Acer XG270HU 27-inch FreeSync Monitor Review

Viewing Angles, Uniformity, Response And Lag

To learn how we measure screen uniformity, please click here.

This is usually the place where we lament the lack of IPS panels in the gaming segment. With a few exceptions, TN is still the tech of choice for a fast screen. By using the latest AU Optronics part, however, Acer delivers one of the best twisted-nematic monitors we’ve tested. You won’t mistake it for IPS or VA, but it’s rare that we can see all of the dark steps in both the side and top-down photos. While the color shift is obvious, very little detail is lost when moving off-center in the horizontal plane. It's weaker vertically, but you can see the steps there too. You won’t have to feel like you’re settling for TN as much with the XG270HU.

Screen Uniformity: Luminance

Although the numerical result in our black test is disappointing, it’s almost entirely due to a center-screen hotspot. The surrounding zones are much more uniform. There is no visible patchiness or light bleed, just a barely visible glow in the middle. And it’s not something that will bother you in real-world use.

Here’s the white field measurement:

The white field test shoots the XG270HU to the top of the group with an 8.8% result. There are no visible bright or dim areas.

Screen Uniformity: Color

If a monitor scores over three in this test, it means you can see slight color tint in parts of the 80-percent white field pattern. We didn't observe any, but our i1 Pro spectrophotometer did. It mainly picked up errors along the top of the screen.

Pixel Response And Input Lag

To perform these tests, we use a high-speed camera that shoots at 1000 frames per second. Analyzing the video frame-by-frame allows us to observe the exact time it takes to go from a zero percent signal to a 100% white field.

Testing a 144Hz gaming monitor means we can’t use the AccuPel generator, which is limited to 60Hz. So, we hooked the XG270HU up to a Radeon R9 285-equipped PC and filmed a mouse movement that triggers the field pattern’s appearance. Since this is less precise than using the generator, we average five measurements. Here’s the screen draw result:

With a panel this responsive, the absence of blur reduction isn't really missed. All of the screens in this group have it except for Acer's. And as you can see, the contenders present near-identical performance. Moreover, we observe no evidence of FreeSync slowing panel response. It was turned on for every benchmark.

Here are the lag results:

The LG 24GM77 is likely to be our input lag champ for the foreseeable future. Still, 10 extra milliseconds are hardly a deal-breaker. Playing FPS titles that require hair-trigger reflexes is great on the XG270HU. And with the super-smooth motion provided by FreeSync, you’ll never want to go back to a fixed-refresh monitor.

FreeSync

As with our previous review of the BenQ XL2730Z, enabling FreeSync is simply a matter of checking the appropriate box in AMD's Catalyst Control Center.

Once we did this, the feature worked perfectly in the games we tried. There were no tears present and we could leave the refresh rate at 144Hz. Most G-Sync monitors top out at 120Hz (unless you turn rate-matching off) so this is a plus for FreeSync, especially as graphics cards achieve higher frame rates.