Looks promising, in terms of this panel existing for manufacturers to use now, but I think I'll wait for a more competent company to make use of it. Those OSD controls, and having to switch multiple OSD options every time you go in or out of HDR mode, are a complete dealbreaker on a modern display.
the question i have is, how does this new Mini Led Monitor like this Acer compare to the old Pg27uq + acer predator x27, their Local Dimming algrm is supported by the gsync ultimate module, so i guess the older high end HDR Monitors are still the best or not :O?
thanks for the video. i switch between HDR and SDR quite often on my current monitor as i find SDR to be more accurate when using Adobe lightroom and i need my photos to look as close to what my customers will be viewing them on. and most normal people dont even know hdr exists. i just use win+Alt+B to switch between the two and its super simple. this monitor would not be for me as having to navigate in the osd every time would drive me insane. this monitor is also not for me as its hella expensive and im a simple peasant :P
I got this monitor around September! I'm excited to see your thoughts (one nag off the bat. I HATE the navigation and one of the buttons broke off. So I have to jam my finger in the hole to change it)
Hey, I'm currently testing the Windows 11 build 26016 and its ACM Auto Color Management feature. It basically clamps down non specifically tagged content to sRGB and only uses DCI P3 when tagged so. Could you make a video about that feature and about its performance? Because it seems to do the job pretty well and even TH-cam videos are not oversaturated anymore. Thanks!!
@@C0BEX unfortunately yes. It was publicly released with 23H2 but they took that update down due to some issues people were having. I think the public update should come very soon
Does the ACM work for desktop as well? In other words, does Windows desktop look oversaturated on a wide gamut monitor when ACM is turned on, or does ACM fix this issue?
@@dnzlwshnktn2092 it fixes the issue and the Desktop looks like it should, finally. You can really tell that by looking at the Google Chrome and the Windows Explorer logo, especially the red and the yellow/orange parts :)
Thanks for finally doing mini led. Oled just isn't an option for me yet being a professional that does a ton of static image programs for work but also wants a good image 75% of oled when I want to game.
I’ve been using this monitor for a few weeks. You can switch between hdr and sdr using the user presets. Takes less than 5secs even with the horrible buttons. Also, acer has a widget software where you can set which preset to use when launching specific exe. I just have switch to the HDR preset when I launch any of my HDR games
I was thinking of this. I have acer monitor with same shitty osd but you can setup multiple user settings and swap between them with 1 button to avoid the hustle.
Eventually I will want a 2160p high refresh non-OLED, so I appreciate any reviews you do in that space. Hopefully another product will earn an unreserved recommendation from you soon.
I'm curios if the 1440p version of this monitor (XV275UP3) has some differences like the PG27Q. This looks promising, but I would prefer a VA panel for a mini LED hdr monitor, as long as the performance isn't atrocious like the pg2711 from cooler master
Samsung level performance would be cool, but honestly for a content consuption monitor I just need the response times not to be completely garbage@@GewelReal
Picked this monitor up at $600. I just set the monitor to HDR and leave it in that mode. I don’t really care about SDR mode and if you are only using it for gaming, it’s not really an issue and you won’t be swapping back and forth so often. Definitely a great value compared to so many other expensive competitors.
Looking at its specs, HDR isn't ideal but it's OK (a chequerboard test is only about 2500:1, so black zones are mostly grey, it behaves like VA but brighter).
I've had an OLED monitor for over a year now and I always leave it in HDR as well. No reason not to. SDR is dim and dull in comparison, even on desktop.
How about reviewing KTC's M32P10 and INNOCN's 32m2v? Both 4k144 32inch 1152 FALD zones. Bizarre that a big monitor channel like this hasn't reviewed them, and say there aren't a lot of options for monitors of that type.
I don't know about Australia, but you can't buy either of those monitors in the UK. Maybe they haven't looked at them because they can't source them for review?
Just bought it, it is pretty damn great for $599, the color is amazing, contrast is great. Took some fiddling with to get HDR looking decent on Windows but better off just using SDR unless full screen gaming. HDR definitely looks good, but compared to OLED this still has a ways to go. That said, if you have small children that may forget to turn off the display, this works as burn in isn't an issue.
750+€ here in Germany 😵 there are far more attractive offers around that price, like the Alienware AW3423DWF. But the menu is quite the mood killer, as the early 2000s want their UI back.
@@socialreport2836 I don't call wether the Alienware nor the Acer a work monitor - OLED because of burn-in, the Acer because of the menu & software issues. If I have to switch often between SDR/HDR the Acer would drive me nuts. Both are for gaming and media consmption, nothing more, imho.
This review started out so promising, then the cons just kept building up. I'm looking for a work and play monitor so the specs of this sounded great but as you said, didn't stick the landing
I can not believe ACER has still not fixed the 'Auto HDR' issue that has been around for 4+ years now. I have a XV273X from 2019 and it has the exact same issue with regards to manually having to switch in the menu for HDR. This just reaffirms my decision to never buy another Acer monitor again. Thank you for the thoroughness in testing all features of the monitor; most other reviewers would just skip over this like it was nothing.
Huh, I have that monitor and am considering returning it for this because of proper local dimming, higher refresh rate and wider color gamut. What's the downside?
I bought this monitor and the KTC g27p6 OLED 1440p 240Hz during black friday deal. Tbh, while Oled looks great, the HDR in this acer monitor ended up looking better for me. I just couldn't get the HDR on the KTC to look good despite being OLED. I am most likely going to end up keeping the Acer and returing the KTC.
Acer monitor firmware has got t be the worst firmware of them all. I returned an otherwise great Acer monitor a year ago due to the same problems with the firmware as shown in this video. It's a total dealbreaker, and the fact that Acer has not improved upon any of these issues at all says everything you need to know about their monitor division.
Thanks for covering the monitor, Tim! I want to say two things - first, thanks for calling out the issues with the Sharpness setting issue, I'd actually say that the tonemapping that Acer uses for SDR content in the HDR mode is generally pretty good, to the point where I don't feel the need to ever turn HDR off. Is it perfect? No, but it works well enough and with AutoHDR in W11 after calibration generally even comparing HDR on and off it feels not really worth it to toggle the HDR option at all.
