Upstar M280A1 28'' UHD 4K LED-Lit Monitor

My original review is below. Upstar has zero customer service. My monitor isn't working anymore and I have no way to get ahold of technical support. If your looking to buy this just try and visit Upstar.com....you can't! Any number you get is disconnected. Shame company. Says it's a "USA" company...it's not. DONT NOT BUY!!!!Great monitor good price. It really is beautiful. Only done some small scale gaming and so far it's had no issues. Only thing bad about it....it has one dead pixel, which I only notice occasionally. Not really a big deal to me.

I ended up ordering a replacement as soon as I got it. The price had dropped and there were two groupings of dead pixels.The pixels weren't too big of a deal, especially at 4K but I also wanted the discounted price.It came quick, and out of the box looked fine however the colors are very strange and took some tweaking.Nvidia had color radiance on and the monitor had some very strange settings that made it look like I was on slight mushrooms with how vivid it was.After spending maybe 5 minutes setting it up it works great. Video games look/play fantastic.My only ongoing gripe is that the screen has a glass panel over it much like apple monitors/laptops.I'm not sure if this is common to 4K UHD, but I know it's not for LED. The only time I've seen this type of glass is on apple products and Plasma tv's.It looks great but there are many windows and natural light so this screen is highly highly reflective of it. Annoying, but overall a great monitor for a great price.

OK, let's get the important part of the review out of the way right out of the gate. Would I recommend this monitor *AT THE PRICE I PURCHASED IT* - which has changed dramatically in the last week from $350 to $460. Yes. Would I recommend it at the current price? Maybe, but probably not as you're getting into Asus territory and there are some more reliable companies selling similar panels in that price range.Pros:A crystal clear 4K UHD display (3840 x 2160 16:9 @ 60Hz through Display Port)Included 3 connection cables. HDMI, DVI-D, and Display Port.A very comprehensive menu for fine tuningDecent color accuracy (99% sRGB, ~80% Adobe RGB)Cons:Extremely glossy. Blacks turn into a mirror.The gap between the panel and the glass is about 1/4"Smelled like dying of cancer when I opened the boxPower cable connection is cheap and feels like it's not entirely machined correctly when inserting the power cable.The quality of each monitor appears to be fairly random per other reviews.Build quality is hit and miss. Some parts of the bezel look perfectly machined. Other parts look glued on after the fact.Dual-panel which means sometimes you get the 'half screen' issue that plagues a lot of 4K monitors.Some buyers report only getting HDMI cables.Speculatively, I'd wager that this panel comes off of the same production lines as many high-end panels. There are many companies that will do runs after their contracted runs and sell those to small Chinese manufacturers and looking at this panel I'd guess that's what's going on here. The box was actually a joy to read. World Famous Brand! The company also appears to be very in tune with demand as the price has climbed with every single sale. So what does that mean as a consumer? Probably that you should look very carefully at other monitors in the price range when buying as you may be on a high cycle and are paying too much.The monitor performs as advertised for me. I say 'for me' again because other reviewers have had different experiences. Some have had dead pixels. Some have had dust inside the glass. Mine was free from those defects out of the box (which was dirty, dented, and pretty road worn when it got to me. The box INSIDE the Amazon shipping box, that is).What can you expect from this monitor? Well, it's too cool by default. But that's very easily remedied through the extremely generous menu. I love the granularity of image control on this thing. Warming it helps a great deal with the image. Sharpness is locked using Display Port, as it should be. It doesn't introduce artificial sharpening artifacts. It is far more reliable than my Dell monitor when it comes to not losing its mind on boot and displaying half the screen or no image at all. So, a huge win for UpStar there. If you're new to 4K, do your research. Pushing pixels is a tough job and most graphics cards - ESPECIALLY integrated cards - have a hard time doing it at 60Hz. So before you blame any 4K monitor for poor refresh, make sure you're using a card that can handle it. The Intel 4000 series, in example, will detect and allow 4K at 60, but in actual use you can see frames dropping constantly. A 980GTX is going to make this panel hum like nobody's business though. I've tested on both and a great card is essential for getting the most out of any 4K display.Final thoughts - this monitor represents a risk due to the type of manufacturing company you're dealing with. It was a gamble that I was willing to take at the lower end of the price cycle. It's not one I'd recommend above $375US just because other reviewers have clearly received displays that are lower quality. But if you roll a 20 and happen to get one that's without those flaws, you're going to be very happy with this display.

The monitor worked fine until a few weeks ago when ti started flickering and getting red lines through it on occasion, then it quit recognizing any inputs at all. I am rating it 2 stars as of now because I've never had a monitor die on me, and pending the outcome of the RMA process from Upstar I will update this and the number of stars to reflect the outcome.It cost me 95 dollars to ship it to them, and that was on me, but they did a quick turn around. If they would have covered the shipping both ways on their product it would have gotten 5 stars.