Asus ROG Strix XG27AQWMG 27-inch 280 Hz OLED gaming monitor review: Premium piece and performance at a lower price point

If you’re trying to decide between OLED and LCD technology for your next monitor buy, here is some help. LCD has but two advantages: it’s less expensive, and it’s brighter, if you choose Mini LED. Some may argue that the best OLED gaming monitors are prone to burn-in, but this hasn’t been my experience. I’ve reviewed more than 50 of them, leaving static test patterns on the screen for hours at a time without burn-in. I’ve spent hours gaming with static information in the screen’s borders with similar results. I use an OLED as my primary display, which sees almost nothing but Word, Excel, Photoshop, Chrome, and email – no burn-in. That’s what I’ve witnessed, but your mileage may vary.

LCD’s price advantage is still a thing, but Asus aims to shrink the gap with the new ROG Strix XG27AQWMG. It’s a 27-inch QHD 2560x1440 OLED display with Quantum Dots, 280 Hz, Adaptive-Sync, DisplayHDR 500 True Black, and wide gamut color. Let’s take a look.

Asus ROG Strix XG27AQWMG Specs

About the only thing sacrificed on the altar of value is the XG27AQWMG’s refresh rate. It’s a mere 280 Hz, which sounds less impressive than 360, 480, or 500 Hz. But remember that OLEDs are far smoother at a given frame rate than LCDs. A 280 Hz LCD has some motion blur. A 280 Hz OLED has none. And there’s no overdrive required. If you can run 280fps at QHD resolution, you won’t even need Adaptive-Sync. The XG27AQWMG has it, of course, with AMD FreeSync Premium Pro and Nvidia G-Sync certifications. And if you’re forced to run a lower frame rate, Asus provided ELMB, which in OLED’s case amounts to black frame insertion. And it works perfectly with no phasing artifacts at all.

There are no corners cut in the image department. The XG27AQWMG is one of the brightest OLEDs you can buy at any price, size, or speed. I measured 25% windows at 557 nits for SDR and 653 nits in HDR mode. It uses what Asus calls Tandem OLED Technology, which is billed to increase brightness and panel lifespan. Like all Asus OLEDs, you can choose between uniform and variable brightness. And you get luminance adjustments for HDR, which is something very few monitors offer.

Styling and build quality are first-rate and in no way reflect the XG27AQWMG’s lower price point. You don’t get internal speakers, but there is LED lighting, USB ports, and a fully adjustable stand. Accessories come in a nice, zippered pouch, and there is a selection of ROG decals to help decorate your gear.

At this writing, I couldn’t find the XG27AQWMG at the usual online stores, but press information puts the opening price at $599. That’s a pretty sweet deal considering the incredible performance and image quality you’re going to read about.

Assembly and Accessories

The XG27AQWMG comes packed in crumbly foam with plenty of cushion to protect the base, upright, and panel from the rigors of shipping. The stand assembles with a captive bolt, and the panel snaps on. If you’d rather use an arm, there’s a 100mm VESA-compatible bracket in the box. The zippered pouch contains HDMI, DisplayPort, and USB cables along with IEC power for the internal supply, no brick required here.

Product 360

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The XG27AQWMG follows Asus' familiar OLED design aesthetic with a slender panel grafted onto a component bulge. The panel has a metal backing to aid cooling, while the bulge is textured black plastic. The ROG logo appears like a Lite Brite, with backlit dots that show any color or effect the user desires. It’s controlled in the OSD. Also in the back are clear labels for the various connections, which include two HDMI 2.1, one DisplayPort 1.4 with DSC and a 3.5mm headphone jack. USB comes in version 3.2 with one upstream and two downstream ports.

The stand is very solid with a metal plate as the base. It’s small in footprint but very heavy and stable with rubber feet and a red trim ring around the upright’s swivel point. Ergonomics include 5/25 degrees tilt, 45 degrees swivel, and a 90-degree portrait mode. Height adjusts through a 4.3-inch range. Movements exude premium build quality with firm positioning and no wobble.

In front, you can see a small protrusion at the bottom center that features the ROG logo with backlighting. It contains a proximity sensor that can blank the screen when you leave your desk. Behind it are the OSD joystick, a programmable control key, and the power toggle. Above it is the line “For Those Who Dare.” I guess it takes some nerve to change settings here, but I was undaunted.

The screen is full-on shiny, which is great for optics. The XG27AQWMG’s picture is crystal clear and razor-sharp. I know, I say that about nearly all OLEDs, but this one is a bit more so. It’s hard to quantify, but even when brightness is equalized between panels, this one just has a bit more impact. However, do take care with placement, lest reflections cause a distraction.

OSD Features

The XG27AQWMG’s OSD is Asus’ standard menu tree system with a logical and intuitive layout. It appears when you press the joystick. If you’d rather control everything from the Windows Desktop, Asus makes its DisplayWidget Center available for free download.

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The XG27AQWMG puts gaming front and center with an array of play aids and video processing options. You can toggle Adaptive-Sync, and you’ll need to shut it off to engage ELMB, which also requires a drop in refresh rate to 140 Hz. It works smoothly without artifacts. GamePlus has a selection of aiming points, sniper magnifications, timers, and a stopwatch. You can display the frame rate in either numbers or a graph, and there are alignment marks for multi-screen setups.

GameVisual offers nine game-specific picture modes. It also has one called “sRGB Cal,” which is a very accurate sRGB mode. Alternatively, you can just pick sRGB from the available gamuts in the Color menu and retain calibration ability. The default mode is Racing, and it’s fairly close to the mark for grayscale, gamma, and color gamut. My sample was a tad too red for my taste, but it could be enjoyed without calibration.

