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The MB27ACF can be used sans tweaking (tweakless?) in its Standard picture mode. If you want a slight improvement in grayscale and color accuracy, Asus includes RGB sliders in the color temp menu.
Grayscale and Gamma Tracking
In the first chart above, you can see slightly elevated green levels starting at the 70% brightness step. This error will be hard to spot in actual content. If you play games with a lot of bright white bits, you might see a tint. Gamma tracks to near perfection on the 2.2 reference line.
Calibration drops all grayscale errors below 1dE, pro-level performance. Gamma remains the same, which is as it should be. This is excellent performance. I also tested the sRGB mode, but since it didn’t reduce the color gamut, those results are not included here.
Comparisons
The XG27ACS overachieves in the default grayscale test with an impressive 0.85dE score. The MB27ACF is the best of the rest at 2.78dE. Since this is below the visible threshold, there’s no need for calibration. But with a few tweaks, the number drops to 0.48dE, only a tad behind the winning Xiaomi.
In the gamma test, the deviation is a perfect 0%, 2.2 average. The range of values is very tight at 0.10 from low to high. This is excellent performance.
Color Gamut Accuracy
Our color gamut and volume testing use Portrait Displays’ Calman software. For details on our color gamut testing and volume calculations, click here.
The MB27ACF measures well in the color gamut tests with accurate hue tracking and just a hint of oversaturation in all colors. With so many monitors sporting 90% or greater coverage of DCI-P3, a little more oversaturation would be welcome. There are certainly no complaints about accuracy, though, a 2.22dE score is excellent.
Calibration drops the average error to 1.56dE, even more excellent, thanks to the grayscale calibration and always straight gamma tracking. The MB27ACF is a very accurate display, just not quite as colorful as other 27-inch QHD gaming monitors.
Comparisons
The MB27ACF’s 1.56dE post-calibration color score puts it ahead of all the competition save the XG27ACS. In practice, only the bottom AOC will show any visible color error. This is excellent performance.
In the gamut coverage test, the MB27ACF comes up a little short of the mark. This is why I’ve termed it an “sRGB+” display. 115% of sRGB is certainly more colorful than 100%, but 82.68% coverage of DCI-P3 is a bit below average.
Test Takeaway: Despite a relatively small color gamut, the MB27ACF is accurate and satisfying to look at with solid performance and no need for calibration. With perfect gamma and excellent grayscale tracking, it delivers high image fidelity.
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