 Hey you, yeah you, there's a glaring issue with modern gaming displays. They all suffer from reduced vibrancy and image sharpness due to their matte screen coatings. And the solution, it's been staring us right in the face. Literally, the solution is to just remove it. Think about it. Every other display in your life does this. TVs, phones, watches, they all have glossy screens. Why? Is it just because there are no light sources around them to cause glare? No, it's because it just plain performs better. Apple has known this for years, which is why their displays are all designed to appear as smooth and flat as possible. Even the ones that have anti-glare coatings. But Apple's displays, even if they were affordable and had removable power cables, are not exactly ideal for gaming, leaving us with no choice. That is, until now. That's right. We are finally acknowledging the Eve Spectrum Gaming Monitor with glossy finish. It looks pretty good, but there are a few things that reflect poorly on the company itself, both past and present, that we simply can't ignore. And we're gonna talk about that and our sponsor. Storyblocks. Save time and money with Storyblocks by getting studio quality stock video clips for just a fraction of the cost. Check them out today at the link below or learn more at the end of this video. Hey there. In the time between shooting and uploading this video, Eve rebranded to Doe, which is a name. Usually this sort of behavior is a company trying to separate its brand from shady dealings that took place in the past. We can't say that's what's happening for sure here, but we don't really have a ton of other guesses. So with that in mind, I'm gonna go ahead and start with the video. So let's start with the video. So let's start with the video. So let's start with the video. So let's start with the video. I don't have any guesses, so with that in mind, every time I say Eve, think Doe. We covered an engineering sample, matte finish Eve spectrum early last year. And the results were, well, let's just say I didn't even want to make this video. But then we finally got our eyes on a finished unit of the glossy version. And I had to see what all the fuss was about. We're gonna game on it in a second, but right out of the gate, before we even do that, look at the difference in black depth from the matte one to the glossy one. And you can try it at different angles. Obviously, big difference in the reflection of Linus looking back at me. But once we light them up, assuming they're reasonably bright, which they are, even in a dark scene like this one, a lot of that distraction goes away. The reflection is more noticeable here, but it's still here in this one, and it has like a washed out look to it, doesn't it? The wild thing is that a lot of my perceived difference is not even real. If I look closely at it, these greens are the same, but this one just pops more. Like, it's not like if we put a spectrophotometer up to both of them, they're not gonna output the same color value. They do. It's just, like it's sharper, you know? In a moderately lit room, I could see preferring the matte one, but at either extreme, dark or extremely bright, this is obviously better. Like, come over and look at it from this angle. We've got this studio light here, right? So if you come over here, you're gonna see that reflection hit both of these top left parts of the screen. Here, yeah, you can obviously see the light. That sucks. But here, the entire quadrant of the display is blown out. You can't even see anything on it. Neither's ideal, obviously. You wanna turn off the light if you can, but I know which result I prefer. Bit of a brighter scene, so reflections are going to be less of an advantage or disadvantage. Either way, but when it comes to the vibrancy and the perceived contrast, wow. No question. No question. Now, in fairness, part of the problem is that we do have studio lights on, so what I would like to do, even though I know we're not really set up for it here, and this wasn't in the script, is I'd like to see them in the dark. That's how I would actually experience these at home. Does this guy have an overshield and I just killed him? Oh my God. I'm seven and one. These guys suck. Am I gonna have to get a glossy monitor now? Like what? Right? It's a lot closer without the lights. Yeah, but it's still a little sharper. The contrast difference is not as extreme without the lights. It's definitely sharper though. And clearly it's a good gaming display because I'm eight and one right now. I'm just in like a random quick play. This is not good players. I'm probably playing with children. Oh, I died. No! Whatever. I'm clearly the winner. All right. Good luck team without me. The only difference between these two displays is the finish. They're both 27 inches, 4K 144 Hertz, 10 bit color, sort of it's 8 bit FRC, pretty okay, but not true 10 bit, and boast 98% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space with VESA HDR 600 certification. They've got lots of IO, including two HDMI 2.1 ports and a hundred Watts of charging for your connected device, plus display port on one of the USB-C ports. So there's honestly not a whole lot more to ask for here. And despite Eve apparently having to convince LG to remove the polarizer layer, which involves recalibrating part of its LCD assembly line, they're both priced at a pretty competitive 800 US dollars. So do you go for it? Maybe, but you should watch the whole video because it's a bit more complicated. It's absolutely tempting. There aren't a lot of options for glossy desktop monitors, especially if you want something gaming ready. But I don't quite know why. When you add a matte finish, it dulls the image. And while the difference you see here might be minor to you, there's no question that under the right or even the wrong conditions, our glossy screen looks more vibrant. I mean, we've seen plenty of glossy panels in gaming laptops, but for years, display manufacturers have been selling us matte desktop monitors because reflections are bad and annoying, I guess. But then in some cases, these same manufacturers are turning around and selling us glossy TVs for our sun-bathed living rooms. So what gives? My best guess is that when it comes to TVs, the more juiced up the colors look, the easier it is to sell, at least to the general public. I mean, the sales rep doesn't care if you're gonna put it in front of a giant west-facing window or in your dimly lit basement. But your monitor, well, that's likely to be something that you spend hours working on during the day. So reflections are a distraction and we want them gone. But we're gamers. Odds are it's dark out when we're using our personal rigs anyway, or we've blocked out all natural light sources. I mean, a mirror-like reflection is certainly distracting under certain conditions. But so is a giant diffused blob. We asked a few people from around the office to look at both of these