Review on Acer XB323U GPbmiiphzx Display with HDR600, WQHD (2560X1440), 170Hz, IPS Panel by Jon Philippe

The first thing you notice is the pretty good packaging. Although Revain now comes unboxed, the factory packaging is a bit worn. There's not much tape holding it together either, and some of it had come loose when it arrived. After unpacking you will find that it arrives fully assembled. The stand does not require assembly. It's already attached to the display itself. At the same time, everything is very strong. Metal stand with sturdy metal base. Some plastic is used for articulation, as well as pitch and rotation. I tested it and it rotates a full 90 degrees. So if you want to use this in portrait mode, you certainly can. I don't know why, although it's too tall vertically in that orientation. Maybe some users have a case for it. I'm sharing a photo of his back standing on my desk. I cropped to not show my current mess. There are four buttons above the main switch. I find this a little more confusing to use than the standard toggle design that other manufacturers implement, but it makes accessing the power function much easier since there's a dedicated button. The rest are shortcuts which I believe can be customized. I generally prefer to use the switch and OSD for this, but that will be subjective. Due to the layout of the buttons, accessing and pressing them causes some screen shake. I don't know if I like the placement on the right back versus bottom center. Either way, everything works fine and probably most users won't bother or think about it for a long time. I've attached a photo of the front panel, pending. I now realize I didn't take a single shot with it, other than the one showing the IPS glow and backlight. The screen surface is quite soft and not cloudy, as can be the case with some VA displays. I don't think it's as smooth as the LG 27GL850, but you probably won't notice it once you turn it on. It's certainly not gritty and doesn't interfere with day-to-day use. As for colors, I was able to get them to mostly stick to sRGB via an AMD driver setting. In combination with the "warm" setting in the OSD, the colors are appealing. I'll note that there's an affinity for green that I couldn't get rid of. This is probably because most LED-backlit monitors have a stronger blue cast regardless of the color settings. This is probably a matter of taste and depends on the user. I personally prefer sRGB limitations over AMD drivers when using LG NanoIPS displays. I feel like they had a slightly more natural element, although the extra-wide version is larger than the 27-inch 27GL850. There's a certain harshness to this display that you can't get around. Regardless of the color settings, Acer tends towards a light green that I can't explain. Users have to experience it themselves. After a while I left it in "custom" mode just to compensate a bit without getting too blue. It's hard to tell the difference and you sacrifice brighter viewing aspects in a warmer environment. So it depends on the user's preferences and as said is purely subjective. However, it was so important that I couldn't use it for my photography and graphic design workflow. This may seem like a disadvantage to others like me. I was unable to calibrate the excessive green cast. This property is very subtle and will probably only affect professionals. I don't know if I can adapt well to a greener trend. I've hovered over this aspect myself for a while trying to avoid it. That alone wouldn't be enough to make me turn away from the model. The next stacked more against him. I also shared a photo showing backlight bleeding and IPS glow. I wasn't able to fully set up the camera the way I wanted due to time constraints, but I tweaked it in Photoshop to show a more accurate representation of these factors. Please note that these elements appear more pronounced than they really are and the photo was taken in a fairly dark room. As you can see, the most noticeable feature is backlight bleeding. The bottom right corner was the worst. Too bad the black ones were really good. BLB drew attention away from the darker scenes, regardless of their content. I deal with a lot of dark scenes both in the media and elsewhere so this is a huge blow to Acer for me. When you work with photography and graphics you need precision and if the light interferes with that you will end up with a less than stellar experience. The IPS glow is typical and will disturb the enjoyment of some users. I should also note that despite the backlight, it's not as bad as it looks given my distance and viewing angle. I sit closer than many users, which can add to this phenomenon. But the bottom right corner bothered me the most. I can't excuse that I'm afraid. This was the least pleasant feature of the display. Contrast is better than the LG 27GL850 but on par with the LG 34GP83-AB. This is only overshadowed by the already mentioned bleeding and IPS