Gaming Monitor Roundup 2014

ASUS VG278H Review

Manufacturer: ASUS
UK price: £339.91 (inc VAT)

Specifications

• Screen size 27in
  
• Resolution 1,920 x 1,080
  
• Refresh rate 120Hz
  
• TFT-panel type TN
  
• 3D support Yes
  
• Overdrive Yes (enabled by default)
  
• Inputs VGA, DVI, HDMI
  
• Audio HDMI audio out, 3.5mm audio in
  
• Extras Speakers, Nvidia 3D Vision Kit 2.0
  
• Dimensions (mm) 641 x 250 x 451 (552) (W x D x H)
  
• Portrait mode No
  
• Weight 8kg
  
• Mount VESA 100mm

The second Asus screen in this test is an altogether different beast. The 27-inch VG278H is quite a bit more expensive than its smaller sibling, but in addition to the larger screen (more immersive but at the cost of pixel density and sharpness), you also get an Nvidia 3D Vision Kit 2.0 thrown in. This set enables the screen’s LightBoost feature, which raises brightness to compensate for the loss of light due to delivering only half the frames to each eye. The nice thing is, you can hack this to work in 2D mode to work as a kind of scanning backlight, resulting in a clearly smoother image - albeit at the cost of some sharpness.


Whether you do that is for you to figure out, but the VG278H is a nice screen regardless. It is height-adjustable, but lacks a pivot mode – frankly given the size, we find that understandable. Puzzlingly, it does have a VGA input, but lacks DisplayPort. We would have made a different trade-off, and left out the built-in speakers as well.


Fortunately the test results show the size is not the only difference with the VG248QE. This is clearly the superior screen, with a nigh-perfect native colour temperature by our measurements, although grayscale and colour accuracy leave much to be desired – the latter is the worst of the eleven screens here on average, thanks to a particularly poor reading in the cyan part of the test. The gamma is far too high as well at an average of 2.54, resulting in too-dark midtones, but brightness levels and contrast are excellent. When it comes to speed, the VG278H delivers the same impressive performance as the 24-inch model, but with far better viewing angles and uniformity. The power consumption is higher than all other screens, but given the size and performance, we can live with that.

This is truly a very good gaming screen and a great choice if you require speed and have a penchant for 3D gaming and video.