Xiaomi 27" 27i G Pro Mini is coming to EU market next month, with 3x more Mini Led count competing in a similar price bracket, itt might just be what Mini Led needs to hit the medium consumer market
@1:48 Yeah ACER is NOTORIOUS for having Monitors that look different in Real life vs it's Online Product Page... I have the Acer BM270 27 Inch 4k 384 Local Dimming Zones and it doesn't look nothing like it's product page.
Ah HDR, the biggest marketing scam in the last 10 years for display tech. Still no standard, looks like dog shit on 90% of content, and is darker....it's all junk software tech.
Hey Tim. Thanks for this review. Could you review the 1440p VA variant (XV272UP3) as well? And also the very similar (Possibly same panel?) AOC Q27G3XMN? Thanks! BTW did you manage to figure out how to adjust the RGB lighting at the back of the monitor? Did you also try the Acer Display Widget? It might be a useful way to bypass the frustrating button based OSD.
14:15 Yeah, I wish Windows wasn't so annoying with HDR. It's crazy how much better consoles and TVs are at this. When I start up an HDR game on my TV, it goes into HDR mode. If the game doesn't have HDR, it stays in the SDR colour space. On Windows, you always have to turn off HDR after gaming because SDR doesn't look right with it constantly enabled. It's so annoying.
i see this mentioned a lot but the only difference i can tell between SDR and SDR tonemapped in HDR is the gamma (i run custom 2.4 in SDR and in HDR it sets 2.2 and i cant change it) is this more of an issue with LCDs? (tho not being able to just switch with the windows shortcut but having to go though the OSD seems like a terrible implementation by this specific screen)
@@MKR3238 Black levels for SDK are also wrong. It also tonemaps all content to sRGB, even if you are viewing Rec 709 content, like TV shows and TH-cam videos. The tonemapping is bad, there is just no excuse for it.
just got this on the 12th of december haha, first time experiencing 4k and miniled, absolutely spectacular. my older secondary monitor is the 1080p390hz acer, that one is smooth as hell but the black levels are dissapointing. gonna watch this review with this monitor in 4k now :)
Hi,I would appreciate it sooooo much if you made a review for the Lg GR75Q-B 1440p 165hz monitor. I have been thinking of buying it, but I am not sure about the performance of it. It seems too good to be true. You see in my country it costs 280€.
Can you please review the The Predator XB323QK? I’m struggling to decide which of the 32” monitors to buy between it and the Samsung odyssey neo g7. They’re literally both the same price rn
Nice looking monitor but I really want a 32" 4K monitor with a minimum of this level of performance. Just needs a better build quality with hopefully a firmware update
So when you use one of the OLEDs, they are able to switch automatically to SDR when you exit an HDR game or stop watching HDR movie ? Also one thing I'm always wondering... when a game has built-in option to enable HDR, do you still need to enable the windows HDR slider or not ? HDR is a huge mess for me...
I use an LG C3 42" as my PC monitor and play in HDR a lot but use windows in SDR. There is a shortcut for Win 10/11 Windows key+ Alt+B that turns HDR on and off within windows. When you do this the display automatically goes to HDR game mode. Then you launch your game and most games that support HDR will recognize that it is enabled in wondows and the HDR mode will be turned on. Usually in most games you can asjust the brightness and contrast and such in HDR mode like you can in Cyberpunk and Mass Effect etc. Hope this helped.
I wonder this too. I thought that once you turn on HDR in the windows options the display will automatically pick it up, but won't be able to distinguish between an sdr youtube video and an hdr movie. At least that is what happens with my samsung tv which is vesa hdr 1000. As soon as I turn on hdr in windows it switches to hdr and it doesn't detect if the content i'm watching is hdr or not
wait... this might be it! a wide color gamut, high refresh rate 27" 4K monitor... all I need is that anti-glare nonsense coating removed and i'd order this right now. as someone who does wedding photography / filmmaking as well as gaming on the side... this would be nice ngl
Really enjoyed this review and it's pushing me to look for other options. Did any other companies put together a similar monitor with finer polish on the build quality / firmware?
Do you know if there is any meaningful differences between the Msi g274qpf-QD and the "non QD" variant? I see multiple retailers selling the Non-QD variant, often times a lot cheaper and on sale for as low as $200. I looked up speca and manuals and don't see any differencee between the QD and non QD variant in terms of brightness, color, speed.
do you guys plan on doing a review of the XV275UP3 ? eitherway I appreciate the review as there is hardly any information on this monitor or the above mentioned XV275UP3, let alone reliable reviews like the ones provided by you guys :)
Bought two of these over the sales holiday, both had awful QC issues and had to return them. Loved everything about it other than QC, I highly recommend them IF you do get a good panel.
@@lilpain1997 1800 nits is 200 nits brighter than 4 times a standard screen, which people already popularized dark mode on. That is absurdly bright. It's one thing when it's on a TV screen on the other side of a living room, but when you're sitting within an arms length of a screen, thats enough to make even transitioning to a non dark mode supporting page briefly blind you and that's just to read. Edit: doing the math -- 1nit = 3.426 lumens. That means the screen is capable of almost 6200 lumens. The pistol lamp I used to blind people with when I was in the military was 300 lumens.
@@formdoggie5 dude... I have used a screen that gets that bright. Trust me, it's really not that bright at all if you are in a lit room. It doesn't hurt unless you are in total darkness in which yes it hurt to look at.
Hey Tim. Could you comment on fan noise? I'm assuming that because it has an FALD setup there is a cooling fan? How noticeable is the noise? I'm not too worried for gaming as I wear headphones, but I often listen to music and watch YT via speakers. I used to own an X27 and the fan was a little too noticeable for comfort.
I just returned this monitor a couple days ago. There is a fan running, and it runs constantly. It shouldn't be noticeable if you have any other audio playing, but it will never be truly silent if you're looking for that at times. I returned it because I just couldn't deal with the exagerated blooming in dark game scenes and all the OSD/input weirdness of the monitor. The price is insanely good at $550, but I ended up switching to a 32" monitor and am so far enjoying it a lot more.
