Acer Predator Z57 review: a monitor bigger than my desk

The Acer Predator Z57 is pure insanity. At 57 inches with a 32:9 aspect ratio and over 1,000 nits of peak brightness, it makes even the best gaming monitors green with envy. It has the size, and it has the specs — but as our monitor buying guide will tell you, there’s more to a monitor than size and specs alone.

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It’s hard not to walk away impressed when you first see the Predator Z57, but as I’ve lived with it for a few weeks, I’ve uncovered some issues. The monitor delivers the super-impressive experience that 32:9 displays are known for, and with excellent image quality in tow. However, there are a lot of caveats when it comes to actually using the monitor day in and day out, and they’re important to talk about when the display in question costs $2,000.

Video review

Acer Predator Z57 specs

Design

You already know the Predator Z57 is huge, but it’s hard to overstate just how massive it actually is. Most monitors cheat with their size — a 27-inch monitor like the Alienware AW2725QF actually uses a 26.5-inch panel — but not the Predator Z57. It’s cheating in the opposite direction with a 57.1-inch panel in a 32:9 chassis. When it’s set up, the monitor is over 4 feet wide, and the massive dual-point stand occupies nearly 2 feet of depth on your desk. If that hasn’t scared you off, the monitor also weighs 40 pounds. It is unironically the size of a five-year-old child.

Acer makes good use of the space. There’s plenty of branding around the monitor, with a large Predator logo on the base of the stand, and the name of the brand spelled out on the bottom bezel. Around the back, you also get a rectangle of RGB lights where the stand connects to the monitor, and you’re free to customize it with different colors and effects through the on-screen display (OSD). If you don’t like the stand, you can use the VESA mount on the monitor — and that’s the best way to go given how much desk space the stand alone takes up. Regardless of your mount, make sure to get a friend to help when setting up the monitor; I cut my finger in two spots between lifting the monitor out of the box and getting it on a desk.

Massive as it is, the stand offers some solid adjustments points. You get 20 degrees of tilt and 4.33 inches of height adjustment, along with 30 degrees of swivel in either direction. There’s no pivot here, however, which is probably a good thing. You aren’t going to be turning this monitor vertical any time soon, and a slight tweak in the pivot of a 57-inch monitor can literally cause a headache.

Acer includes a cable-routing channel through the back of the monitor, but it doesn’t run out the front of the stand. Regardless of how you set up the display, you’ll probably see some dangling cables with how far away, for example, the power connector is from your display input. Maybe Acer needed to reinforce the stand to support the monitor, but a proper cable-routing channel that runs through the stand would go a long way here — as would some extra long cables, for that matter. This is a $2,000 monitor, after all.

Features

Given that this is a $2,000 monitor that sits alongside panels like the Samsung Odyssey OLED G9, you probably expect that it has features oozing out of every corner. Unfortunately, that’s not the case. This is just a monitor, and although Acer includes some extra goodies, you don’t get a full operating system like you’ll find on Samsung’s 32:9 OLED.

That can make actually using the monitor a hassle given its massive size. For instance, Acer includes picture-in-picture and picture-by-picture modes, both of which are essential for a 32:9 monitor (more on why that’s the case later). Instead of quickly accessing these features with a remote, however, you have to slowly go through the OSD, select your inputs, and adjust where you want them to live. The features are here, but given the gargantuan size of the monitor, I hoped they would be easy to set up and adjust.

Where the Predator Z57 misses out compared to Samsung’s Odyssey OLED G9 is the Tizen operating system that Samsung uses. With Samsung’s monitor, you can easily pull up a streaming app on one half of the screen while playing a game on the other. Here, you need two separate sources for the picture-by-picture modes. It works very well for console gaming, though I found myself resorting to Windows PowerToys to adjust window layouts if I was doing everything off of a PC.

The picture-by-picture mode has a big downside on the Predator Z57, however. It locks your refresh rate to 60Hz if you use 4K for both sources, or it limits your resolution to 1440p if you want a 120Hz refresh rate. In addition, you can’t use HDR when using the picture-by-picture mode.

