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Eve’s Glossy Spectrum 4K is the first glossy gaming monitor

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Why don’t we have any glossy gaming monitors? It’s been a question on the fingertips of countless Redditors for years, driving some to go as far as to pull the matte coating off their gaming display, ruining it forever. Now Eve, the company behind last year’s wildly popular Eve Spectrum 4K, finally has a solution.

Arriving later this year, the aptly named Eve Glossy Spectrum uses a glossy coating instead of a matte one, and Eve says it’s the first of its kind. It might not seem like a big deal, but Eve says the process is way more involved than changing a coating. The company had to work with LG — which supplies panels for the Spectrum — to fully recalibrate its automated assembly line.

Glossy versus matte coatings on the Eve Spectrum.
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Eve designed the original Spectrum in collaboration with its community. When the company posed the question about glossy gaming monitors, the results were clear: 96% of people who responded said they’d like to see a glossy gaming monitor.

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Reflections are the main concern with a glossy display, but Eve says that its glossy finish isn’t any more reflective than a matte display. The only difference is that the matte display diffuses the reflection more, making it appear less harsh. YouTuber Dave2D had early access to a prototype of this display and came away with a similar conclusion.

How Has Nobody Made This Before?

Outside of helping color pop more, a glossy coating could improve readability. Eve partnered with TFTCentral to evaluate the differences between the coatings. At a pixel level, the glossy coating shows clear pixels, while the matte finish washes them out. Dave2D noted similar findings, pointing out the decreased haze and enhanced text clarity on the glossy finish.

Otherwise, the new Spectrum is identical to the old one — HDR 600 certification, 27 inches, 4K at 144Hz, and HDMI 2.1. We don’t have a release date for the monitor yet, but Eve has a mailing list set up for early adopters. To celebrate the launch, Eve is giving away an RTX 3070 Ti for posting about the monitor on social media.

A glossy gaming monitor is certainly an interesting idea, but it’s the first of its kind. We’ll have to wait until we have one in front of us before we can make a judgment on image quality. It could kick off a trend, though, and maybe show up on our list of the best gaming monitors.

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Jacob Roach
Jacob Roach
Lead Reporter, PC Hardware
Jacob Roach is the lead reporter for PC hardware at Digital Trends. In addition to covering the latest PC components, from…
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