@@alexgifford5895 Thanks for the feedback. I'm not looking for it to be silent fortunately, so it sounds like the fan is at a bearable level. The old X27's fan was a little too intrusive sometimes. :D
For sure, you'll be fine if you have any speakers or headphones playing. Hopefully they can put out some sort of update for the firmware and OSD stuff, because that was the most annoying part of the monitor for me. I'm not even somebody who changes monitor settings very often, but there was just a lot of weird little firmware things going on with the monitor that I decided it wasn't worth keeping. @@Daemon_Wraith
I highly recommend reviewing the very competitive AOC Q27G3XMN. I got this monitor for $250 and I think it's by far the best monitor at this price point. Has 300+ local dimming zones, HDR 1000, VRR, and decent color accuracy. All while being under $300. It's a crazy good deal. Would love to see what you think!
I have this monitor for about 5 months now and I also have a Neo G7. Neo G7 is better in every way except viewing angle. XV275K P3 has decent screen and local dimming hardware on paper. But the problem is, also mentioned in the video, the HDR is too dark in most of scenarios in HDR video consumption (gaming is fine strangely). Huge black crash if there is any light source in the room. It should be a simple firmware fix to add black level adjust in HDR but looks like Acer does not want to put any resource to make this monitor better. As for the auto HDR and local dimming, it does support automatic change but it is a bit tricky to set. If you leave the color mode in "HDR" and adaptive diming to "off" in SDR, it will automatically switch to HDR and enable local dimming when it detect an HDR video source. The adaptive dimming (local dimming) will still show "off" but it is actually turned on (in HDR) and off (in SDR) automatically.
Speaking of mini-led monitors, I'm pretty interested in what the upcoming RedMagic 5088 Partition will be like! Supposedly, it uses the newest line of mini LED panels that have 5088 dimming zones. We may finally be approaching OLED levels of contrast without the downsides, though the motion clarity will still be slightly worse.
It's an ips panel but 5088 mini LEDs could make up for it if they have a good local dimming algorithm. 1 million contrast ratio is more than enough for an locally dimmed lcd panel if no blooming is present.
The Cooler Master GP27U with 1.4.1 firmware works very well with no flickering, automatic switching between SDR and HDR and remember FALD settings between modes.
on reddit their are still complaining about flcikering issue, KVM switch and impossbility to set brigthness in HDR Mode. I guess they will never get fixed the probs. If thex fix one thing another thing doesnt work in result.
Hopefully next year there will finally be some monitors that can have sustained HDR brightness over 1000. Been looking for something like that for ages. Of course the rest of the specs need to be on par as well
@@drunkhusband6257 Well I wouldn’t say that’s entirely true I’m talking about the amount of nits the display can push out instabiel when in HDR mode. I have seen several different HDR monitors in my life, and I definitely do see the different capabilities some monitors can have. I have a friend who has a so called HDR monitor but it’s only with HDR 600 and comparing that for example to an ASUS ROG PG32UQX on the brightness alone in HDR it is a whole different game. There is so much more pop going on than on a monitor that does not has that amount of brightness. Granted that monitor has many other problems of course but it’s HDR capabilities are excellent. And sure, brightness in HDR mode is not everything you have many other things to look out for when talking about an HDR monitor (see the HDR checklist from Monitors Unboxed) but brightness is definitely a contributing factor to showing important things on screen that need extra illumination
@@anonim92t yeah but they didn’t really have that because that 2000 wasn’t sustained (which I didn’t expect anyway) and second of all it wasn’t even sustained 1000 if I remember which is kinda the minimum from what I personally want and also there were many other things with those monitors that didn’t check my checklist unfortunately. Hopefully next year :)
Anyone know how to get this monitor on 160hz? For some reason windows and the nvidia control panel says that I can only get to 120hz, while in games I can get to 144hz. Anyone know the reason? I enabled the 160hz mode in the settings.
Yet another Mini-LED panel ruined by MASSIVE processing lag in HDR mode. Until these mini-LED monitors can reduce the excessive input lag from HDR, I can't imagine buying one for gaming use. As gamers we're stuck between 3 options - No HDR w/ low input lag (IPS/VA), HDR w/ terrible input lag (mini-LED), HDR w/ zero input lag, but a risk of burn-in & burned out pixels (OLED). Micro-LED can't come fast enough IMO. Between continued OLED generational improvements and the future launch of Micro-LED, hopefully in a few years we'll have a zero-compromise monitor selection!
lol, I got the Neo g8 and I cannot feel a difference between this and my other lg oled 240h inputlag wise And while it’s true that the input lag is higher (actually the input lag stays the same, according to tftcentral & rtings, just the pixel response gets a bit slower so more overshot, you will not want to play competitive games in HDR anyway, because in these games you WANT bad contrast, high black equalizer from very grey blacks to see enemy in dark corners better, you want the opposite of HDR so you turn off local dimming and you’re good For single player HDR games, a small response time increase won’t matter anyway. My OLED looked like a TN/IPS when I was playing Warzone, and I was top250, you do NOT want HDR for competitive multiplayer, so don’t even bother about the input lag with local dimming on Just play and enjoy
@@kerim_og_9378 That's a good point about the darker content of fast paced games and the benefit of turning off HDR, but you're way off about input lag. If RTings and TFT are saying input lag doesn't change when using FALD, they're sorely mistaken. Often times, when many outlets report "Input Lag", they're typically just referring to pixel response times+refresh delay. This is not an accurate representation because it ignores the processing delay. Normal processing delay (when not using HDR) is extremely minimal so if it's ignored in reporting it's not an issue, but on mini-led displays (monitors and tv's), the processing delay increases by 5-10x. Tim does a great job on these videos showing the full breakdown of each of the elements that total together as Input Lag. That being said, I appreciate your take on competitive gaming. It sounds like you're notably better than I am, so I'll take your points at face value. Much appreciated!
