Samsung Rolls Out Two Crazy Affordable FreeSync 4K Displays

It’s kind of impressive just how fast 4K resolution has infiltrated the market, and likewise, how fast the tech has become affordable. Just two summers ago, ASUS released its 31.5-inch PQ321 4K monitor. Its price? $3,800. Today, spending 20% of that will get you an awesome 4K monitor, but there are a bunch that cost almost half that.

Price drops are great, but so too is the fact that these monitors keep on getting better and better. As far as I’m concerned, one of the best monitor technologies to be released in recent years is variable sync (I explain it in detail here). It’s better than 3D, and it’s better than 4K. It’s a piece of tech I personally no longer like to go without. NVIDIA hit the market first with G-SYNC, and there are quite a good number of models out there that support it, but AMD is catching up fast with FreeSync, with Samsung now adding two more models to the list.

Samsung’s U24E590D, at $399, becomes what I believe to be the least-expensive variable sync display on the market. At Newegg, the least-expensive G-SYNC monitor I can find is from AOC, and while it has the same physical screen size, it’s 1080p, whereas the U24E590D is 4K, making it even more impressive.

If there’s a downside to the U24E590D, it could be that it has a 4ms response time – not 1ms – and 8 million pixels in a 24-inch frame is what I’d consider to be overkill. We have a 28-inch 4K in the lab and even that makes my eyes bleed before the DPI is cranked up. Still, it goes without saying that with such a high resolution in such a small frame, you’re going to see some incredible crispness.

At $599, Samsung has the U28E590D, the 28-inch bigger brother. There are some trade-offs with moving up: PLS is turned into TN, and the viewing angle is reduced slightly. On the flipside, this display reduces the response time to 1ms, and increases the brightness from 300 to 370 cd/m2.

Samsung says that the U28E590D will hit retail at any time, while the U24E590D will land on July 26.