The Predator Z57 has an edge when it comes to speakers, however. It includes stereo speakers with access to 10 watts of power, and they’re surprisingly powerful. I guess it’s not too surprising when you consider how massive this monitor is, but I’m glad to see Acer at least put the extra space to good use.

Ports and controls

As mentioned, you can only control the Predator Z57 through the OSD. There are a ton of monitors in 2024 that allow you to control your monitor with a keyboard and mouse, and that feels sorely missing from the Predator Z57. You’ll want to set it up several feet away from you given how massive the Predator Z57 is, which means you’ll have to lean over a lot to access your settings. And you’ll need to access them fairly frequently between the picture-by-picture mode and volume adjustment.

The ports side of things is much better, though. You get dual HDMI 2.1 ports and a DisplayPort 1.4 connection, both of which are capable of delivering the dual 4K resolution at the maximum 120Hz refresh rate. No, there isn’t DisplayPort 2.1 here. Samsung’s Odyssey Neo G9 comes with DisplayPort 2.1, but it also supports double the refresh rate at 240Hz. Even the RTX 4090 doesn’t support DisplayPort 2.1, so the compromise makes sense here.

You also get a USB-C input that’s capable of 90 watts of power delivery, and I love the inclusion here. With the picture-by-picture mode, you essentially have two fully functional 4K displays, so it’s not out of the question to have, for example, a laptop hooked up to the USB-C connection for work while you have background videos pulled up on your personal PC. Acer even includes a KVM switch for swapping your peripherals.

The Predator Z57 is a bit unruly if you only have one device hooked up to it, but you’re definitely set up for success if you have multiple devices you want to control. I wish accessing the picture-by-picture mode was easier, sure, but there’s no denying that Acer includes all of the essential connections for this unique form factor.

Image quality

This is one heck of a monitor. It’s dual 4K, with a resolution of 7,680 x 2,160, and it uses a mini-LED backlight with 2,304 local dimming zones. It also has a DisplayHDR 1000 certification, and Acer claims it has up to 1,000 nits of peak brightness. Even with those lofty expectations, the Predator Z57 managed to exceed on every front.

Starting with color coverage, you’re getting 100% of sRGB coverage basically across the board, which shouldn’t come as a surprise. In the wide-gamut Graphics mode, however, you’re also getting 97% coverage of DCI-P3 and 93% coverage of AdobeRGB, which is on the level of recent OLED monitors like the Asus ROG Swift PG27AQDP. Coverage obviously shrinks in other picture modes, but Acer made good on its claim of covering 97% of DCI-P3.

Color accuracy was basically perfect out of the box when tested against sRGB. Without touching anything, I measured a color error of just 0.76. Calibration only provided a slight edge, bringing the color error down to 0.71. That’s exceptional color accuracy on the level of something like the Alienware 32 QD-OLED, and it’s shocking considering the Predator Z57 is using a VA panel.

If you had any concerns about brightness, you can put them to rest. The Predator Z57 blows past the 1,000 nits that Acer claims, reaching up to 1,411 nits in HDR. It nearly scratched 500 nits in SDR, too, which is insane. Using the monitor, I can tell you that it gets uncomfortably bright if you want it to.

With the high level of local dimming zones, you also get fantastic contrast. Even with the brightness cranked up, the black level was just 0.02 nits. It’s not true black like you find with an OLED, but it’s about as close as you’re going to get. You’re not getting a 100,000,000:1 contrast ratio like Acer claims — based on my measurements, the maximum contrast is about 70,500:1 — but that difference hardly matters when we’re talking about a screen that can get this bright.

I was floored when I took the Predator Z57 out of the box due to its massive size, but the image quality is what really sold me on the monitor. It’s incredibly sharp, dense with contrast, and ripe with color. No, this isn’t what you’ll get with a proper OLED monitor, but it’s really close.

Gaming and 32:9 woes

I know — who am I to complain about gaming on an incredibly immersive gaming monitor that comes in at $2,000? There’s definitely a unique experience to using the Predator Z57 as your gaming display, and when it’s working the way it should, there’s nothing quite like it. The novelty wears off quickly, though, and for me, the massive size of the Predator Z57 becomes too much to manage once you start putting it through its paces in games.