@@socialreport2836 The video you just commented on shows otherwise. See the difference between total response time. I think you're confusing the what I'm saying with the response time graphs early in the video starting at around 4:00. The changes seen here with the various refresh rates are not what I'm referring to. Please refer to the SDR Input Lag charts at 7:35 showing Total Input lag for this monitor (while at it's maximum refresh rate) at 10.2ms with a processing delay of only 0.6ms. Tim even specifies that this low processing delay is when local dimming is disabled. If you jump ahead to 19:01, you can see the exact same Input Lag charts, but this time showing the results when the mini-leds Local Dimming is active (HDR on). You can see that while at the same max refresh rate, the Input Lag has jumped from 10.2ms in SDR to now 19.2ms. This entire difference is shown to be the increased processing delay of 10.1ms compared to the 0.6ms in SDR. Tim goes on to explicitly explain that this is directly due to the use of the Mini-LED local dimming. "Input Latency is notably higher in the HDR mode as the scaler needs to process the image to determine which backlight zones to activate. If after all that, you still have any lingering doubt about VRR not being the cause, you'll notice that for both the SDR (7:35) and HDR (19:01) charts, the monitor has Adaptive Sync On in both tests as shown in the chart titles at the top of the screen. VRR is therefore consistent between tests and not the cause.
I don't understand why they even ship monitors that don't work with both SDR and HDR without having to muck around in the OSD. I use a LG C1 and it's just seamless. Even having to switch back and forth in Windows (for many games) is bad design, but I can live with that. (My understanding is that the SDR gamma curve is incorrect if you stay in HDR mode all the time, so even with the SDR content brightness set in Windows, you're getting worse quality than with Windows HDR off, and so staying in HDR mode constantly isn't great.)
God they never use backlight strobing modes on these very bright back lights. It's damn frustrating If you strobe using the HDR headroom on the display you would get a very decent contrasty SDR image with good motion.
Can you guys please test the AOC Q27G3XMN? It’s under $300, mini led, 180hz flat va panel with hdr1000 supposedly. I wanna get one but would love to see your opinion on it first
how would this work on an msi 3080 suprim? Is this the type of monitor I have been hearing everyone will show in January? Hope a lot of 32" coming. this monitor is almost $800 I am sorry but I would pay $50 more and get a samsung neo g7
Looks promising, in terms of this panel existing for manufacturers to use now, but I think I'll wait for a more competent company to make use of it. Those OSD controls, and having to switch multiple OSD options every time you go in or out of HDR mode, are a complete dealbreaker on a modern display.
the question i have is, how does this new Mini Led Monitor like this Acer compare to the old Pg27uq + acer predator x27, their Local Dimming algrm is supported by the gsync ultimate module, so i guess the older high end HDR Monitors are still the best or not :O?
thanks for the video. i switch between HDR and SDR quite often on my current monitor as i find SDR to be more accurate when using Adobe lightroom and i need my photos to look as close to what my customers will be viewing them on. and most normal people dont even know hdr exists. i just use win+Alt+B to switch between the two and its super simple. this monitor would not be for me as having to navigate in the osd every time would drive me insane. this monitor is also not for me as its hella expensive and im a simple peasant :P
I got this monitor around September! I'm excited to see your thoughts (one nag off the bat. I HATE the navigation and one of the buttons broke off. So I have to jam my finger in the hole to change it)
The LG 27GR95UM just dropped and looks like a winner.
Unfortunately, it will only be launched in China first. Looks pretty promising though
is there a better alternative for 27-28 inch 4k 144+ hz monitor?
can you use clickmonitor ddc with this monitor?
Hey, I'm currently testing the Windows 11 build 26016 and its ACM Auto Color Management feature. It basically clamps down non specifically tagged content to sRGB and only uses DCI P3 when tagged so. Could you make a video about that feature and about its performance? Because it seems to do the job pretty well and even TH-cam videos are not oversaturated anymore. Thanks!!
Is that an insider build ?
@@C0BEX unfortunately yes. It was publicly released with 23H2 but they took that update down due to some issues people were having.
I think the public update should come very soon
+
Does the ACM work for desktop as well? In other words, does Windows desktop look oversaturated on a wide gamut monitor when ACM is turned on, or does ACM fix this issue?
@@dnzlwshnktn2092 it fixes the issue and the Desktop looks like it should, finally.
You can really tell that by looking at the Google Chrome and the Windows Explorer logo, especially the red and the yellow/orange parts :)
To avoid using the bad OSD, there is a software that may work with this model of monitor called Acer Display Widget.
It does.
Thanks for finally doing mini led. Oled just isn't an option for me yet being a professional that does a ton of static image programs for work but also wants a good image 75% of oled when I want to game.
I’ve been using this monitor for a few weeks. You can switch between hdr and sdr using the user presets. Takes less than 5secs even with the horrible buttons. Also, acer has a widget software where you can set which preset to use when launching specific exe. I just have switch to the HDR preset when I launch any of my HDR games
What about Updating the Firmware, does it allow you to do that?
I was thinking of this. I have acer monitor with same shitty osd but you can setup multiple user settings and swap between them with 1 button to avoid the hustle.
Do yourself a favor and disable hdr forever....absolute junk tech
@@doctorfresh3856haven’t tried yet but I would assume so? Why would I want to update the firmware out of curiosity?
@@tepkisizexactly
Eventually I will want a 2160p high refresh non-OLED, so I appreciate any reviews you do in that space. Hopefully another product will earn an unreserved recommendation from you soon.
So did u found it??
I'm curios if the 1440p version of this monitor (XV275UP3) has some differences like the PG27Q. This looks promising, but I would prefer a VA panel for a mini LED hdr monitor, as long as the performance isn't atrocious like the pg2711 from cooler master
sadly only Samsung is capable of black magic (pun not intended) with VAs
we need competition dammit!
Yes, only Samsung produces Magic Color cpu for their monotors to properly toggle pixel response times.
TCL bought out one of Samsung's Chinese factories now and seems to be capable of getting the same performance with their HVA panels.@@GewelReal
Samsung level performance would be cool, but honestly for a content consuption monitor I just need the response times not to be completely garbage@@GewelReal
Picked this monitor up at $600. I just set the monitor to HDR and leave it in that mode. I don’t really care about SDR mode and if you are only using it for gaming, it’s not really an issue and you won’t be swapping back and forth so often. Definitely a great value compared to so many other expensive competitors.
Looking at its specs, HDR isn't ideal but it's OK (a chequerboard test is only about 2500:1, so black zones are mostly grey, it behaves like VA but brighter).