glow. As always, this depends on your monitor. So some users may have better luck with less glow and BLB. I know most Acer reviewers mention the minimum BLB. So I guess I'm the exception here. no luck for me Personally it was really bad. Consequently, the black uniformity was not so good. The gray was ok with some mottle but no more than what I noticed on the LG 27GL850. Color uniformity was good, as you would expect from an IPS panel. Gamma was good at 2.2, delivering a bit close to the 2.2 mark according to Lagom and my eyes. It ranges somewhere between 2.2 and sRGB, which is probably as good as you'll find. I noticed the same thing with the LG 34GP83-AB. I think manufacturers are better at choosing a good range. Both LG and Acer are likely doing a lot to improve factory quality control and calibration. Many people should pay attention to the pixel density. I don't mind the 91 or so PPI you end up with here. It's similar to a 24-inch 1080P screen, only with a much larger area. However, you'll likely want to adjust your viewing distance, which can negate some of the benefits. I didn't mind sitting 2 to 2 1/2 feet apart as usual. This provided an extra sense of immersion that you don't get on smaller displays with the same resolution. You'll miss some of the clarity you'd get from a 27-inch 1440p screen. So it's worth mentioning. However, it helps in everyday use and for simple things like eye comfort. 1440p at 27 inches gives 109 PPI which can result in very small text etc. Scaling can help, but then you negate the added pixel density in other ways. I assume it's not a problem with something in 4K resolution. At 1440p, your mileage may vary. I've found that in these use cases I prefer scaling things as they come rather than the widespread Windows scaling. For example, Firefox has fairly robust scaling options that allow you to specify text/and/or image scaling, at what percentage, etc. Discord also has very specific scaling options. I would like more programs/applications to provide these functions. Pixel response is what you would expect from a monitor today at 144Hz (typical) and 170Hz overclocked. They can support 170 Hz at 10 bits over DP 1.4. I was just happy to see that the AMD drivers reported it as a 10-bit display and allowed that output. Whether the dithering is done in the graphics drivers or on the monitor side, I didn't see any difference. It was bright and really good with gradients etc. So you probably don't care. Keep in mind that without limiting colors to sRGB, you're going to have an oversaturation that you may or may not like. I found it less intense than LG's Nano IPS models, but still very bright and depends on user preference. In any case, I don't think most users will be able to tell the difference between current Nano IPS panels at 144Hz with perfect overdrive setting (I forgot what that is) and an Acer XB323U at 170Hz with the same setting in the OSD will notice. Each of them will look very fast and please users except those who want insanely high refresh rates. Personally, I would take this monitor instead of the Samsung G7 at 240Hz any day. I've heard a lot about early adopter issues, and the 1000R curve has no practical application outside of games. I have no idea what Samsung was thinking. The flat IPS here is ideal in most cases and will make many people more than happy with the very fast response and the fairly good black levels and contrasts. Finally, the OSD is okay, but I like how LG works better. At first glance, it shows more up-to-date information with refresh rate, bit depth and other options. You have to dig through the Acer OSD to get these things. Acer's OSD gives a better idea of gamma, albeit with a precise numerical representation rather than just a few "modes". Final Verdict: I liked a lot about the Acer XB323U, but the positives couldn't overcome the backlight bleeding and green color shift. . Acer's higher build quality and the 3-year warranty instead of the 1-year warranty of other manufacturers are positive. Whether you're willing to put up with green casts or backlight blur is entirely up to you. I ended up returning the monitor after trying to get it working for my purposes. I realize many won't notice or care about the green trend, but the backlight flare was unmissable. I wonder if the manufacturers even check this before the products leave the factory? Worse, since the backlight is "zoned" for an HDR 600 rating, you'd think they'd better isolated backlight issues. This was not the case. This may be suitable for pure multimedia and gaming use without professional intentions. But why advertise a product as 99% Adobe RGB if you're not also trying to get the pros to buy it? I'm a bit confused by this. Older 24" monitors with 16:10 CCFL backlighting had much less backlight blurring. Sometimes I'm tempted to just go back to one and omit the LEDs when no one else can find a better implementation. At these prices, there's no excuse.