MSI Modern MD342CQPW review: A great ultrawide all-rounder for sensible money

A monitor does not need to be cutting edge to be brilliant – and the MSI Modern MD342CQPW is a perfect example. This is an entirely unremarkable ultrawide monitor in almost every way, but it's sensibly designed, well connected, and delivers solid image quality in all the ways that matter for around £250. For many buyers, that's reason enough to hit the buy button.

The focal point of the MD342CQPW is its curved 3,440 x 1,440 VA panel – a good fit for an everyday productivity monitor. MSI has combined a 1500R curve with a matte anti-glare finish so it's well suited to office work, and it doesn't skimp on the essentials such as USB-C connectivity, 98 watts of power delivery for modern laptops, and an adjustable stand. In short, there's a lot to like.

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MSI Modern MD342CQPW monitor: Design & Features

The MSI's all-white matte body is all plastic and unsurprisingly rather hollow-feeling, but build quality is good for the price. The wide oval base screws to the stand with a captive thumbscrew, and it does a great job of keeping the monitor firmly planted to the desk. There is a little wobble at the stand's maximum 110mm extension, but it's not a problem for anything other than the most heavy-handed typists. There's plenty of swivel adjustment, a limited amount of tilt, and understandably there's no pivot mode at all.

The connectivity here isn't generous, but it strikes a useful balance. You get a single DisplayPort input alongside a pair of HDMI inputs, and the USB-C input ferries data, video, and audio as well as 98 watts of power delivery. There's a 3.5mm headphone output, too. It's a shame that MSI had to resort to an external power supply, though – you'll have to find somewhere to hide the chunky 180-watt brick.

The presence of a basic KVM switch is welcome. Connect one laptop to the USB-C port, and you can connect a second computer to the USB Type-B input and share the pair of 5Gbps USB-A ports at the rear. Switching between machines can be done via the monitor's NaviKey shortcut button, or you can install the MSI Productivity Intelligence software and swap machines with a keyboard shortcut.

The on-screen display is fine. The menu layout is easy to understand, the text is big enough to be nice and legible, and the features are easy to find. In fact, the only negative here is the controls: the old-school strip of buttons side by side does make it fiddlier than the clickable joystick on newer designs. Adjust the brightness, for instance, and if you accidentally hit the left-hand button rather than the right, it cancels the adjustment and forces you to repeat the process – this is mildly irksome.

MSI Modern MD342CQPW monitor: Display quality

We weren't hugely impressed by the MD342CQPW at first. The Windows taskbar and icons looked washed out compared to other recent LCD and OLED-based monitors that we've reviewed. Switching from the standard Eco mode to the sRGB or User modes didn't seem to improve matters, either. Then we raised the monitor a few centimetres: suddenly the taskbar icons regained their usual vibrancy.

This issue is something that's common to monitors which use VA panel technology. The curvature of the panel here does a fantastic job of hiding it, but if the screen is too high or too low – or you're viewing it away from head-on – you'll notice that contrast falls rapidly and colors start to look very washed out.

Get the height just so, however, and the MSI delivers a really pleasant image. Text is dramatically more crisp than on OLED displays with a similar pixel density, and it produces a pleasingly wide range of color. You can leave it in the factory-supplied Eco mode, or switch it to the User or sRGB picture modes depending on whether you prefer more saturated colours, or a more muted sRGB presentation.

The User mode allows the monitor to produce the widest palette of colors. Measured against a Display P3 target, it achieved a very respectable average Delta E of 1.98 and covered 86% of the DCI-P3 color space. That's a fair amount less than the claimed 95%, but it's fine for a panel of this calibre. That missing 14% means that there are some inaccuracies across certain shades of color, some of which it simply can't reproduce, but it's not going to be noticeable in daily use.

And especially not given that the rest of the results are really very good. Whites look natural thanks to the 6,441k white point, and the 1,758:1 contrast ratio – while not class-leading – means that blacks don't look as washed out as they can on cheaper panels. The overall image here really is very nice indeed.

The sRGB mode is slightly more accurate again. The average Delta E of 1.61 is respectable, and the panel only exceeds a Delta E of 3 in the most saturated red tones. Again, contrast is good at 1,716:1.

Both of these picture modes are preset to a brightness of around 170cd/m2. Raise the brightness control from the default 70 to the maximum 100, and the peak brightness reaches a modest 314cd/m2. It goes a little higher in HDR mode, with a peak brightness of 364cd/m2, but that's still not enough to make the HDR mode worth using as it simply can't get bright enough to reveal all the detail in the highlights.

One thing worth knowing is that several of the other user modes automatically enable the monitor's Image Enhancement feature at varying levels of intensity. This just adds a coarse, ugly sharpening effect to the image, so it is best avoided. If you like the image quality in these modes, you'd be advised to delve into the menu and enhance the image by disabling the 'enhancement' features.

Motion clarity is really very respectable for a non-gaming monitor. The 120Hz refresh rate adds some very welcome smoothness to the Windows desktop, and is easier on the eye than 60Hz alternatives. Switch tempo with a fast-paced action game and the MSI's combination of balanced color reproduction, ample brightness and respectable response time makes for a really enjoyable experience.

Motion isn't as crisp as faster gaming panels, but it's more than adequate in most scenarios. We say most because darker scenes remain a bugbear for VA panel technology: you can see the clarity degrade as you move into the shadows. Our advice is to bump up the response time to its Fastest setting and put up with a very clear halo of visible overshoot, or leave it on Faster where the overshoot is less noticeable.

There is also an MPRT backlight strobing mode in addition to AMD Freesync Premium support. The former requires a rock-steady framerate to prevent ghosting, and brightness drops right down to 130cd/m2, so you'll need to drop the lighting to make it usable – whether the clarity increase benefit is worthwhile is something to experiment with on a game-by-game basis. Similarly, there is some VRR flicker evident if your framerates are unstable, so it's well worth tweaking the game settings to achieve the most consistent performance possible.

MSI Modern MD342CQPW monitor: Is it worth it?

The MSI Modern MD342CQPW monitor is a dependable jack-of-all-trades. The negatives are mostly minor inconveniences rather than ever-present irks – the external power supply and rubbish speakers – and even the mediocre viewing angles aren't a problem for most users. As someone who spends most days with an OLED somewhere on the desk, we were more than happy to keep the MSI centre-stage for daily use – the image quality and motion clarity here treads an almost perfect line of good enough.

And that's before you even consider the benefits of an ultrawide format display. The extra desktop space is invaluable during working hours, and it does really add an extra level of immersion to games, too. Suffice to say, if you're seeking an affordable ultrawide monitor that's a great all-rounder, then the MSI Modern MD342CQPW deserves your attention.

MSI Modern MD342CQPW monitor specification