Have you at least calibrated it?
I've had an OLED monitor for over a year now and I always leave it in HDR as well. No reason not to. SDR is dim and dull in comparison, even on desktop.
@@ch0ketv_ On LED it's the opposite, SDR is brighter and more uniform for work.
did you notice the flowering seen from the front? like in the viewfinder?
How about reviewing KTC's M32P10 and INNOCN's 32m2v? Both 4k144 32inch 1152 FALD zones. Bizarre that a big monitor channel like this hasn't reviewed them, and say there aren't a lot of options for monitors of that type.
I don't know about Australia, but you can't buy either of those monitors in the UK. Maybe they haven't looked at them because they can't source them for review?
Yep never heard of those monitor manufacturers here in Australia
Just bought it, it is pretty damn great for $599, the color is amazing, contrast is great. Took some fiddling with to get HDR looking decent on Windows but better off just using SDR unless full screen gaming. HDR definitely looks good, but compared to OLED this still has a ways to go. That said, if you have small children that may forget to turn off the display, this works as burn in isn't an issue.
Wow, your reviews are getting better and better. I would call this industry leading.
it probably is the most accurate and reliable in deed
750+€ here in Germany 😵 there are far more attractive offers around that price, like the Alienware AW3423DWF.
But the menu is quite the mood killer, as the early 2000s want their UI back.
For work OLED isn't an option due to its burn in issues (it's not a myth, with static images you will get it for certain).
@@socialreport2836 I don't call wether the Alienware nor the Acer a work monitor - OLED because of burn-in, the Acer because of the menu & software issues.
If I have to switch often between SDR/HDR the Acer would drive me nuts.
Both are for gaming and media consmption, nothing more, imho.
This review started out so promising, then the cons just kept building up. I'm looking for a work and play monitor so the specs of this sounded great but as you said, didn't stick the landing
Please tell me if you find any, I'm looking for exactly the same thing. Oled isn't an option for me...
I can not believe ACER has still not fixed the 'Auto HDR' issue that has been around for 4+ years now. I have a XV273X from 2019 and it has the exact same issue with regards to manually having to switch in the menu for HDR. This just reaffirms my decision to never buy another Acer monitor again. Thank you for the thoroughness in testing all features of the monitor; most other reviewers would just skip over this like it was nothing.
Have you tried with updated acer drivers?
@@nembaosrs406 Yes latest driver and no difference.
I was just about to pick this monitor top from Best Buy sorta grab I didn't now
looks much better than cooler master's offerings. Looking forward to seeing what comes in the future
*Can you please review an ACTUALLY GOOD ACER MONITOR instead of just the bad ones???*
Like the Acer XV282K
Huh, I have that monitor and am considering returning it for this because of proper local dimming, higher refresh rate and wider color gamut. What's the downside?
Im pretty sure the xv275K isnt bad
Local dimming not working well with SDR is a deal breaker for me. FALD shouldn't just be about HDR but better contrast for SDR as well :(
What do you suggest?
Got this for 4099HKD (523.35 USD/490.83 EUR/815.94 AUD) and I just leave HDR mode on, did not regret
Doesn't exist in New Zealand. All Acer monitors here are ancient crap.
I bought this monitor and the KTC g27p6 OLED 1440p 240Hz during black friday deal. Tbh, while Oled looks great, the HDR in this acer monitor ended up looking better for me. I just couldn't get the HDR on the KTC to look good despite being OLED. I am most likely going to end up keeping the Acer and returing the KTC.
My KTC G42P5 is great! Can Tim review the KTC G27P6? I wanna buy one for my wife.
Acer monitor firmware has got t be the worst firmware of them all. I returned an otherwise great Acer monitor a year ago due to the same problems with the firmware as shown in this video. It's a total dealbreaker, and the fact that Acer has not improved upon any of these issues at all says everything you need to know about their monitor division.
Thanks for covering the monitor, Tim! I want to say two things - first, thanks for calling out the issues with the Sharpness setting issue, I'd actually say that the tonemapping that Acer uses for SDR content in the HDR mode is generally pretty good, to the point where I don't feel the need to ever turn HDR off. Is it perfect? No, but it works well enough and with AutoHDR in W11 after calibration generally even comparing HDR on and off it feels not really worth it to toggle the HDR option at all.
Xiaomi 27" 27i G Pro Mini is coming to EU market next month, with 3x more Mini Led count competing in a similar price bracket, itt might just be what Mini Led needs to hit the medium consumer market
OMG ! 12:16 I thought I had a DEAD PIXEL on the left side but it is luckily the video itself.
Unbelivable that this monitor costs 400$ on newegg and in the EU 900€
Yeah, you need to review the AOC Q27G3XMN, Cheaper, Faster, and Better HDR. probably the best Monitor under 350 USD.
@1:48 Yeah ACER is NOTORIOUS for having Monitors that look different in Real life vs it's Online Product Page... I have the Acer BM270 27 Inch 4k 384 Local Dimming Zones and it doesn't look nothing like it's product page.
About the HDR issue. Couldn’t you just leave the HDR on auto on the monitor, and then just enable/disable HDR in windows?
Ah HDR, the biggest marketing scam in the last 10 years for display tech. Still no standard, looks like dog shit on 90% of content, and is darker....it's all junk software tech.
This is the monitor with IPS panel and not with the VA panel.
I need 4k for the upcoming Switch 2
Thank you for your coverage! Been looking at this thing for 2 weeks, sadly it's over 700 euro in EU but you don't want to know competition prices.
$360 refurbished on ebay
R u also going to look at mini-leds from KTC & INNOCN, or the AOC Q27G3XMN?
P.S. I would really appreciate!
He did look at the q27g3xmn. Less color accurate and worse eotf tracking. But it's contrast is a lot better
Hey Tim. Thanks for this review. Could you review the 1440p VA variant (XV272UP3) as well? And also the very similar (Possibly same panel?) AOC Q27G3XMN? Thanks! BTW did you manage to figure out how to adjust the RGB lighting at the back of the monitor? Did you also try the Acer Display Widget? It might be a useful way to bypass the frustrating button based OSD.
