 Welcome to our most bold and daring unboxing ever. This is the Asus Desino Series MX279 and what's bold and daring about our unboxing of it is the fact that we're doing it outside pretty much in the rain. Now I didn't realize that this is just gonna open up like this. I've never seen an LCD box that's configured quite like this. So let's have a look at what they have to say for themselves on the outside of the box first. Audio is by Bang & Olufsen with their IcePower technology. So there's two 3-watt speakers that are actually on the back of the monitor, but they use quite a large speaker size in order to get deeper bass. It uses a frameless design, which is 0.8mm or 0.08 inches or something like that for the frame. So we're gonna show you that after. It uses an IPS screen with motion blur reduction technology that makes it suitable for gaming in spite of the fact that it is IPS, not TN, and LED backlight, a 178-degree viewing angle, and of course a 5-millisecond response time. So let's check this out. First of all, we've got Asus' warranty card, which we're not gonna worry too much about. Next we've got an HDMI to DVI cable. This is an interesting inclusion, and the reason they've done this is, if you want to come closer and have a look at the accessories, just, yeah, pick it up and come on over. The reason they've done this is that the monitor itself doesn't actually have a DVI input. So you'll run this DVI cable to your video card or other device, and this HDMI connection into the back of the monitor, so that's why they include that. They also include, there we go, a VGA cable, just in case you're still using one of those, but please don't, this is such a beautiful monitor, and it's just wasted. Just utterly wasted on that. Three and a half millimeter audio connection, a power brick. So there is no power supply built into the monitor itself. This is because it is so slim that there wasn't enough room to even integrate this, and then a power cable for that. Next up, we've got the ring, which is actually modeled after, like, kind of a sundial-inspired design. So you guys are gonna see what I mean as soon as I open it up. It looks just like a sundial, and then the monitor sits forward on it like this. It's got rubberized grips on the bottom, so it's not going anywhere once you put it in place, and then assembly looks like it's gonna be super simple with one screw in the bottom that holds the entire monitor onto the top. So let's go ahead and enjoy the uniqueness of this packaging here, which has thrown me off a little bit because I was not expecting it to be quite like this. You can see the monitor itself is protected by a hard foam, so we've got about... Here, check this out. We've got about, probably, a little over half an inch of foam protection around the outside of the box. However, monitor packaging has gotten slimmer and lower profile as monitors have continued to get slimmer and lower profile. And this monitor itself is actually not that heavy, so I don't expect it to be that much of an issue. So this is what ASUS means by frameless design. Check this out. There's the bezel. That's it. That's all. The screen looks matte from here, but I think what we're gonna discover is that there is a... Yeah, there's a covering over it. So that film protector... I'm having a little bit of trouble getting off. At least I hope that's a protective film. Eh, come on. Uh, maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I just won't do that. We'll be back in a moment. So we got rained on out there. Either way, it looks like the only removable plastic film is on the back. The front, actually, the reason I couldn't get it off is that it is an anti-glare coating. So while ASUS has used a single panel for the front of the monitor here in order to make sure that it's very seamless and very smooth, they've gone for the route where they don't want a super glossy single panel, and they've put an anti-glare coating that is, I guess, protective as well as reducing the reflections that makes it... Well, I mean, you can see that you can't see a clear reflection of my hand through the monitor. So we're gonna have to fire this up and see how it works. I'm pretty excited to check that out. In terms of the I.O., because the monitor, again, is so thin, so this is the same reason we ended up with a design that has the power brick external. At the back, you're gonna see that there isn't really much room to hide the inputs and outputs. So on the back, we find HDMI 1, HDMI 2, and VGA. The reason they've gone with dual HDMI, I think, so this is just my guess, is that that way you can easily hook up a computer and a game console and switch between them at your convenience. VGA is just there for legacy. There is your line in as well as headphones out if you don't want to use the integrated speakers and DC volume in and a Kensington lock. The back is a gloss finish in contrast to the front, which is that matte finish. Personally, I'd love to see less gloss and more matte, but if they're gonna put gloss somewhere, I'm glad that it's on the back, because when you look at the side of the monitor, you actually can see, again, it's matte. So every part that you're gonna be looking at is gonna be matte, and so it bothers me a lot less that way. Let's do a cell phone size comparison. So this is the HTC One. So you can see the monitor is extremely slim and only bulges out a little bit towards the middle at the back where the I.O. is, and other than that, maintains its svelte profile. Now, okay, it should be noted, guys, that the actual picture doesn't go quite to the edge. So there's about a pinkies width of space here where there isn't gonna be an actual image, but we'll maybe show you that in more detail once we've got it fired up. So the installation procedure I'll just show you, guys. Asus recommends putting it down on a table. I came up with the cardboard idea myself, because I'm not comfortable putting something like this directly down on the table, because the double-edged sword of having no bezel is that you have no bezel. If you lay it down on something, you're basically laying it down almost flat on the screen, although this bottom part here does protrude out a little bit, so it wouldn't be quite just flat on the screen. So there you go. That's what it looks like, and we'll fire it up in a moment and give you guys our impressions. All the on-screen display controls are here along the bottom. They are tactile buttons, so you can actually feel what you're pressing, so that gives you control of your brightness, your input, your menu, as well as your splendid options. So that's Asus's feature that allows you to pick different picture profiles for it. And then last but not least, it does have QuickFit, which is a feature that we haven't seen on anything other than ProArt up till now, which puts grid lines on the screen, so you can easily size things up just by looking at them.