After the big success of the FullHD-Area, also known as 1080p, more and more people asking for a bigger, sharper and a resolution that is filled with more life. And there it is: The 4K resolution with it’s 3840×2160 pixels can show you 8 times larger amount of data on the same large screen as we know it from 1080p. Yes, at 
the time we wrote this review, 4K was not the newest hardware, but it is a fact that 4K still surprises us with the fantastic quality, appropriate hardware required.
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In addition to the graphic card you need, it is a must have to have a screen that supports it, too. Unfortunately, yes, you have to pay a little bit more for such a monitor. But iiyama wants to fill this hole with their G-Master GB2888UHSU-B1, also known as the “Golden Phoenix”. They have send us this one for a test.
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The monitor of the Japanese manufacturer comes with its current price of around 400€ as one of the cheapest gliders in its size and resolution class. Great is, a full 28 inches offer a lot of screen space. We noticed, that the resolution of 2160p doesn’t show the great look of the medium you play as it could be. That means, iiyama’s decision to set the Golden Phoenix to this size of 28 inches was definitely a great decision.
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At this moment we would like to show you the technical specs:
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DISPLAY CHARACTERISTICS
| Diagonal | 28″, 71cm |
| Panel | TN LED, matte finish |
| Native resolution | 3840 x 2160 (8.3 megapixel 4K UHD, HDMI & DisplayPort) |
| Aspect ratio | 16:9 |
| Brightness | 300 cd/m² typical |
| Static contrast | 1 000:1 typical |
| Advanced contrast | 12M:1 |
| Response time | 1ms |
| Viewing zone | horizontal/vertical: 170°/160°, right/left: 85°/85°, up/down: 80°/80° |
| Colour support | 1.07B 10bit |
| Horizontal Sync | 30 – 135KHz |
| Vertical Sync | 24 – 75Hz |
| Viewable area W x H | 620.9 x 341.3mm, 24.4 x 13.4″ |
| Pixel pitch | 0.162mm |
| Colour | matte, black |
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INTERFACES / CONNECTORS / CONTROLS
| Signal input | VGA x1 (max. 2048 x 1152 @60Hz)
HDMI x2 (HDMI1: max. 3840 x 2160 @60Hz, HDMI3: max. 3840 x 2160 @30Hz, 2560 x 1440 @30Hz, 1920 x 2160 @60Hz) HDMI(MHL) x1 (max. 3840 x 2160 @30Hz, 2560 x 1440 @60Hz) DisplayPort x1 |
| USB HUB | x2 (v.3.0) |
| HDCP | yes |
| Headphone connector | yes |
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FEATURES
| Blue light reducer | yes |
| Flicker free | yes |
| FreeSync support | DisplayPort: 3840×2160 @35~60Hz |
| OSD languages | EN, DE, FR, IT, CN, RU, JP, CZ, NL, PL |
| Control buttons | Power, Input/Select, Scroll up/ Volume, Scroll down/ i-Style mode, Menu |
| User controls | input, picture (picture format, brightness, contrast, Black Tuner, sharpness, OD, ACR, ECO mode, X-Res technology), PiP/PbP (PiP/PbP mode, sub win input, PiP size, PiP position, swap), audio (volume, mute, audio input), colour (warm, normal, cool, user colour, blue light reducer, HDMI RGB range), language, OSD settings (OSD H. position, OSD V. position, OSD background, OSD time out), i-S. mode (i-Style mode, save user mode 1/2/3), set-up menu (geometry, DP format, HDMI1 format, FreeSync, opening logo, LED, auto power off, memory recall, information) |
| Speakers | 2 x 3W |
| Convenience | Kensington-lock™ prepared, DDC2B, Mac OSX |
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MECHANICAL
| Display position adjustments | height, swivel, tilt |
| Height adjustment | 130mm |
| Swivel stand | 90°; 45° left; 45° right |
| Tilt angle | 17° up; 0° down |
| VESA mounting | 100 x 100mm |
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ACCESSORIES INCLUDED
| Cables | power, USB, HDMI, Audio, mDP – DP, DP |
| Other | quick start guide, safety guide |
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POWER MANAGEMENT
| Power supply unit | internal |
| Power supply | AC 100 – 240V, 50/60Hz |
| Power usage | 42W typical, 0.5W stand by |
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SUSTAINABILITY
| Regulations | CE, TÜV-Bauart, VCCI-B, PSE, Energy Star , CU |
| Energy efficiency class | B |
| EPEAT Silver | EPEAT is a comprehensive environmental rating that helps identify greener computers and other electronic equipment. The Silver certification means the monitor meets all required criteria plus at least 50% of the optional requirements. EPEAT Silver is valid in countries where iiyama registers the product. Please visit www.epeat.net for the registration status in your country. |
| Other | REACH SVHC above 0.1%: Lead |
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DIMENSIONS / WEIGHT
| Product dimensions W x H x D | 663 x 413.5 (543.5) x 230mm |
| Weight (without box) | 7.7kg |
| EAN code | 4948570114160 |
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COMPATIBLE ACCESSORIES
| Mounts/stands/brackets | MD BRPCV02 |
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EU ENERGY EFFICIENCY LABEL
| Manufacturer | iiyama |
| Model | G-MASTER GB2888UHSU-B1 |
| Energy efficiency class | B |
| Visible screen diagonal | 71cm; 28″; (28″ segment) |
| ON mode power consumption | 42W |
| Annual energy consumption | 61kWh/annum* |
| Power in Standby | 0.5W stand by |
| Resolution | 3840 x 2160 |
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At the first glance the whole package sound really good: This screen offers a targeted contrast ratio of 1000:1, a response time of only one millisecond and AMD’s FreeSync technology. The presentation and workmanship 
of the monitor has not any special features but the screen with its nevertheless looks feels like high-quality. The edge does not exceed 2 cm and the whole device is in a plain brushed black. The heavyweight foot of the screen which holds the Golden Phoenix is also kept in black and thanks to its flat design it does not take as much space on the desk as other hardware representatives often do. Great is, the monitor can be adjusted in many meaningful ways. A height adjustment, rotation for a pivot position (helpful when reading and editing longer texts) and vertical tilting are possible. Horizontal rotation is not possible due to the solid construction of the stand.
