Buying a monitor can be a difficult purchase for a gamer to make. The market is oversaturated with products that boast impressive stats and prices that can range from $100 to $500. It’s likely that you want your next monitor to last you at least several years, so it is important to make a smart investment.

If you are invested in the e-sports scene, then you have probably heard of EIZO. They are co-sponsors of the DreamHack tournaments as well as Team Fnatic. They offer a wide variety of monitors for gaming, media, photography and the like.

Form factor

Obviously, the overall design of a monitor has nothing to do with the picture quality or performance, but I still feel like it is an important factor in deciding on a monitor. After all, you’ll be looking at the thing all day.

That being said, I am not the biggest fan of the FS2332’s body. Primarily, with the infrared port for the remote control and the built-in speakers, we are left with a pretty bulky monitor. It’s overly angular for my taste. Although many gamers will probably not take into account its somewhat bulky body, I personally prefer my monitors to be a bit slimmer.

At 23 inches, the monitor is a perfect size. I have used monitors ranging from 17 to 24 inches for gaming and have found 23 inches to really be a sweet spot. At 1080p and 23 inches, everything looks great. The picture is really crisp, and with games like StarCraft 2, it’s nice never needing to strain your eyes to see individual units or the mini-map.

I’d also like to mention the inputs. Having two HDMI ports as well as a DVI port and a D-Sub port means that you can have a wide variety of devices hooked up. For example, owners can plug in an Xbox 360, an HD cable box, and a PC. With the included remote, you could seamlessly switch between each of them without a hitch.

Speakers

The inclusion of speakers is certainly welcome with the FS2332. I love when manufactureres try to give me more for my money. But like with most on-board monitor speakers, the sound quality left much to be desired. They output a very “tinny” sound and lack any kind of substantial bass. Gunshots sounded like annoying high-pitched fire cracker explosions and it sounded like someone was ripping up crumpled paper directly in my ear.

Thankfully the monitor has a headphone jack located on it, so I was able to easily plug in my favorite headphones and adjust the volume with the included remote.

I can only hope that EIZO will note this and make improvements on their integrated speakers. If I am going to pay this much money, I want the product to excel in every category. Frankly, I would never use these speakers unless I absolutely had to.

The IPS panel

EIZO’s marketing specs for the FS2332 boasts an insane 178-degree viewing angle. To explain this as simply as possible, you can clearly see everything on the display from nearly any angle in front of it. The colors don’t get distorted and you don’t lose any parts of the image.

For competitive gaming teams this is absolutely awesome. Imagine you and your team lined up playing at a competitive LAN for Halo or Counter-Strike. You can easily look to your left and right and see exactly where your teammates are, see who needs help, and see where the enemy’s weak spot is without even having to speak.

This is also a really great feature if you plan on watching TV or movies on the monitor. You won’t have to worry about the picture color or image getting warped if you have friends and family sitting around it. The viewing angle will be unaltered for everyone, no matter their viewing position.

Gaming performance

Gaming with this monitor was a dream. The colors were incredibly rich and deep. I remember starting up my XBOX 360 and seeing the green glow of the Dashboard pop right off the screen. To be honest, it was actually a little jarring how powerful the colors were. Your eyes will adjust.

When using the monitor with my  XBOX 360, I played through the campaign of Gears of War 3 as well as some Halo: Reach. I saw little to no ghosting at all. Everything just looked awesome. The cinematic game play of GoW 3 really impressed me. Everything just looked beautiful and exploded off the screen. It made my experience playing the game more immersive. You know the monitor is good when you stop noticing it because you aren’t being distracted by strange colors and annoying ghosting.

EIZO said they believed this monitor would perform exceptionally well with RTS games like StarCraft 2. They’re right. The monitor’s depth of color and ability to virtually never ghost works really well with RTS games. Since you are constantly panning around the map to see what’s going on, you don’t want to ever see blurred, moving images, which can sometimes be found on lower-end monitors.

Pricing

After getting in touch with the guys at EIZO, they let me know that the MSRP of the Foris FS2332 is a whopping $599. As far as I’m concerned, this is way too expensive. Yes, the monitor is fully loaded and it contains nearly everything that you could possibly want in a monitor, but personally, I can’t ever justify spending $599 dollars on a monitor when there are much cheaper alternatives that perform comparably. Not only that, but the monitor isn’t perfect. It’s outstanding, but it is not perfect. For $599, “almost good enough” is just, well, not good enough.

Final thoughts

This monitor is jam packed with amazing features. The package is insane. You are getting nearly everything that you could want in a monitor. At a price. $599 is obviously very expensive, but I can comfortably say that you are paying for quality. If you are in the market for a new monitor and have a small fortune to spend on it, check out the FS2332. Just don’t forget there are similar, less expensive options out there.