displays with a lamp shining directly on them. And the majority actually preferred the glossy screen. Where matte wins, however, is in dark games, loading screens, or anytime you're in an environment with a little bit of reflection, or with especially distracting reflections, like constant movement in a hallway behind you. We also did have some individuals who just instantly preferred the blurry reflection because they were able to tune it out more easily. So clearly this is not as black and white as saying, go with gloss, you'll be happier, or buy the short circuit hoodie from lttstore.com. It looks great, especially when we consider the source of this glossy gaming monitor. Eve's history is troubled at best, but we'll talk about that later. Let's start with the good. We tested a Delta E average of 1.9 in SDR, so it's very color accurate out of the box, at least the ones they sent to reviewers, and we reached almost 800 nits peak brightness in HDR, so it gets plenty bright. It also manages near complete coverage of the most common digital color space. Thanks to Eve's passionate community on Reddit, the pixel response times and input leg of the display have already been tested, and this is on one that was sent out to the general public, so it's even more good news there. We found the gaming experience to be quite excellent, which is all well and good, but there are problems. For starters, the OSD is better than what we saw in our preview, but it can still be frustrating. It only allows full access when you've got an input signal, which can make troubleshooting an absolute nightmare. They aren't the only ones to do this, but it's an industry trend that needs to die yesterday. Like you might if you missed the latest Floatplane exclusive where our CFO and my wife, Yvonne, dished on what it was like starting up the company, among other things. One cool thing that Eve offers is user upgradeable firmware, but then I feel like the reason for it is that they just didn't have time to finish before they started shipping. We had some really weird connectivity issues with Apple devices, which is why we set out to update the firmware. And as we were going through the change logs, we found that major development is still being done on these displays. Also, the experience of the update could be a lot smoother. You need to install two separate apps for the USB hub and the scalar firmwares on your Windows 10 or Windows 11 device, download the files, then run the apps while you're connected via USB-B or USB-C. All of that was pretty okay, but then one of our displays got stuck on the Eve boot logo for several minutes after processing the update, causing us to suspect that it had been bricked before it finally gave a second update processing notification and came back to life. Pretty scary. Another issue was HDR. I already said it gets plenty bright, around 760 nits peak, and it gets pretty dark too, but with only 16 local dimming zones, it does not provide the most compelling HDR experience. Like, a scene like this might look better than it would on an SDR display, but don't expect the stars to pop against a night sky. It doesn't have individually lit pixels like an OLED. It is better than many other competitors in this price range, but Sony's new monitor, the InZone M9, costs only $100 more and has a whopping 96 zones with similar specs otherwise. Side note, by the way, like the Eve Spectrum, the Sony doesn't come with any display cables. Weird trend. Not sure if I'm a fan, but okay. Let's move on from gaming for a moment though. All of that IO, color accuracy, glossy coating, and pixel density of 163 pixels per inch means this should be a pretty decent display for design work too, right? I mean, it's not quite as good on paper as an Apple Studio display, but it's also less than half the price. Unfortunately, when we tried hooking it up to an Intel-based MacBook Air, we got terrible results, both with and without our firmware update. Our max refresh rate was locked to just 30 Hertz and it detects as a 61-inch 4K display for some reason. It is neither of those things. Maybe you'll have better success with a different model of Mac and our USB-C display port connection worked fine with Windows devices, but that experience was enough for us to throw in a, your mileage may vary. And all of this assumes you even get a monitor. Yeah, we're gonna talk about that. While it's reviewing rather well, some buyers, a mix of folks who backed the project initially or bought in later on, are complaining about not even knowing how close they are to a shipping date. Eve's own shipping update has a long line of people demanding what they paid for, or a concrete update at the very least. And some of these are from as recent as the day before writing this script. When the Eve V disaster struck, their CEO said it wouldn't happen again, but here we freaking are. And honestly, it seems to be an overall attitude problem. You already can't produce enough of these things to fill your orders. So why do you need more press coverage? Why are you sending this to me? I can't help but feel a little awkward having these review units in front of me that I didn't pay for when I know that there are customers who gave Eve their actual money weeks or even months ago and probably should have gotten them in my place. Because of these ongoing controversies around transparency and customer service issues, we can't exactly recommend buying one of these unless you have a credit card with really strong buyer protections. In that case, I can see why you might wanna give it a try because it's a pretty good display for gaming. And personally, I hope to see it spark a trend towards more consumer choice around screen finishes, even if you don't prefer glossy personally. If you can't wait or you don't have a credit card, then we'll have a few alternatives for you linked down below. But if you do get your hands on one of these, I think you're gonna love it as much as I do. And as much as I love our sponsor, Storyblocks. Storyblocks helps you bring your stories to life without sacrifices due to time, budget, or lack of resources. They've got over a million different stock assets, an in-browser video editor, and pre-designed templates, animations, and outros. Storyblocks uses an affordable subscription model and their unlimited all access plan gives you unlimited video and audio downloads rather than a costly pay-per-clip model. We use it all the time, especially on Techquickie, because we don't always have the time to go out and shoot the perfect B-roll footage. So be like us, work smarter by going to storyblocks.com slash linus-tech-tips. Thanks for watching. Are you team glossy or team Matt? Do you have any horror stories? Let us know in the comments. And actually let us know if you had a good experience. We'd like to see those too. Maybe this is just a case of some squeaky wheels and a lot of grease. I don't really think so, but we'll see.