Review on ASUS VG27AQ1A Gaming Monitor: Compatible DisplayPort, 2560x1440p, 170Hz, Swivel & Tilt Adjustment, Flicker-Free, Built-In Speakers by Michael Hood

May I recommend it? Yes, if you are aware of some tradeoffs and can work with that. My game surprisingly has no dead pixels, which I'm very happy about and haven't had any major issues so far. The packaging was great. Now we come to the assessment. Pros: - Capable of reaching 170Hz over DisplayPort with 8bpc color depth and no HDR. - Capable of reaching 120Hz via DisplayPort at 10bpp color depth and no HDR. - Can work. up to 60Hz over HDMI with 10 bpc color depth and HDR - Very bright for SDR purposes but not good enough for good HDR - Good rotation and acceptable IPS angles - Build quality seems decent - GUI and controls, like the joystick good , although presets like Racing and such lock certain settings and are different shades of color that don't make much sense to me and make it difficult to calibrate without a calibration device. - Display Widget Lite ASUS third-party software is convenient to easily change display settings as you can use mouse/keyboard instead of monitor buttons. Contains some game-related bonuses such as an integrated FPS meter or multiple crosshairs that can be customized for display. on the screen. - Freesync/G-Sync in a limited FPS range and performance varies by range (considered garbage at 60 FPS and below.) - 4-6ms typical when HDR is disabled. 1ms when ELMBS is on and there is no HDR and the frame rate is high enough. Cons: - Very outdated DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 2.0 support, and only one of the ports is DP. - The inputs cause the monitor to not be able to use HDR as well as anything over 60Hz. You have to switch to the HDMI input, enable HDR in Windows 10 and set it to 60Hz to use HDR every time you want to do this, and of course it's capped at 60Hz. - You cannot use a color depth of 10 bits per channel higher. 120Hz also with DisplayPort through DP 1.2. You must lower the color depth to 8 bits per channel to use 170 Hz. That means you're nowhere near getting 1.07 billion colors versus 16.7 million, and there's definitely a difference, though. Most of you are probably already used to 16.7 million if this monitor is an "upgrade" for you. So it's not a huge loss if you want to go for a higher 170Hz frame rate, assuming you even have the PC specs for it - the display has trouble switching between inputs and remembering them when both HDMI and also DP connected to the same computer with the intention of switching to HDR from time to time. Because of this I am faced with quite a few different errors such as when I unplug a single device via the 3rd input (second HDMI) it can often force itself to connect to the wrong input instead of the last used one and some others. I could solve this by unplugging the extra cable from the same system, but I don't have to. HDR is poorly supported as it sits at around 400 nits, which is considered entry-level HDR. To be honest, don't buy it for HDR. HDR is usually out of your price range when looking at monitors like this. True HDR displays are significantly more expensive and you will need a VESA certified HDR display. ELMBS causes a noticeable dimming of the brightness, which almost becomes a problem. It's hard to say that it actually improves motion blur. A solid monitor at this price point if you're going to use it for specific purposes, if you know you're going to have to cut corners. If you wanted something uncompromising, you would normally pay a significantly higher price. The biggest problem is that they cut corners with DisplayPort and HDMI when they should have supported newer standards and the value of the display would have increased significantly. It lists numerous benefits, but most of them can only be used in isolation from other viewing benefits due to limitations.