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At this point we wanted to tell you the games we used to test the screen:
- Battlefield
- Fallout 76
- Destiny 2
- Rocket League
- Quake Champions
- Assassin’s Creed Origins
- Crysis 3
- Star Wars Battlefront II
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Against to the currently rising trend, to use more of the high-quality IPS panel in screens, the G-Master Golden Phoenix from iiyama has a TN panel. This panel is much cheaper in the production which ultimately 
justifies in the low price. But this is not a bad thing. Already ex works the picture offers rich colors and that even before we have activated the overdrive mode. In fact, the ideal color scheme required some adjustments from our side.
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The screen offers a lot of different modes which also include som game-relevant profiles. For example, the EGO-Shooter-Profile. In this one the brightness and blue values can be increased. The menu of the iiyama G-Master is clearly structured: We quickly found our way around and could adapt everything to the respective needs.
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Users will find quickly the overdrive function. With this the pixel update rate can be manipulated in steps from -2 to +2. For us, overdrive +1 worked best, especially with the fast battles which are in the games we tested this screen with. Unfortunately, at +2 artifacts already occurred. This is the reason we recommend to use this setting with caution. The illumination of the screen is acceptable. Unfortunately, by showing on the 
screen pure black images a slight irregularity in the edges is noticeable quite quickly.
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What we like is, that the screen offers a great number of different connection opportunities. In addition to a DisplayPort and 3 HDMI ports, there are three USB 3.0 ports that can be looped through to the computer. The same applies to the additional headphone and microphone ports. Well done iiyama.
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In fact, the G-Master Golden Phoenix does a really good job in everyday business. The maximum frame rate of 60 Hz is bravely maintained, as long as enough power is attached to the screen. We used for our test a G-Force GTX 1080 ti. To reach a constantly 60 frames per second with current titles and play them in addition in a resolution of 3840×2160 demands its sacrifices, especially if you want to set the settings of the games on “ultra”.
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One thing is really sad and not the fault of the monitor. We want to talk shortly about the dedicated synchronization. Unfortunately the GB2888UHSU comes with an AMD FreeSync chip, which doesn’t cover most of the things the community uses. NVidia still carries most of the GPU market. That means, that the really useful feature cannot be used by the majority. Even we could not test it like we would to. But we also 
can not be sad on iiyama. The license costs for the G-Sync exclusivity would blow the price of the monitor through the roof.
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What we like very much is iiyama’s great feature “X-Res”. With this you can increase the resolution with the natively upscaled by the monitor. This means the natively upscale raises the sharpness of the medium you play. If you would play on a conventional high-resolution monitor for example a low resolution video, the result would be a blurred, pixelated image. X-Res helps out here and makes a 2k resolution almost look like 4k. This especially helps with titles like Mass Effect. X-Res provides here a fine tuning and a “4k feeling”.
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Until now, the test shows a quite acceptable monitor and we can really recommend this one if there were not this various troubles things that make everyday life unnecessarily difficult: The weight of the monitor is too high for the spring of the height-adjustable foot. The result is, that we often catch our self pushing the monitor up a few centimeters over and over again. This is not a drama, but annoying. The use of the integrated VESA mount with 100x100mm could help out here.
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Unfortunately, the concept of capacitive buttons below the monitor is not very mature. By touching some small bulges we can switch through the individual signal sources, picture modes, menu, etc.. Unfortunately, these are so close together that the whole thing often degenerates into an error. Especially the fine tuning is elementary for a screen in this price class. As mentioned above, a readjustment of the colours helps in many points. Thanks to the way in which we navigate through the menus, it can take a few minutes for this.
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The biggest problem we personally had with the test device is the most annoying thing that happens every day. After the Golden Phoenix arrived, we immediately noticed how long it took after the screen starts. We had to wait between 30 and 40 seconds. And that is something that is very very bad. We had the feeling that this is a mistake or the screen is probably broken. We noticed, that a change from automatic source recognition to a fixed setting should help. Unfortunately, as it turned out, the TN panel only saves a maximum of 10 seconds this way. In the end, the PC had always booted thanks to SSDs before the screen starts. It also happened, that we have to switch the ON/OFF button, because the screen did not start after we have restart the PC. Too bad.
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With the GB2888UHSU-B1 G-Master Golden Phoenix iiyama truly delivers a 4k for a really good price. For this good price you get a clean translation of the frame rates, a great contrast ratio, a simple but modern design and a colorful screen for the Japanese product. And these are just some of the great features besides 
the speakers we did not talk about. By the way, the sound are also very good. Unfortunately, some small bad things can ruin the everyday experience. The starting-time of almost half a minute, a frivolous navigation thanks to capacitive keys as well as a misjudgement of the monitor weight annoy again and again.
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All in all: A entry into the world of 4k entertainment is nowhere made easier and cheaper. However, from experience we can confirm those who save money will pay a lot for other things. Ok, here it will be just your nerves. If you can see beyond all the small thing you will get a fantastic screen and the 4K technology will blow your mind away. By our opinion, iiyama did here a fantastic job and filled the whole between 1080p screens and very expensive 4K monitors.
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