supported, it will run at reduced chroma. We’re not sure why this is happening, the screen has 40Gbps of HDMI 2.1 bandwidth available, but it’s easy enough to just set it to 4K 120Hz anyway, so it’s a non-issue. 4K 24Hz and 50Hz content are also not supported, leaving a gap for video and movie playback.

VRR is supported or you can disable that and use MPRT blur reduction mode at 120Hz if you want. This screen has some reasonable 2x 5W integrated speakers and a headphone jack for audio which are handy for external devices like this. An HDMI-CEC feature would have been useful to auto switch over to the console’s HDMI input when it was powered on. As it is, you have to manually change the input in the menu each time.

Lag

We measured lag at various refresh rates and this shows the total display lag, made up partly from signal processing delay, and partly from the response times of the panel.

There was moderate lag at both the native 180Hz refresh rate and when using dual-mode at 360Hz, more than we generally see from modern gaming monitors which are typically <1ms. There is an “ALLM” (Auto Low Latency Mode) setting in the OSD menu which was enabled for these tests. We wouldn’t call it a lot of lag, but competitive gamers may notice it. Although competitive gamers probably aren’t using a massive VA LCD screen like this anyway.

Conclusion

The Z-EDGE INFINYX UG40P is an impressive all round display with a very good feature set, some impressive panel performance and a very attractive price point for a screen of this size. The large 40″ ultrawide panel and 5K2K resolution give you a huge area for work, productivity and multi-tasking and that’s still a pretty rare combination in the monitor market. It’s a nice step up from more common 34″ ultrawide screens we think for those wanting something bigger. Text is clear and sharp with a high pixel density, and the curvature improves comfort on such a large screen. The curve may be a little steep for some people but you soon get used to it we think.

For general office and work uses the factory calibration was excellent, and we were really impressed with the performance there. There’s useful and well-configured colour space modes, a very wide brightness adjustment range, very good SDR shadow detail and a very high contrast ratio for an LCD display thanks to the VA panel technology. Viewing angles are a bit more restrictive than competing IPS options, but from a head on position it’s not an issue and the curvature helps too.

Feature wise Z-EDGE have included a lot of extras, things which are normally the first to be removed when trying to meet an aggressive price point like this. There’s single-cable USB type-C connectivity, a KVM switch function, PiP/PbP support, USB data ports and even some reasonable integrated speakers. The stand is also surprisingly strong and sturdy with good ergonomic adjustments.

Gaming performance is a bit of a mixed bag, but generally adequate for casual gaming. In native mode it offers decent response times and motion clarity, with moderate levels of the familiar VA black smearing present. This is one area where an IPS LCD could be clearer, although we have seen worse VA panels for sure. Dual-mode offers a reasonable improvement in overall motion clarity if you’re prepared to game at the lower resolution, although the challenges with the black smearing become more pronounced at the higher frame rate, so the panel begins to struggle more as you push higher than the native 180Hz. MPRT mode works quite well in dual-mode, but is less useful in native mode due to the ghost images it produces, and it has a low brightness which may be a problem for a lot of gamers. Console support was adequate, but input lag was higher than we typically see from modern gaming monitors.

We think this screen is best positioned for general and office uses where it excels, while still being capable of handling some casual gaming when needed.

Most impressive of all with this screen is its price point. It’s available at the time of writing at an incredibly attractive introductory offer price of $699.99 USD (MSRP is $899.99 USD), making it far more affordable than the few competing 40″ 5K2K LCD monitors already available on the market. For instance the Dell UltraSharp U4025QW retails for ~$2400 USD and the LG UltraFine evo 40U990A-W retails for ~$1800 USD currently. Those models use IPS panels and have a differing feature set to this Z-EDGE monitor, but it’s hard to argue with that price difference. We’re waiting on confirmation about wider release in Europe and the UK and we’ll update this section when we have more info to share; but the UG40P is available in North America already and you can check latest pricing and availability using our affiliate link above.

If you’ve looking for a large format ultrawide LCD monitor for a range of uses, this newcomer is definitely worth checking out.

Official Z-EDGE product page: https://www.z-edge.com/products/ug40p

Pros	Cons
Massive screen size and resolution are great for office and general usage and multi-tasking	Some issues with gaming response times in dual-mode especially and moderate input lag
Very high contrast ratio for an LCD panel	No real HDR hardware capabilities supported
Good range of extra features despite the aggressive price	MPRT mode is low brightness

We may earn a commission if you purchase from our affiliate links in this article- TFTCentral is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Programme, an affiliate advertising programme designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.de, Amazon.ca and other Amazon stores worldwide. We also participate in a similar scheme for Overclockers.co.uk, Newegg, Bestbuy , B&H and some manufacturers.

Stay Up to Date