This is cheap 😂
14:15 Yeah, I wish Windows wasn't so annoying with HDR. It's crazy how much better consoles and TVs are at this. When I start up an HDR game on my TV, it goes into HDR mode. If the game doesn't have HDR, it stays in the SDR colour space. On Windows, you always have to turn off HDR after gaming because SDR doesn't look right with it constantly enabled. It's so annoying.
i see this mentioned a lot but the only difference i can tell between SDR and SDR tonemapped in HDR is the gamma (i run custom 2.4 in SDR and in HDR it sets 2.2 and i cant change it)
is this more of an issue with LCDs? (tho not being able to just switch with the windows shortcut but having to go though the OSD seems like a terrible implementation by this specific screen)
@@MKR3238 Black levels for SDK are also wrong. It also tonemaps all content to sRGB, even if you are viewing Rec 709 content, like TV shows and TH-cam videos.
The tonemapping is bad, there is just no excuse for it.
just got this on the 12th of december haha, first time experiencing 4k and miniled, absolutely spectacular. my older secondary monitor is the 1080p390hz acer, that one is smooth as hell but the black levels are dissapointing. gonna watch this review with this monitor in 4k now :)
Time to send it back
@@deathlord77 why?
@kake52 not worth it just wait a few more months foe a better iteration
What do you suggest?@@deathlord77
Hi,I would appreciate it sooooo much if you made a review for the Lg GR75Q-B 1440p 165hz monitor. I have been thinking of buying it, but I am not sure about the performance of it. It seems too good to be true. You see in my country it costs 280€.
Can you please review the The Predator XB323QK? I’m struggling to decide which of the 32” monitors to buy between it and the Samsung odyssey neo g7. They’re literally both the same price rn
I got one of these a couple of weeks ago for gaming and love it
Acer monitors are not weird for only having Normal overdrive with VRR. It's actually been typical of them for years already.
Nice looking monitor but I really want a 32" 4K monitor with a minimum of this level of performance. Just needs a better build quality with hopefully a firmware update
Neo g7?
I sorta said the same thing. 699 for a 27" is kinda meh, 32" is recommended for that price point
Smoothing filter on your face needs to stop
So when you use one of the OLEDs, they are able to switch automatically to SDR when you exit an HDR game or stop watching HDR movie ? Also one thing I'm always wondering... when a game has built-in option to enable HDR, do you still need to enable the windows HDR slider or not ? HDR is a huge mess for me...
This is something I'm also curious about. If anyone has an answer (based on previous HUB videos or personal experience), I'd love your input!
I use an LG C3 42" as my PC monitor and play in HDR a lot but use windows in SDR. There is a shortcut for Win 10/11 Windows key+ Alt+B that turns HDR on and off within windows. When you do this the display automatically goes to HDR game mode. Then you launch your game and most games that support HDR will recognize that it is enabled in wondows and the HDR mode will be turned on. Usually in most games you can asjust the brightness and contrast and such in HDR mode like you can in Cyberpunk and Mass Effect etc. Hope this helped.
HDR is a mess with windows as you need to manually turn it on or off dependent on the application as certain images will wash out badly.
I wonder this too. I thought that once you turn on HDR in the windows options the display will automatically pick it up, but won't be able to distinguish between an sdr youtube video and an hdr movie. At least that is what happens with my samsung tv which is vesa hdr 1000. As soon as I turn on hdr in windows it switches to hdr and it doesn't detect if the content i'm watching is hdr or not
yes, but what if the app/game has its own HDR slider@@martytube821
wait... this might be it! a wide color gamut, high refresh rate 27" 4K monitor... all I need is that anti-glare nonsense coating removed and i'd order this right now.
as someone who does wedding photography / filmmaking as well as gaming on the side... this would be nice ngl
Just picked up an Acer certified refurb unit on eBay for $306, sounds like it’ll be well worth that
The 32" InnoCN 32M2V with 1156 zones is only $600 now
ACER NITRO XV275KV IPS 4K UHD 160HZ USB-C AMD FREESYNC (UM.HX5EE.V05) or gigabyte m27u?
Wow Go ACER!
Great to finally see some miniLED reviews.
Hi Tim, can you please test the 1440p VA version of this monitor the Acer XV275U P3?
Really enjoyed this review and it's pushing me to look for other options. Did any other companies put together a similar monitor with finer polish on the build quality / firmware?
Do you know if there is any meaningful differences between the Msi g274qpf-QD and the "non QD" variant?
I see multiple retailers selling the Non-QD variant, often times a lot cheaper and on sale for as low as $200.
I looked up speca and manuals and don't see any differencee between the QD and non QD variant in terms of brightness, color, speed.
Also, what coating does it have? semi-gloss or matte?
do you guys plan on doing a review of the XV275UP3 ?
eitherway I appreciate the review as there is hardly any information on this monitor or the above mentioned XV275UP3, let alone reliable reviews like the ones provided by you guys :)
4k is too much for my rx 580 :))
poor
You have no idea the power your RX 580 can do.
Unlock it's potential.
@@kerpl0p🤡
There's dozens of us left!
You could just set the output to 1080p for games, integer scaling should make it look as good as native full hd.
Bought two of these over the sales holiday, both had awful QC issues and had to return them. Loved everything about it other than QC, I highly recommend them IF you do get a good panel.
1800 nits? Holy sh -- Dont play any game that involves flashbangs.
Its really not bad unless you are in a dark room.
@@lilpain1997 1800 nits is 200 nits brighter than 4 times a standard screen, which people already popularized dark mode on.
That is absurdly bright.
It's one thing when it's on a TV screen on the other side of a living room, but when you're sitting within an arms length of a screen, thats enough to make even transitioning to a non dark mode supporting page briefly blind you and that's just to read.
Edit: doing the math -- 1nit = 3.426 lumens.
That means the screen is capable of almost 6200 lumens. The pistol lamp I used to blind people with when I was in the military was 300 lumens.
@@formdoggie5 dude... I have used a screen that gets that bright. Trust me, it's really not that bright at all if you are in a lit room. It doesn't hurt unless you are in total darkness in which yes it hurt to look at.
