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To read about our monitor tests in-depth, please out Display Testing Explained: How We Test PC Monitors. We cover brightness and contrast testing on page two.
Uncalibrated – Maximum Backlight Level
Our comparison group is all about speed. We have a collection of 25 and 27-inch screens ranging from 144 to 360 Hz. There’s the Asus ROG Swift PG259QN, Asus TUF VG259QM and Asus ROG Strix XG279Q. We also have the Pixio PX277 Prime and Gigabyte G27F.
We encountered a quirk when measuring the PX279 Prime’s maximum brightness. Normally, a monitor’s default picture mode is the brightest when the backlight is turned up all the way. Here though, we had to take the additional step of engaging the User color temp to reach max brightness. If you don’t change this, the peak output is around 280 nits instead of the 390.2 nits we recorded above.
Black levels are respectable for an IPS panel at 0.3 nit, so the PX279 Prime takes third place there and in the contrast test with an 1161.7:1 ratio. That contrast ratio is better than many pricier IPS monitors we’ve tested. While the difference between 1,000:1 and 1,100:1 is small, it can be seen with the naked eye. Every little bit of dynamic range helps the image look more saturated and sharper.
After Calibration to 200 nits
Our calibration put the PX279 Prime in first place in all three tests above by a narrow margin. We highly recommend using our calibration settings detailed on the previous page.
In terms of our intra-image test, though our sample monitor had a few minor uniformity issues, it makes a clear and wide contrast between dark and light elements, thanks to a well-fitted grid polarizer. IPS fans will enjoy the image here.
