I got the C27HG70 for Christmas!!!!!
I'd decided that 32" was too big for my viewing distance. The C27HG70 (
link $450 lowest price) is the same panel as the C32HG70 just smaller.
I flashed to the newest firmware 1016.2 right away per this thread (thank you). The firmware update instructions were difficult to comprehend (the monitor doesn't just automatically launch itself into firmware update mode upon inserting flash drive, despite what the instructions seem to suggest. you have to hold the joystick down for 5-10 seconds to activate) and Samsung's support page wants to give you the firmware for the 32" version, so you have to dig around to get the right version, but it was straightforward once you know what to do (
this forum was useful).
I was surprised at how "finicky" the off-angle viewing is. There's a noticeable shift in blacks when I adjust my viewing height by even a few (3-4) inches (there was a very narrow window where the blacks are super deep). This can be remedied via tilt and height adjustments, but was an interesting change coming from IPS. Because of the curvature, I didn't notice much problem with the horizontal angles from my chair, but there's color shift if I move a lot. I've heard that VA is not as good for this as IPS, but I'd generalize my observations to say that viewing angles and color shift were more similar to a good quality TN panel than to IPS. There was less degradation as viewing angles increased compared to TN though.
Colors weren't as vivid as I expected. Some of that can be compensated by settings adjustments, but I used the out-of-box calibration (comes with a calibration report). Certainly my two other IPS monitors have more vivid colors....even if it's not "realistic" color reproduction. I did notice that blacks were deeper and colors were more vivid in games than in general Windows/browsing usage. Not sure what to make of that.
I ended up replacing the stand with
this unit from VIVO for $27. The hutch on my desk is only 8.5" deep and this stand allowed me to fit the furthest protrusion of the monitor within that limitation (with a little tilt included). So assume with that stand, you'll be about 8.5" from the back of the post to the front-most edge of the monitor depth-wise. This is the second VIVO mount I've used, the other being
this dual-arm mount and I can say that I am more than happy with both.
Main: i5-3570K, ASRock Z77 Pro4-M, MSI RX480 8G, 500GB Crucial BX100, 2 TB Samsung EcoGreen F4, 16GB 1600MHz G.Skill @1.25V, EVGA 550-G2, Silverstone PS07B
HTPC: A8-5600K, MSI FM2-A75IA-E53, 4TB Seagate SSHD, 8GB 1866MHz G.Skill, Crosley D-25 Case Mod