Hey Tim. Could you comment on fan noise? I'm assuming that because it has an FALD setup there is a cooling fan? How noticeable is the noise? I'm not too worried for gaming as I wear headphones, but I often listen to music and watch YT via speakers. I used to own an X27 and the fan was a little too noticeable for comfort.
I just returned this monitor a couple days ago. There is a fan running, and it runs constantly. It shouldn't be noticeable if you have any other audio playing, but it will never be truly silent if you're looking for that at times. I returned it because I just couldn't deal with the exagerated blooming in dark game scenes and all the OSD/input weirdness of the monitor. The price is insanely good at $550, but I ended up switching to a 32" monitor and am so far enjoying it a lot more.
@@alexgifford5895 Thanks for the feedback. I'm not looking for it to be silent fortunately, so it sounds like the fan is at a bearable level. The old X27's fan was a little too intrusive sometimes. :D
For sure, you'll be fine if you have any speakers or headphones playing. Hopefully they can put out some sort of update for the firmware and OSD stuff, because that was the most annoying part of the monitor for me. I'm not even somebody who changes monitor settings very often, but there was just a lot of weird little firmware things going on with the monitor that I decided it wasn't worth keeping.
@@Daemon_Wraith
I have had one for months. I didn’t know there was a fan. I’ve used it in a dead quiet environment too.
@@Keivz Even better. :D
Tim always shits on acer monitors.
I highly recommend reviewing the very competitive AOC Q27G3XMN. I got this monitor for $250 and I think it's by far the best monitor at this price point. Has 300+ local dimming zones, HDR 1000, VRR, and decent color accuracy. All while being under $300. It's a crazy good deal.
Would love to see what you think!
I have two of these from Amazon, returning tomorrow. A lot of glooming around videos on TH-cam. Super weird
@@zenzei_305 I am probably so damn late but that has to be youtube "ambient mode" setting being enabled. You gotta disable that.
The color accuracy sucks in hdr
@@zenzei_305why are you returning them
I have this monitor for about 5 months now and I also have a Neo G7. Neo G7 is better in every way except viewing angle. XV275K P3 has decent screen and local dimming hardware on paper. But the problem is, also mentioned in the video, the HDR is too dark in most of scenarios in HDR video consumption (gaming is fine strangely). Huge black crash if there is any light source in the room. It should be a simple firmware fix to add black level adjust in HDR but looks like Acer does not want to put any resource to make this monitor better.
As for the auto HDR and local dimming, it does support automatic change but it is a bit tricky to set. If you leave the color mode in "HDR" and adaptive diming to "off" in SDR, it will automatically switch to HDR and enable local dimming when it detect an HDR video source. The adaptive dimming (local dimming) will still show "off" but it is actually turned on (in HDR) and off (in SDR) automatically.
Is it the neo g7 43"? I'm looking to buy it, but the negative reviews about ghosting are pulling me away
Neo G7 only has a IPC 3 Color rating of 95% , this has 99%
Speaking of mini-led monitors, I'm pretty interested in what the upcoming RedMagic 5088 Partition will be like!
Supposedly, it uses the newest line of mini LED panels that have 5088 dimming zones. We may finally be approaching OLED levels of contrast without the downsides, though the motion clarity will still be slightly worse.
I hope redmagic implements an energy savings mode so that this monitor can finally be released in europe
It's an ips panel but 5088 mini LEDs could make up for it if they have a good local dimming algorithm. 1 million contrast ratio is more than enough for an locally dimmed lcd panel if no blooming is present.
The Cooler Master GP27U with 1.4.1 firmware works very well with no flickering, automatic switching between SDR and HDR and remember FALD settings between modes.
Agreed 💪🥰😇👍
on reddit their are still complaining about flcikering issue, KVM switch and impossbility to set brigthness in HDR Mode. I guess they will never get fixed the probs. If thex fix one thing another thing doesnt work in result.
How is the Acer Nitro XV322QKKV ? Or is this monitor similar ?
I just bought this today,,, but for some reason I can't get my brightness to turn down
5:27 Wait what??? How does ambient temperature affect Overdrive performance?????
Why can't we get some more 32" 4k 160hz monitors instead of 27" 4k where the benefits of 4k are much more limited.
Hopefully next year there will finally be some monitors that can have sustained HDR brightness over 1000. Been looking for something like that for ages. Of course the rest of the specs need to be on par as well
HDR has nothing to do with brightness, don't know where you people come up with this nonsense...
@@drunkhusband6257 Well I wouldn’t say that’s entirely true I’m talking about the amount of nits the display can push out instabiel when in HDR mode. I have seen several different HDR monitors in my life, and I definitely do see the different capabilities some monitors can have.
I have a friend who has a so called HDR monitor but it’s only with HDR 600 and comparing that for example to an ASUS ROG PG32UQX on the brightness alone in HDR it is a whole different game. There is so much more pop going on than on a monitor that does not has that amount of brightness. Granted that monitor has many other problems of course but it’s HDR capabilities are excellent.
And sure, brightness in HDR mode is not everything you have many other things to look out for when talking about an HDR monitor (see the HDR checklist from Monitors Unboxed) but brightness is definitely a contributing factor to showing important things on screen that need extra illumination
such monitors appeared last year. samsung neo g7 and g8-hdr 2000
@@anonim92t yeah but they didn’t really have that because that 2000 wasn’t sustained (which I didn’t expect anyway) and second of all it wasn’t even sustained 1000 if I remember which is kinda the minimum from what I personally want and also there were many other things with those monitors that didn’t check my checklist unfortunately. Hopefully next year :)
@@emiel255 yes
Anyone know how to get this monitor on 160hz? For some reason windows and the nvidia control panel says that I can only get to 120hz, while in games I can get to 144hz. Anyone know the reason? I enabled the 160hz mode in the settings.
Was originally planning on getting the neo g8 but its a bit out of my budget,figured this was the next best thing
So, standard Acer, halfbaked product and a mixed bag...
Nice price point but "F" that noise...manual processes today? Hard pass. At least more will soon follow w/ more elegant solutions/interfaces.
