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Review: Acer XB270H Gaming Monitor

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At around £200, this isn’t an ordinary monitor, and should not be considered as such. Having said that, a good decent monitor around 24-27 inches does cost around £120-£150, so this isn’t as dear as you may think. Designed for gaming with NVIDIA technology inside, this 27 inch monitor from Acer gives us a lot of promise.

Quick look at the specs:

  • 27 inches wide screen
  • Full HD (1920 x 1080)
  • Twisted Nematic Film
  • NVIDIA GSYNC
  • 144Hz refresh rate
  • Speakers
  • Inputs: VGA, HDMI, DVI, USB x 3

Look, feel, setup and the stand

Before going into the performance of the screen itself, we take a quick look at the monitor. A black bezel surrounds this, and the overall size isn’t much different from your average 27″ monitor. 5 buttons on the bottom allow you to perform various settings, while the back includes the various ports.

The stand takes a little amount of setting up, but once in, it is sturdy. It provides both vertical movement as well as swivel up to 60 degrees, and holds its position as you leave it.

All good.

NVIDIA’s GSYNC

The underlying quality of this monitor depends on NVIDIA’s G-Sync technology. It aims to smoothen the transitions in your screen time, and it does so by syncing the processor in the monitor to your PC. In doing so, it does require that your PC also include Nvidia hardware. However, using that technology, it aims to sync monitor refresh rate with the amount of data being processed by your computer, and at the rate it processes it. This means that there are no delays or gaps between what your computer chucks out and what you see on your monitor.

NVIDIA have a helpful video that explains the phenomenon:

While the video above shows it all, it is useful to say that it does work rather well for first person shooters, or graphics intensive games, such as the ones that involve racing, etc. Yeah, you may not notice it if you are not a pro gamer, or your games are not as intensive, but much like a smooth ride in a car is only appreciated once you ride it, the smoothness of the graphics is only felt once you experience them.

Image Quality

Overall though, the performance of a monitor really comes down to how good the image is. I mean, yeah, the image on your screen may be fast, but how good does it look. With very few display modes, the monitor doesn’t allow a lot to play with. The TN screen itself is a bit on the cooler temperature gradient, and I would say that viewing angles are a bit tight on this. Having said that, when it came to image brightness, the monitor delivers very well.

Sound

The monitor offers sound, but it isn’t worth writing home about. It lacks the bass and loudness you’d expect from a gaming rig, and you are better off setting up a proper sound system instead of using this. However, for casual video watching or listening to music, or watching videos etc, it does okay.

More information

More information on this can be found on Acer’s website:

http://www.acer.co.uk/ac/en/GB/content/model/UM.HB0EE.005

It retails from around £200, and some sources can be found in the link above.

Verdict

The monitor offers a great gaming experience at a great price. G-Sync and the fast refresh rate are definitely worth trying out, though the pure image experience of the device is on par with many others out there.

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