There really is a gaming monitor for everyone these days. There are options for the budget-conscious, “sky’s the limit” high resolution, or “bigger is better” gaming monitors. The past few years have seen the rise of widescreen and ultra-widescreen monitors, offering a more immersive gaming experience for gamers.
Estimated reading time: 11 minutes
Our AOPEN Fire Legend 43XV1C 43-inch ultra-widescreen gaming monitor review looks at a gaming monitor with a great design and display, but one major flaw. Read on for our full review!
Table of contents
Specifications
The AOPEN Fire Legend 43XV1C gaming monitor we reviewed has the following features and specifications:
| Model | 43XV!C |
| Display size | 43.8″ |
| Panel type | IPS TFT Colour LCD |
| Maximum resolution | 3840x1080p (DFHD) |
| Maximum refresh rate | 120Hz |
| Viewing angles | 178°/178° |
| Colour gamut | 93% DCI-P3 |
| Typical brightness | 350 nits, peak 400 nits in HDR400 mode |
| Contrast ratio | 100 Million:1 max (ACM) |
| Maximum colours | 1.07 Billion |
| Response time | 1ms TVR |
| Video inputs | • DP 1.2: 3840 x 1080 @ 120Hz • HDMI 2.0: 3840 x 1080 @ 120Hz • HDMI 1.4: 3840 x 1080 @ 60Hz |
| Tilt | -5° to -15° |
| Swivel | ±15° |
| Height adjustment | 95mm (3.74″) |
| Audio | 2x 2W |
| VESA mount size | 75 x 75 |
| AC adapter input power | AC 100 ~ 240V, 50/60Hz, 2.2A |
| Power consumption | Typical: 44.6 watts Standby: 0.5 watts Off: 0 watts |
| Operating temperature | +32 to +104°F (0 to +40°C) |
| Operating humidity | 20 to 80% |
| Dimensions | 1089.4 x 419.1-514.1 x 280.4mm (42.89 x 16.5-20.24 x 11.04in) |
| Weight | 11.65kg (25.68 lbs) |
What’s in the box
- 43″ DFHD monitor
- DisplayPort cable
- HDMI Cable
- Stand stem
- Stand base
- 4x base screws (1 extra)
- Remote control
- 2x AAA batteries
- VESA mount adapter
- 4x VESA mount adapter screws
- Power adapter
- User’s manual
- Warranty card
Design
At first glance, the design of the AOPEN Fire Legend 43XV1C 43″ ultra-widescreen gaming monitor is pretty sweet. I love the white frame and stand on the monitor, and it has a nice clean look. In fact, even the included power, HDMI, and DisplayPort cables are also white, finishing off the clean look once set up on your desk.
The physical bezels on the top and sides are pretty thin at less than 1/8″ thick. The bottom bezel is thicker, usually always the case, and comes in at 3/4″ thick. The Fire Legend logo and branding are printed in grey at the centre of the bottom bezel. Just under the branding is the external control panel. A small white box with a translucent black face, it has five buttons on the bottom edge. A blue LED is on the far right to indicate power status. Also located under the front plate is an IR sensor for the included remote control.
The top and sides of the monitor are about 7/8″ thick, with the bottom starting at this thickness on the edges and fattening out to about 2 1/4″ in the middle. The sides do have a small “v” notch about halfway up, which aligns with the LED strip on the back of the monitor. However, it looks almost like a defect when looking at it from the side and would likely have looked cleaner had this not been added. The top and bottom do have cutouts for ventilation.
The back of the monitor is also white in colour and curves outward towards the bottom. The AOPEN logo is printed in the back left corner (when looking at the back). A thin strip runs across the middle of the back of the monitor and contains an LED light when turned on. The glow the LED throws off is excellent and one of the nicest ones I’ve seen in a while. The two HDMI ports, DisplayPort, and 3.5mm audio jack are located on the back near the bottom left of the monitor (again, when looking at the back). The standard power plug is on the right. A large gloss black circle is centred in the middle, where the cylindrical monitor stand attaches to it. The stand itself is white, has a black cap, and a hole for cable pass-through to help keep your monitor cables tidy. The solid, large feet angle outwards. The stand also provides tilt, swivel, and height adjustments.
The Fire Legend 43XV1C also includes a small remote control as well. It’s pretty small and has eight buttons and a control wheel. The remote allows you to easily power the monitor on or off, change the source, toggle HDR mode, toggle Game Mode, adjust the volume, and navigate through the menu. While not common with monitors, it is nice to have and is an excellent addition.
My major issue with the design of the Fire Legend 43XV1C is that it is flat. While it looks sharp, a flat 43″ monitor that is only about 13″ in height takes up a lot of space. The flat display doesn’t look as appealing as newer curved displays and also affects the visuals, more on that under our display section. Typically with two FHD monitors, users angle them in the middle. Not only does this reduce the space used on your desk, but it makes both monitors easier to see.
Size and flatness aside, this monitor’s curves and general look and design are pretty sweet. Unfortunately, due to the flat design, I’m docking an entire point here.
Display
The AOPEN Fire Legend 43XV1C 43″ ultra-widescreen gaming monitor boasts a resolution of 3840×1080, in other words, double FHD or DFHD. While this gives you plenty of real estate for working, as mentioned above, the flat panel design makes viewing the far left and right of the monitor a bit unnatural feeling. I don’t have the greatest eyesight and wear glasses. However, lately, I can see better when using a monitor without my glasses based on my workstation setup. With the 43XV1C’s flat panel, however, any windows or text on the far left or far right of the monitor ended up being blurry because it’s further from my eyes than the centre.