Looks decent, my only concern is the blooming, can you do some kind of test how bad it is? Thanks
Hello guys, AOC 24'' IPS 24G2SPAE/BK Monitor or IIYAMA G-MASTER 24" IPS GB2470HSU-B5 Monitor ? Which one has better input lag and better for gaming?
Enabling the HDR features from the poor quality osd is downright laughable which is a shame because it had such promise to budget category.
Me: I wonder if I can get the XV275K from Acer over the GP27U from Coolermaster
Me After Watching This Video: Hmm, yeah I have no idea. Tim send help.
Yet another Mini-LED panel ruined by MASSIVE processing lag in HDR mode. Until these mini-LED monitors can reduce the excessive input lag from HDR, I can't imagine buying one for gaming use.
As gamers we're stuck between 3 options - No HDR w/ low input lag (IPS/VA), HDR w/ terrible input lag (mini-LED), HDR w/ zero input lag, but a risk of burn-in & burned out pixels (OLED).
Micro-LED can't come fast enough IMO. Between continued OLED generational improvements and the future launch of Micro-LED, hopefully in a few years we'll have a zero-compromise monitor selection!
Lol. Massive? Exaggerating much? You've bought into marketing mythology. Congratulations.
No, the input lag isn't due to mini leds but due to VRR.
lol, I got the Neo g8 and I cannot feel a difference between this and my other lg oled 240h inputlag wise
And while it’s true that the input lag is higher (actually the input lag stays the same, according to tftcentral & rtings, just the pixel response gets a bit slower so more overshot, you will not want to play competitive games in HDR anyway, because in these games you WANT bad contrast, high black equalizer from very grey blacks to see enemy in dark corners better, you want the opposite of HDR so you turn off local dimming and you’re good
For single player HDR games, a small response time increase won’t matter anyway.
My OLED looked like a TN/IPS when I was playing Warzone, and I was top250, you do NOT want HDR for competitive multiplayer, so don’t even bother about the input lag with local dimming on
Just play and enjoy
@@kerim_og_9378 That's a good point about the darker content of fast paced games and the benefit of turning off HDR, but you're way off about input lag. If RTings and TFT are saying input lag doesn't change when using FALD, they're sorely mistaken. Often times, when many outlets report "Input Lag", they're typically just referring to pixel response times+refresh delay. This is not an accurate representation because it ignores the processing delay. Normal processing delay (when not using HDR) is extremely minimal so if it's ignored in reporting it's not an issue, but on mini-led displays (monitors and tv's), the processing delay increases by 5-10x. Tim does a great job on these videos showing the full breakdown of each of the elements that total together as Input Lag.
That being said, I appreciate your take on competitive gaming. It sounds like you're notably better than I am, so I'll take your points at face value. Much appreciated!
@@socialreport2836 The video you just commented on shows otherwise. See the difference between total response time. I think you're confusing the what I'm saying with the response time graphs early in the video starting at around 4:00. The changes seen here with the various refresh rates are not what I'm referring to.
Please refer to the SDR Input Lag charts at 7:35 showing Total Input lag for this monitor (while at it's maximum refresh rate) at 10.2ms with a processing delay of only 0.6ms. Tim even specifies that this low processing delay is when local dimming is disabled. If you jump ahead to 19:01, you can see the exact same Input Lag charts, but this time showing the results when the mini-leds Local Dimming is active (HDR on). You can see that while at the same max refresh rate, the Input Lag has jumped from 10.2ms in SDR to now 19.2ms. This entire difference is shown to be the increased processing delay of 10.1ms compared to the 0.6ms in SDR. Tim goes on to explicitly explain that this is directly due to the use of the Mini-LED local dimming. "Input Latency is notably higher in the HDR mode as the scaler needs to process the image to determine which backlight zones to activate.
If after all that, you still have any lingering doubt about VRR not being the cause, you'll notice that for both the SDR (7:35) and HDR (19:01) charts, the monitor has Adaptive Sync On in both tests as shown in the chart titles at the top of the screen. VRR is therefore consistent between tests and not the cause.
Hey so is this usabel for photo/video editing?
It’s hard to find a monitor that has 4k 120 and is usabel for editing, are any out there? Pls help 🙏🏽
Mi 30inch 200hz (2560x1080)
Please do a review for it. Thanks.
Suggest using VRR?
Why, tearing is not an issue. Stupid gimmick
Idk I would just leave HDR on? Not sure why people are just changing settings. Onces it is set it is set.
Feel a bad product after this review for me, ill keep wait for better display releases curetlly I am using m27Q so it still ok.
I don't understand why they even ship monitors that don't work with both SDR and HDR without having to muck around in the OSD. I use a LG C1 and it's just seamless.
Even having to switch back and forth in Windows (for many games) is bad design, but I can live with that.
(My understanding is that the SDR gamma curve is incorrect if you stay in HDR mode all the time, so even with the SDR content brightness set in Windows, you're getting worse quality than with Windows HDR off, and so staying in HDR mode constantly isn't great.)
Actual HDR full matrix screen are OLEDs. Since I'm using OLED daily, no way to return to LCD for me.
God they never use backlight strobing modes on these very bright back lights. It's damn frustrating
If you strobe using the HDR headroom on the display you would get a very decent contrasty SDR image with good motion.
For you, what is the best monitor for music production today?
With OLED ultrawides going out at $700-$1100. This thing is nearly not cheap enough. Need to be in 500s range.
Please review the AOC Q27G3XMN (27 inch, Mini-LED, 1440P, 180hz) monitor! Right now it's $260 USD, and wondering if it's worth it.
i mean, are there any competitors? Market certainly lacks proper 27" 4k displays with good local dimming. (ASUS, looking in your side)
It's bad enough we have to manually enable HDR in windows in most games. Having to do it in the OSD is just criminal.
Can you guys please test the AOC Q27G3XMN? It’s under $300, mini led, 180hz flat va panel with hdr1000 supposedly. I wanna get one but would love to see your opinion on it first
how would this work on an msi 3080 suprim? Is this the type of monitor I have been hearing everyone will show in January? Hope a lot of 32" coming. this monitor is almost $800 I am sorry but I would pay $50 more and get a samsung neo g7
Whats the best 32 inch 4k monitor that is 60hz with good hdr. Under $500 usd