Corsair’s 45-inch Xeneon Flex OLED monitor is too big, too expensive and not at all practical – but it’s also provided some of the best gaming experiences I’ve ever had. Here’s my review after spending over a month with this £1799/$1599 behemoth of a gaming monitor.
First, the basics. The Xeneon Flex is built around an ultra-wide (21:9) LG OLED panel, with a 3440×1440 resolution, 240Hz refresh rate and one huge party trick: you can bend it from flat to curved and back using handles that sprout from either side of the monitor. This means you can watch movies or look at spreadsheets from a safe viewing distance without worrying about the curvature, then pull both sides towards you for incredibly immersive gaming.
Unfortunately for the Flex, it’s kind of inflexible – it’s far from an ideal choice for stuff you would generally want to do with a monitor, like watching movies, playing console games or getting work done. The low resolution means you can’t watch videos in 4K without downscaling, while text in Windows appears grainy and distorted thanks to the low pixel density and non-standard WRGB subpixel arrangement. You’ll also battle with the auto brightness limiter, which noticeably ramps down the brightness if you dare to open a half-size Word document. The 21:9 aspect ratio isn’t ideal either, with the extra size going unused in all three scenarios outlined above, but at least the OLED panel ensures that the unlit portions of the screen look as black as the bezels rather than a distracting grey.
1 of 7 Caption Attribution The Corsair Xeneon Flex is a mighty monitor in any configuration. Here’s how it looks flat…
That’s all OK though – because this is a full-throated PC gaming monitor, where it is better than any other display I’ve ever tested by a significant margin.
The titanic size and curved screen provides a hugely immersive experience, whether you’re stalking the fetid chambers of a cave in Diablo 4 or piloting the Williams FW44 to an unlikely championship victory in F1 22. The extremely high 240Hz refresh rate and near-instant (0.03ms GtG) pixel response times are incredible for tracking moving targets in Counter-Strike 2 and spotting the apex of corners in Need for Speed Unbound, while the gorgeous colours, deep blacks and surprisingly bright highlights (1000 nits) provide a suitably impactful HDR experience – especially when played in a darkened room.