Viewsonic’s new 1440p 165Hz IPS Gaming Monitor – XG270QG Review
The 1440p 144hz monitor market is jam packed full of amazing options, from the crazy cheap, to the ludicrously expensive, from TN to VA to IPS, there really is a lot to choose from, and that choice just got bigger, thanks to Viewsonic and their new offering, the XG270QG. It’s 27 inches of 1440p 165hz IPS goodness that, depending on it’s final pricing, could make it a real smash hit. Lets take a look then.
Starting with the panel, like I said, it’s 1440p, 165hz with an overclock, IPS and features G-Sync. It’s stunning to look at, so crisp, amazing viewing angles as you would expect from an IPS, especially those side to sides, and generally brilliant. Colours wise, Viewsonic claim it’s a 10 bit panel which is great, allowing them to get near 98% DCI P3 coverage – in my testing it was a little lower at around 90%, and around 125% of the sRGB spectrum, but once you factor in margin of error, it’s pretty close. Either way, this is a vibrant and enjoyable panel for colours. It also has a brightness of around 400 nits, meaning if you were to enable HDR, you’d only be getting the bare minimum experience there.
As for gaming on it, as you expect, it’s great. That resolution really is the sweet spot in terms of PPI, and the 144Hz, or 165Hz if you enable it, refresh rate feels smooth making for a great time playing anything, including fast paced shooters. When it comes to the panel’s response time, with the overdrive set to its fastest setting I saw a black to white response time of around 4ms which is very impressive for an IPS, although it’s white to black time was a lot slower at around 12ms, which did lead to a little ghosting. Input lag was pretty good, at around 30ms average for total system, ie from a mouse click to the gun firing in CS:GO, which isn’t bad. It’s not the fastest I’ve seen, but it’s really not bad.
So, we’ve covered the panel, lets talk about, well, everything else. Starting with those blinders on the sides. Those are removable, pretty easily with a couple of captive screws, but should you want to keep them on, they are pretty nice for blocking out any light from the sides, you know, for those gaming sessions where you need complete focus, right..
Then there is the stand. It’s pretty bulky and as a massive footprint on your desk, phone for scale there, but is nice and stable, has a handle at the top, cable management hole and the full range of adjustability you’d expect from a premium monitor, tilt, height adjust, a little swivel and rotation for portrait mode. You can also use a VESA mount, should you prefer.
Speaking of the VESA mount, of course, this has RGB. It’s got RGB around that mount, as well as desk-firing lights too. Down by the I/O there is actually a cover plate to keep the cables neat, and I/O is decent too, with DisplayPort and HDMI, a USB 3 hub, DC in and headphone jack. You do also have built in mouse bungees which I found pretty interesting, they don’t work all that well as the cable either slips out or slips through, but surprising to see that here. Oh and a headphone hanger, because of course.
So, is this monitor any better than the existing competition, like Gigabyte’s AD27QD or Asus’s PG279Q? Well, it will depend on pricing. If, as early signs suggest, it’s near the £700 mark, I don’t see a reason to get this over the Aorus model – the panels are pretty similar in terms of colours and response time, with this one having a slight edge there, and for £200 you can literally buy another 1440p 144hz monitor, so I’d save your cash. If you were set on a PG279Q or similar though, this could be a nice change thanks to it’s newer panel, and potentially slightly lower price too. With that said, if this ends up being more like £550, then it’d be a close call between it and the AD27QD, although this does have G-Sync so if you’re an AMD GPU owner you are better off with the Aorus there.
Want one? Amazon: https://techteamgb.co.uk/xg270qg
Products shown provided by: Viewsonic
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