That being said, while gaming, the monitor was pretty decent as you’re usually looking at the centre of the action. Even when glancing at the far left and right, you could still see what was going on as crispness isn’t necessary for most games, especially first-person shooters.
The panel itself is an IPS TFT Colour LCD. With a native brightness of 350nits and HDR400 support for 400 nits with HDR enabled, it was bright enough for my setup — which is in the basement with a small window. With all the lights on, the monitor brightness was still pretty decent, but I’d suspect in setups with more natural, and sometimes brighter light, more brightness on this panel would be appreciated. With 93% DCI-P3 coverage and 100m:1 ACM dynamic contrast, the colours and blacks on this monitor were great. Gaming with HDR turned on in games like Forza Horizon 5 was a treat with the visuals being nice and rich, definitely suiting that game.
As far as customization is concerned, you can adjust quite a few display-related options in the OSD quite easily. This includes everything from standard brightness, contrast, black boost, gamma, colour temperature, colour space, grayscale mode, HDR, ACM, and blue light settings.
Again, I’m docking another whole point for display because of the non-curved display on this ultra-widescreen gaming monitor. Even an 1800R curve would have made this monitor more enticing to use.
Assembly
Like most monitors, the AOPEN Fire Legend 43XV1C 43″ widescreen gaming monitor requires a bit of assembly. Fortunately, it’s pretty straightforward. The monitor base attaches to the stand arm with three screws, and then the stand arm attaches to the monitor by way of a quick-release notch on the back of the monitor. If you want to VESA mount it, you can skip this step, mount the included VESA Adapter Mounting Kit with the four screws, and mount it to your VESA arm or wall.
Ease of Use
Once assembled and turned on, this monitor is pretty easy to use once you get used to the menu buttons. On the far left, the first button triggers Mode control or exits the current menu. The second button opens the brightness control or goes to the next level in the current menu. To toggle input sources, press the middle button. This is also used to select or return to the previous menu when the OSD menu is enabled. The fourth button is used to view the OSD menu or select or go to the next menu. Finally, the button on the far right turns the monitor on or off.
The OSD menu lets you adjust plenty of different features, including display options (as mentioned above), volume, over drive, FreeSync Premium, toggling the refresh rate number, enabling an aim point for FPS games, changing the hot key assignment, setting up PIP/PBP, and more.
As mentioned above, this widescreen gaming monitor also includes a remote control to make it easier to access the menus and functions of the monitor. I didn’t use it much as I’m used to using the buttons directly on the monitor, but it is handy, and I can see how some would find it helpful.
Performance
Even though the Fire Legend 43XV1C is an ultra-widescreen monitor, it does sit at an FHD resolution, albeit double FHD. As such, you’ll be able to get better framerates when compared to a DQHD ultra-widescreen monitor of the same size.
Of course, it depends on your system specs. I was able to test it with a few different systems and received acceptable results across the board. While I have listed the graphics card used on each system, they did vary in chipset and RAM, but it should give you a decent enough idea of what average framerates to expect, depending on your graphic card. NOTE: the system with the RTX 2080 was running Windows 11; the RTX 3060 and RTX 3050 systems were on Windows 10. All games tested were running at higher quality settings instead of higher performance settings.
| RTX 2080 Super Max-Q w/ 8GB | RTX 3060 Laptop w/ 6GB | RTX 3050 Laptop w/ 4GB | |
| Forza Horizon 4 | 91 fps | 82 fps | 54 fps |
| Gears 5 | 52.3/73.8 fps | Benchmark wouldn’t run | n/a |
| Call of Duty: Warzone | 65 fps | 50 fps | 40 fps |
| Heroes of the Storm | 75 fps (see below) | See below | 150 fps (see below) |
As mentioned in some of my other ultra-widescreen monitor reviews, not all games play nice with the resolution. Heroes of the Storm, for example, has to have the resolution set using the GeForce Experience app. Even then, I couldn’t force it to 3840x1080p but instead had to use 5431×1527 on the RTX 2080 and RTX 3050, which then downscaled. As a result, the framerate is likely a bit lower than you might get with a “native” double FHD resolution. As for the RTX 3060, I couldn’t get it to force 3840x1080p either and had to run it in windowed mode.
I also used the monitor with my Xbox One X, and the FreeSync worked great with it, offering smoother gaming. It was also great to have the Xbox on one half of the screen and my computer on the other half at the same time for various purposes.
Sound Quality
Yes, this monitor has speakers. As with most monitors that include speakers, they aren’t that great. When gaming, you need clear, full sound to enjoy your game or to pinpoint the location of your enemies in first-person shooters. In the case of the AOPEN Fire Legend 43XV1C gaming monitor, the onboard speakers aren’t overly loud, sound tinny, and lack any amount of bass. You’re better off with your laptop speakers or a headset instead of using the speakers on the monitor itself.
Price/Value
With an MSRP of US$749.99, the AOPEN Fire Legend 43XV1C seems like a solid deal given the features, display quality, and specifications. If you can get over the fact that it’s not curved and are o.k. with that, this ultra-widescreen gaming monitor offers pretty good value for the price.
Photo Gallery
Wrap-up
This was one of the hardest gaming monitor reviews I’ve had to write this year. While I love the general design and look of the monitor, as well as the screen quality, it’s hard to recommend the AOPEN Fire Legend 43XV1C simply because it lacks curvature of any type. At this size, it’s needed for the reasons I outlined above.
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