Let’s get this out of the way first, though: Yes, this is one of the most engrossing gaming experiences I’ve ever had. The 57-inch display completely captures your field of view in a game like Cyberpunk 2077, and it makes you feel like you’ve stepped into another world. That really isn’t an exaggeration. In fact, I could only play games in short sessions due to the aggressive 1000R curve and how it filled my field of vision. It’s easy to throw a word like “immersive” around haphazardly, but the Predator Z57 earns it.

I wouldn’t want to play games like this all the time, though. For starters, you can get some motion sickness depending on how close you sit to the monitor. If you’re playing a fast-paced game like Marvel’s Spider-Man, the speed lines wrapping around the edges of the curved display can create this weird disconnect with your brain. It’s not VR, nowhere even close, but I was still left feeling a little uneasy after longer play sessions.

That’s not really my main gripe with the Predator Z57, however. It’s just playing games at this insane aspect ratio and with these insane specs. A lot of games don’t support a 32:9 aspect ratio, and even if they do, you’ll be snapped back to 16:9 the moment you open a menu. In games like Elden Ring that don’t natively support aspect ratios above 16:9, you can find mods. However, in the case of Elden Ring — and I’m sure other titles — you’ll see objects running at a lower frame rate and being called out of the game world outside of the normal 16:9 window.

There’s also the resolution to contend with. This is a dual 4K monitor pushing just shy of 16.6 million pixels — double the 8.3 million pixels on a 4K monitor like the LG UltraGear Dual Mode OLED. Even with the RTX 4090, I had to massively push down the graphics settings in a game like Cyberpunk 2077, and take up tools like DLSS Frame Generation to get a playable frame rate. I don’t think anyone with a midrange PC is in the market for a $2,000 monitor, but I’d take a good look at your PC before picking up this display. Unless you have the cream of the crop of current-gen hardware, you’re going to run into performance issues.

From a gaming standpoint, the strength of the Predator Z57 isn’t using it in its 32:9 mode. You can pull it out occasionally, but the monitor really shines if you think of it as two separate 4K displays. You need to do some tweaking with FancyZones in Microsoft PowerToys to get a layout that works well, but once you do, you can easily have four or more windows on your screen at once, including a game running at 4K. That’s incredible.

Console gaming works well, too, assuming you’re OK settling for the refresh rate and resolution restrictions placed on the picture-by-picture mode. It still stings that features like HDR aren’t available when using picture-by-picture, but the experience is still solid despite that.

My personal issues with the 32:9 aspect ratio aren’t a mark against the Predator Z57. I’m well aware of the community of ultrawide enthusiasts that swear by the aspect ratio for productivity and gaming. However, it’s important to point out the pitfalls of 32:9 compared to a traditional 16:9 display. The first impressions of a display like this are often much more rosy than reality, so I’d strongly encourage anyone interested in picking up the Predator Z57 to find a demo unit and spend some good time with it before making a decision.

Should you buy the Acer Predator Z57?

There are only two of these 57-inch 32:9 monitors on the market — Acer’s Predator Z57 and the Samsung Odyssey Neo G9. Acer comes in at $2,000, while Samsung charges $2,500 for its display, though it has a 240Hz refresh rate. Samsung also requires DisplayPort 2.1 to unlock the full refresh rate, locking out the vast majority of current-gen PCs. Still, if you’re going to spend over $2,000 on a gaming monitor, you want it to last.

Acer has managed to bring this design down to a more affordable price, if you can call $2,000 affordable. I’m struggling to justify that advantage when Samsung’s monitor is only $500 more — and when we’re talking about a monitor this expensive, $500 really isn’t that much. It’s not the 240Hz refresh rate alone; it’s that you can use up to 120Hz in picture-by-picture mode on the Samsung, whereas the Acer locks you to 60Hz. That alone nerfs one of the biggest use cases for a screen this large.

The Predator Z57 may stand as a crowning achievement of how big and how bright you can go, but it’s not the right monitor for most people. If you’re interested in diving into the 32:9 waters, I’d recommend the Odyssey OLED G9. It has a lower resolution, but it’s also OLED and comes in at around $1,300, all while providing a very similar experience to what you get here.