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The Acer Predator CG437K comes in such a big box that you'll have to find a space sufficiently large to get it out. Perhaps an aircraft hanger. But at least you don't have to fit the parts together, as the stand comes pre-attached to the panel.
You get quite a lot in the box with the monitor itself. Alongside the requisite kettle power lead, there are two DisplayPort cables, plus USB 3.0 upstream and Type C cables. Strangely, one thing that wasn't included with our sample was an HDMI cable, which may have been a mistake as the manual implies there should be just one DisplayPort and one HDMI. But there is a good reason for two DisplayPort cables, which we will be getting to shortly.
There's also remote control, which will be handy (literally) if you use this screen as a TV. The most unusual inclusion is the four strips of LEDs and associated cabling, the use of which isn't entirely clear from the manual or quick start guide.
It's almost hard to notice the design of this screen, it's so huge. If you're sitting close to it, the bezel is essentially outside your peripheral vision, and all you see is the display surface itself. The solid stand spans almost the complete width, providing a very strong and stable basis for this heavy monitor. Suffice it to say, your friends won't need to be wowed by the bling looks of this screen – its sheer size does all the talking.
The LED light strips can add some bling, if you want, and a perusal of online forums shows that nobody seems to know where they're meant to go. In fact, as they're magnetic, you can attach them to your PC chassis, although some owners have glued them to the rear of the monitor itself instead, which seems a bit drastic. Either way, they're potentially fun, with optional control software available, but you might not even bother using them.
Since there are absolutely no adjustments available with this screen, we're going to skip our usual monitor review section detailing these. There's nothing to say on this matter, other than that you can't adjust swivel, tilt, or height at all without moving the whole screen.
The CG437K is positively bristling with ports. Facing downwards, there's the USB 3.0 upstream plus two Type A downstream ports and USB C. The latter can deliver 30W of power and act as DP Alt video and data upstream, so could charge an attached laptop if needed. Then there is a single HDMI 2.0 and two DisplayPort 1.4, with an analog audio minijack next along. On the other side of the power input can be found the header sockets for the four LED lighting strips, assuming you've figured out where to put them.
Sensibly, Acer also puts a couple of USB ports on the side for easy accessibility. But there are also two more HDMI 2.0 inputs here as well. This hints at the multi-purpose orientation of this screen, as this is a more sensible location for attaching devices like Amazon Fire TV or Now TV sticks.
Unusually, Acer has chosen to provide both a joystick and four buttons along the bottom to control the OSD menu. The one on the furthest right is exclusively for toggling power, which is slightly unintuitive because it's quite easy to forget this is for power when you're calling up the menu so you accidentally turn the monitor off.
The other option is the remote control, which allows you to control speaker volume, brightness, and input source directly, with its own joypad to operate the main menu. There's a power button too.
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