Review on Pixio PX277P 27" FreeSync Esports Monitor - 2560X1440P, Adaptive Sync, Flicker-Free, Frameless Design, Swivel Adjustment, HD Display by Mike Perez

This review is divided into categories, so don't hesitate to jump to what interests you! Story: So, my wife and I have been trying to find the perfect gaming monitor for about a year. We used Budget Gaming 1080p. 24" monitors from Asus/Acer have been around for years. I was ready for something really better for both of us, but the choice is hard. At first, I mainly looked at 24" 1440p 144Hz monitors. In fact, I did After doing some research, I bought a Dell S2417DG on Black Friday 2018. I wanted a $500+ panel, but for $299 I figured Dell would have at least as good picture quality as my current Asus TN with would offer better response speed. Then if I get something better later I can give my wife a Dell. However Dell had horrible problems with contrast, banding and gamma. Adjusting gamma/contrast and applying color correction profiles made the banding horrible ! And even with more accurate colors they were severely muted. Increasing them in the software just creates more banding and clipping. What a mess! I also fixedg Evidence that 1440p and 24 inch doesn't work these days. Scaling in Windows 10 sucks, and different games have different interface size issues, etc. I got fed up with this nonsense and decided to research again. Research has been going on for months and prices have come down. But honestly I was afraid to buy another TN panel. Sure, they can have fantastic response times, but it seemed difficult to find a panel with a really good picture/colour. IPS and VA just look like this. VA seemed like a good option, but I really didn't want curved ones, the Samsung Q70 stand didn't suit me, and again VA seemed to respond poorly unless it was a quantum dot. So I gave up on cheaper VAs. So there are IPS panels. Each 1440p 144Hz IPS panel cost over $400 and I was almost ready to make it. But then I kept coming back to this Pixio. always hovered at $260. If I could live with IPS glow and get "only" 95Hz it would be ideal. At least something that will last us 5 years as gaming monitor technology improves. (I can't wait for 144Hz+ OLED to be a real thing once they fix the burn-in.) So I pulled the trigger and ordered two Pixio PX275hs. I have justified 95 Hz in a number of ways. We are not professional gamers and we don't play FPS.2 that often. Image quality is all the more important the slightly higher the speed3. 95Hz with a good response speed should be pretty crisp4. We don't buy top-end graphics cards and prefer maximum settings, so many games won't average frame rates above 100fps at 1440p anyway. The freesync range of 30-95Hz is fantastic and better for strategy games than 48-144, which does flicker when you drop below 48fps. Build Quality (6.5/10): Having bought and received 2 of these monitors I would initially buy a third to replace one of the first two as it had 2 dead pixels and some sort of smudge on the screen. This one also had an offset stand mount that required paint to assemble. Thus he loses a point for a faulty model. The physical mounting of the monitor is fine. Nothing premium or budget, just average and that's ok. The stand is pretty solid and aside from the difficulty installing one of them due to the shifting of the plastic backing, everything works well. Maybe better? Definitive. But at this price I'm just glad it's metal, smooth and not squeaky. The screen is stable on the table, this is normal. I would have liked a more adjustable stand like Dell's, but I love the look of this simple metal stand. The on-screen menu causes mixed feelings. Although it has most of the settings I would like, using it requires learning. The keys are hard and feel cheap. The button layout isn't terrible, but it's not very intuitive either. I am also deducting points because 1 out of 3 panels is defective. Image quality (8.5/10): That's why we chose IPS. . Image quality is FANTASTIC! The brightness and contrast are great, but the colors are what really stand out, they look real and not oversaturated. We do a lot of photo editing so we were hoping it would be like this and it is! My only gripe about colors is the OSD color settings. As you make adjustments, you get an RGB scale from 0 to 100, but going from the starting point of 50 to 49 or 51 makes a world of difference! These should be much smaller steps. Also, their adjustment seems to distort different shades of gray. I found 51 on red and 49 on green for a slightly warm but neutral look. So why only 8.5? Well, 0.5 down due to an OSD color setting issue and another 1.0 down due to the soft IPS glow and faint color bar. First, I was expecting IPS glow, and all three monitors had roughly the same glow in the bottom two corners. It's almost as expected, no better or worse, but I'll still deduct a point because it degrades the quality of dark scenes. Then there's the bandage. It's not bad, don't get me wrong, but I expected the gradients to be perfect. MUCH better than the Dell S2417DG but not as good as I expected from an 8-bit IPS panel. Now I'm using Display Port instead of HDMI, so that might be part of it. I can't select 10 bits per channel even though it shows as an option. It also means I can't use HDR, which is fine as I don't really care. Viewing angles are very good. But overall the panel looks amazing 98% of the time and I'm happy. I chose IPS with current settings. Movement/Games (7.5/10). So that was important to me. The monitor needs to look good, but for gaming I really wanted smooth motion and stay sharp as I move. I really didn't want to shy away from the Dell S2417DG but with IPS or VA I had no choice without spending a ton of money. But I'm pretty happy with how the screen handles movement. With the naked eye I can tell that moving objects aren't as sharp as Dell's. But it's much better than my old 60Hz TN panel. But the fluidity is great. Freesync ensures that FPS stuttering is less noticeable and artifacts such as ghosting or inversions are minimal. I use the "High" option for responsiveness. That being said, I'm sure you'll notice a difference in the fast-paced action along with a good 144Hz IPS panel. So the question for the buyer is whether the added value is worth it? If this monitor is as good as a $450 IPS 144Hz monitor with the same specs minus a slower 95Hz, is it worth the extra 70% cost for a 50% high potential frame rate? For me the answer was no. If a 144Hz version of this screen was available and cost $350 or less, I would go for it. So the conclusion here is that it's significantly better than 60Hz, but not as good as a good 144Hz IPS panel. No surprises. Sound quality: who cares? I wish it was $10 less and no speakers. What nonsense on such a screen! I'm guessing this is for LAN parties or content creators who only want to hear audio occasionally, but I have a feeling that 99.9% of users of such a display will use dedicated speakers or headphones. There are no perfect technologies. OLED promises to be the future, but not now, and they have yet to fix burn-in issues. At the moment you have to choose between 1 of 3 plate types with defects. If I could spend $400-$500 on a screen and get a perfect 1440p 144Hz monitor with no motion blur, no backlight/IPS glow, perfect colors/contrast/black levels, and perfect viewing angles, I would. But even for $600-800, perfection doesn't happen, and that's a shame. But if you want a gaming pad that only makes a few compromises without major downsides, this is a good option!