The colors are rich and consistent; the gamut is equivalent to ~120% sRGB, so you get some over-saturation for added vibrancy when viewing regular sRGB content. The Gigabyte M28U also supports HDR (High Dynamic Range) and has VESA’s DisplayHDR 400 certification. When playing HDR content, the monitor gets a boost in peak brightness to ~400-nits for more vivid highlights.

There was one thing that surprised me though - the spec sheet for this monitor (and online listings) do advertise it as having KVM functionality, and as such it has a USB Type C port. However, its listed signal input support is listed as being 1xDP1.4 with DSC and 2xHDMI2.1 (and a note for anyone buying, there are big asterisks around "HDMI 2.1" - it doesn't actually support 4K@144Hz 4:4:4; while I haven't tested myself, it will apparently have chroma subsampling over the HDMI ports!). While not mandatory for DisplayHDR 400 certification, the M28U also has localized dimming. However, there are only 8 zones that dim parts of the screen that needs to be dark. So, you’ll only see benefits from it when dark and bright objects are far apart. Note that the HDMI 2.1 ports of the monitor are limited to 24 Gbps and use DSC (Display Stream Compression) for 4K 144Hz 10-bit color 4:4:4. Then there's the stand. There had to be some cost-cutting with a monitor at this price point, and the stand has taken the brunt of it. It's sturdy, and so it's practically all it needs to be, though it's limited in its movement to just height and tilt adjustments. It's also a little bit cheap looking, and the underside relies on pads that are glued on for grip to the desk. On my review sample these pads have already started to peel away with the small adjustments I've made over time, and may end up having to be replaced just to keep the screen steady.

The real toss-up to consider before purchasing the M28U, then, is whether to buy a 4K, 16:9 panel or an ultrawide. The former has the pixel advantage, and you know your games will look incredibly detailed and crisp, but the latter may mitigate some of the performance load on your GPU while maintaining plenty of real estate for gaming and productivity. It's a tough call, and I think you can make a great case either way. This also means that if you’re using VRR (variable refresh rate) technology, such as FreeSync, and you’re getting around 60FPS (and therefore 60Hz), some overshoot will be noticeable too. With a peak brightness of 300-nits, the Gigabyte M28U can get more than bright enough under normal lighting conditions, while the static contrast ratio amounts to around 1,000:1, as expected from IPS panels.

Further, the Gigabyte M28U HDMI 2.1 monitor has the new Eyesafe certification which guarantees reduced harmful low-blue light emission even when a dedicated low-blue filter mode is not applied. There are also advanced image adjustment tools available, including sharpness, gamma, color hue/saturation and color vibrance. In short, you’re not getting the true HDR viewing experience (as expected from a 4K 144Hz monitor at this price range), but some scenes will look a bit better thanks to the display’s wide color gamut, a small boost in brightness, and at least some form of local dimming.

Moving on, the Gigabyte M28U boasts a rapid 1ms GtG pixel response time speed for minimal ghosting behind fast-moving objects. When I got the monitor though, I noticed the OSD has a 'Type C' input - and sure enough, I was able to connect my work machine and use it for video in addition to peripherals, so despite the fact it doesn't seem to be mentioned anywhere officially, this actually supports DP alt mode!