Dahua LM32-E230C 32 inch FHD Curved VA Gaming Monitor 1920 x 1080 Refresh Rate 165Hz Response time 1ms Adaptive Sync, Wide Color Gamut DisplayPort HDMI BLACK

Two-minute review:

Dahua is a big-in-China manufacturer that makes many things and is particularly renowned for its surveillance cameras. Now it’s launching its first gaming monitor, so we were keen to see whether it could make a dent in a mature market – or at least offer a great new value proposition. We suspected the latter, as a primary benefit listed by the company is its “light and cost-effective plastic housing”. Nonetheless, we kept an open mind.

The LM32-E200C comes in three pieces that are assembled with a screwdriver. The wide V-shaped base attaches easily enough, but connecting the panel to the stand uses an unusually intricate design that initially concerned us regarding its weight-bearing capabilities, but thankfully held fast in our testing. However, it could wobble a bit when knocked and note that only tilt adjustment is available.

Connectivity is basic and comes in the form of two HDMI 2.0 ports and two DisplayPorts (1.4). The latter may cause issues with laptop users who mostly use USB-C connectors for DisplayPort nowadays, but this is only really an issue if they want to take advantage of the screen’s maximum refresh rate.

Features:

There’s not much in the way of extra features to get excited about with the Dahua LM32-E200C. There are no bells and whistles and beside from the 165Hz refresh rate, all we can point to are the slight curve in the screen (1500R), the 3.5mm audio jack (which is standard on most monitors) and the RGB strips at the rear that can be set to either red, green or blue (or a cycle of all three). That’s your lot.

Performance:

A 1080p-resolution Windows Desktop will always look stretched on a 32-inch monitor. It’s usable but small fonts get spidery and hard to identify very quickly. This issue is even more pronounced with characters in spreadsheets. We also found you had to zoom in very close to get a good look when performing image manipulation in Photoshop, as making intricate adjustments on a relatively low-res screen became tricky to perceive.

For multimedia, colours are a bit muted compared to rivals. We also noticed stepping in colour gradients and artefacts surrounding some areas of intricate detail. Motion was very smooth for the most part, but small fast-moving high-contrast objects did seem to smear across the screen somewhat. Contrast generally wasn’t great with detail getting lost in both dark and bright areas (meaning enemies can jump out at you when gaming). At only 250 nits, it’s not a particularly bright screen in the first place, so there’s not a great deal that can be done to fix things by fiddling with settings.