In the Image menu are the luminance and HDR options. Uniform Brightness is included, which is great when you want a steady brightness for productivity and variable output for extra pop in videos and games. Asus lets you set different brightness levels for each and remembers them, so you don’t have to readjust each time. OLED Anti-Flicker is there if you see any shifts in brightness during frame rate transitions. I did not experience this during any tests or gameplay.

HDR signals get four specific picture modes with just subtle differences between them. Any of them can have adjustable brightness if you toggle Adjustable HDR. You’ll need to turn it on if you want maximum output, which I measured at 653 nits for a 25% window.

In the Color menu are all the calibration controls, including selectable gamuts. Wide Gamut keeps full color in play for all content, SDR and HDR. You also get fixed gammas and color temps plus a user mode with RGB sliders.

Asus provides every conceivable option for panel care, including a pixel orbiter, refresh routine, screen saver, perimeter and logo detection and a user proximity sensor. When turned on, it blanks the screen if you get up from your chair.

The lighting feature is called Aura RGB, and it has five different effects, including steady glow. If you install Asus’ DisplayWidget Center and make a USB connection, you can coordinate the light show with what’s happening on the screen. That one is called Aura Sync.

The four joystick directions and one of the control keys are programmable to a variety of monitor functions. You can also save settings to one of two memory slots for later recall. Finally, there’s a setting hiding in the System Setup menu that must be addressed. It’s called Power Setting and by default, it’s set to Power Saving, which limits brightness. Change it to Performance Mode to see the XG27AQWMG’s full output.

Asus ROG Strix XG27AQWMG Calibration Settings

My XG27AQWMG sample measured a tad warm, but it looked good before calibration. Red errors are harder to spot in actual content versus green or blue tints. I calibrated the user color temp for better performance. Gamma runs right on the 2.2 reference, so no changes were needed there. To see the full color gamut for SDR and HDR content, I left the setting on Wide Gamut. If you want sRGB, the best options if to choose sRGB from the Display Color Space sub-menu. That way, you can still calibrate. If you select the sRGB Cal mode from GameVisual, color options are grayed out. My settings are below, including brightness values for Uniform Brightness on or off.

For HDR signals, Gaming HDR delivers accurate color and luminance without adjustment. To see maximum brightness though, I had to turn on Adjustable HDR. That got me up to 653 nits for a 25% window.

Gaming and Hands-on

It is hard to overstate just how good the XG27AQWMG’s picture is. I’ve seen a lot of OLEDS, and they all look amazing. There is simply no comparison between the image quality of LCD versus OLED; OLED is on another level. And the XG27AQWMG manages to up the ante. It’s the best-looking OLED I’ve seen so far.

Is it the color or the contrast? That’s hard to say because it doesn’t have a larger color gamut than other QD-OLEDs. And all OLEDs have infinite contrast thanks to their immeasurable black levels. However, the XG27AQWMG is brighter than most. In HDR mode, the peaks are over 650 nits from a 25% window pattern. That means textural highlights, areas smaller than 1% of the screen, are well over 1,000 nits. This makes a huge difference. And you can thank Asus’ careful and thoughtful tuning of the HDR luminance curve or EOTF. It’s right on the money in the Gaming HDR mode. Color is, too, and you can read all about that on page five of this review.

With so many 500 Hz OLEDs on offer, an obvious question is, “Is 280 Hz enough?” The answer is yes. Motion resolution is perfect, which means moving images have zero blur and retain the same detail as static ones. Panel response is much faster than the human eye can perceive. When I played on a PC equipped with a GeForce RTX 4090, the frame rate stayed locked at 280 fps in Doom Eternal, so there was no need for Adaptive-Sync. I tried out the ELMB feature, which smooths out blur below 140 Hz, and it worked perfectly, with only a tiny drop in brightness. If you pair the XG27AQWMG with a slower machine, it will still deliver a super smooth ride in your fast-moving games.

Color is simply dripping with vivid hues and textures in all content. I spent an hour just looking at vacation photos before deciding on the one you see at the beginning of this review. That’s Godinton House in Ashford, England, if you’re curious, definitely worth a day’s visit. Every picture, video, and graphic took on a three-dimensional look.

Video processing is on par with the best OLED monitors I’ve reviewed. Input lag is extremely low and completely imperceptible during gameplay. Control response is instantaneous and quick. Only a small mouse movement is required to turn 180 degrees or to look fully overhead or down at the ground. Competition gamers will want an XG27AQWMG for their system. I had no need for ELMB or the Anti-Flicker features, but they worked without issue. If you run framerates below 140, they come in handy.

I would happily keep this monitor for my day-to-day work. It’s super sharp with one of the most optically clear screens I’ve seen in any display. Its QHD resolution provides enough pixel density, 109ppi, to hide any sign of the dot structure. It’s hard to imagine an Ultra HD version of the XG27AQWMG looking any better. The screen’s anti-glare layer is pretty shiny, so I made sure to turn it away from the sunny window in my office.

Its physical presence is definitely “gamer, but the styling is reasonable, and from the front, all you see is the screen and the small glowing ROG logo at the bottom. Control and adjustment were easy and convenient thanks to the joystick. The stand is built to Asus’ usual high standard with solid positioning and firm movement. The only miss I noted was the lack of internal speakers but that is easily offset by the 3.5mm headphone jack. The lighting was nice too, with a soft colorful glow and cool Lite Brite effects.

Takeaway: The XG27AQWMG is one of the best OLEDs I’ve reviewed yet. The picture is stunning in every respect, whether the task be work or entertainment. It games with the very best with low input lag and perfect motion resolution. It looks the part too with richly saturated and accurate color. It does everything well, doesn’t take up a lot of space and doesn’t cost a lot when compared to other OLEDs. Asus has hit a home run here.

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