HP E34m G4 curved USB-C conferencing monitor review

HP’s E34m G4 WQHD Curved USB-C Conference monitor is a do-it-all, 34-inch immersive productivity beast that's bright, colorful, crisp, and brings along some nifty port options. I love a good 34-inch curved monitor, and I believe every desk jockey in the world deserves one because they make getting things done much easier. Plus, its sleek elegance is eye-catching enough to keep my eyes on the display — not wandering off to procrastination-inducing distractions.

When you add the built-in 5MP pop-up camera that also sports a tilt adjustment, some snazzy microphones, and speakers, the E34m is an ideal work companion. Initially, I doubted the E34m, and after looking over our lab test scores my apprehension seemed well-founded. But let's see if I will owe it — and HP — an apology when I am done with it. I will add that the Zoom-certified monitor may not be meant for gaming, but it’s curved and immersive, so we have to try and have a little fun with it.

HP E34m G4 curved USB-C conferencing monitor price and configuration

The HP E34m G4 costs $699, which may seem a little steep for your home office. However, it’s par for the course for a curved 34-inch business productivity monitor that includes a camera and audio setup.

You can purchase the E34m G4 curved monitor right here on HP’s website.

HP E34m G4 curved USB-C conferencing monitor design

The HP E34m G4’s 34-inch, WQHD curved panel is encased by a micro-edge bezel on three sides which presents the display nicely above the bottom of the unit. You'll find an HP logo at the center and a grilled area where the speakers and echo-canceling microphones live. At the bottom left of the monitor, there are bright white symbols that indicate the control buttons for muting the audio, two volume buttons, and a microphone mute button.

On the bottom right, there’s a set of four buttons that let you adjust the viewing modes, or manually adjust the color, brightness, contrast, black stretch, and inputs. This is also where we find the power button. At the top, we find the pop-up camera unit that you can manually tilt 5 to 20 degrees by pushing on it with a finger via one of the two little rubber nubs that are on either side of the camera.

The E34m G4 is a handsome device colored black with metallic-looking flecks. With its curvature, it looks like the BMW sedan your boss drives to work every day that proves he means business, but still likes to drive fast. Although made of plastic, the unit does not look or feel cheap, it’s definitely well made and sturdy. I found this out the hard way as I recently bent over, banged my head against the corner of it, and opened up a cut. If the E34m G4 can survive a direct hit from my massive bald asteroid head, it can take anything that will happen as it sits on your desk at work.

The rear of the E34m has a nice curve to it, and in the upper center, we find another nice chromed-out HP logo. The stand is sturdy, clean metallic-silver and black where its hinge meets the black panel, contrasting nicely and adding to its business elegance. The stand allows for a 30-degree swivel and a 5 to 20-degree tilt adjustment so you can position it in a way that works best for you. 

The E34m G4 measures 31.8 x 4.3 x 15.3 inches and weighs 26.4 pounds. In comparison, the Dell C3422WE video-conferencing monitor measures 32.1 in x 9.2 in x 18 inches and weighs 25 pounds.

HP E34m G4 curved USB-C conferencing monitor ports

The HP E34m G4 ports are located on the rear of the display.

There, you’ll find the power jack, a DisplayPort input, one HDMI input, one USB Type-C port, a 3.5mm headphone jack, two USB Type-A ports, and an Ethernet jack.

HP E34m G4 curved USB-C conferencing monitor audio

The audio experience on the HP E34m G4 is solid; it comes with a pair of 5W speakers hidden beneath the grill on the lower half of the monitor. Audio is reproduced loudly and cleanly with no distortion. The speakers’ audio can fill a small space very nicely and there is enough depth, so you can enjoy proper tonal separation between highs and lows.

The dual-microphone array does an excellent job during conference calls of isolating your voice against background noise. I found that it picked up my voice clearly from an average of five feet away.

HP E34m G4 curved USB-C conferencing monitor camera

HP did a nice job with the camera. In my tests, the 5MP IR camera works very well with Windows Hello facial recognition software, which is great as that helps keep your system and files secure.

The camera’s autofocus is quick; the 2.5K image is clean and crisp with nearly perfect color saturation. It also adjusts quickly when there are lighting changes within your workspace. I found the image to be almost equally clear in low-light scenarios as you can see in this test shot. It is a massive improvement over most laptop webcams, but if you seek even better quality, please check out our best webcams page. 

HP E34m G4 curved USB-C conferencing monitor display

The HP E34m G4 is a 34-inch, 60Hz, 3440 x 1440-pixel VA curved panel with a 21:9 widescreen aspect ratio that's perfect for most office productivity work. The E34m’s display is bright with excellent color richness — without the oversaturation, you get with most gaming monitors. Color reproduction is accurate, and the text is clean, crisp, and easy to read. The HP E34m G4 features HP Eye Ease low blue-light technology, which helps a great deal when you spend hours upon hours staring at it endlessly every day. I never found my eyes irritated or tiring. 

Although it’s not meant for gaming, I threw on an oldie but goodie, Borderlands 2, and got to some gaming on the E34m, and it did a nice job with the animation-style graphics. Blood splatters were a nicely saturated, warm red, and details were sharp and crisp. When I was in sniper mode, I shot one of those desert villains in the face and the viscera was beautifully rendered, but then it was back to work.

While working on documents, text was ultra-crisp and easy to work with. I also edited a video using DaVinci Resolve; the color correction was reasonably close to where I needed it to be. 

The HP E34m G4 had some interesting scores in our lab results and that is because we tested it across six (HP Enhance, Night, Native, Cool, Warm, Neutral, and User) of its seven modes. It scored an average brightness of 189.2 nits, which puts it ahead of its direct competitor, the Dell C3422WE, which recorded an aggregate of 176.5 nits of brightness during our testing. 

During our color reproduction test, the HP scored a vivacious 137.5% of the sRGB color space and 97.5% of the PCI-P3 color gamut, which outpaced Dell’s scores of 113.24% sRGB and 80.2% DCI-P3 in our lab tests.

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HP E34m G4 curved USB-C conferencing monitor software

The HP E34m G4 is very plug-and-play. You can just pop in your USB-C, HDMI, or Display port cable, turn on the power, and it's good to go. However, there is a lovely companion application you can download for free. The HP Display Center app is very clean, and user-friendly, and lets you adjust all the monitor's settings without having to touch the unit itself. So no need to press any buttons on the bottom of the monitor, you can change the brightness, contrast, color, sharpness, view, and black stretch settings in the app, as well as make adjustments to its built-in camera.

Bottom Line

The HP E34m G4 is an excellent 34-inch curved productivity monitor for your office space.Thanks to its immersive view that helps keep your eyes on your work, you will stay more productive. The ability to use one display to work in multiple browser windows or different applications also aids workflow and productivity. 

If you’re looking to purchase this for your home office, the $699 price tag may seem a bit steep, but when you take it into account you’re getting an all-in-one WQHD 34-inch curved solution that comes with an excellent 5MP IR camera, solid speakers, and microphone performance, it becomes quickly apparent that you can potentially save money than buy three quality products separately to handle the different tasks the E34m does by itself.