Should I get the Acer XB271HU or the Asus PG279Q now? Or wait?

[Raccatography]

Hi all! I've got the money to upgrade to one of these monitors which will replace my Dell U3014. I do gaming and photo-editing so I need an IPS panel and I want the 144hz refresh rate. I've been over-reading so many things and TrustedReviews says that the Acer and Asus have a similar sRGB coverage (around 96.5%). TFTCentral would've been another great source but unfortunately they don't have a review for the Acer. The Acer is cheaper by $100 in my country so it's more appealing to me than the Asus.

 

I picked up this Amazon review saying that the Acer slightly washes its color away to hide the BLB unlike the Asus. They use the same panel after all and the companies are just trying to come up with tricks to outdo each other. I get that. 

 

I expect monitors in this price range to be perfect and have better sRGB coverage than my current Dell U3014 (yes I know it's made for Adobe RGB). However, these nitpicky things are turning me off... should I wait until OLED (???) or some weird but more effective tech hits the mainstream or just get a monitor now and be happy for 3 or so years? 

 

Thanks!

 

Sources:

Asus review from TrustedReviews: http://www.trustedreviews.com/asus-rog-swift-pg279q-review-image-quality-and-verdict-page-2

Acer review from TrustedReviews: http://www.trustedreviews.com/acer-predator-xb271hu-review-image-quality-and-verdict-page-2

Amazon Review: https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/R26BTOYV4AN8UI/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_viewpnt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=B017DG09WM#R26BTOYV4AN8UI

 

ps If I do get one of these monitors, then I'll look for a place that rents out colorimeters to enhance color fidelity.

[tohico]

I'd go for the PG279Q (again) simply because of the photo editing requirements. Asus has very conservative approach with their top line up monitors regarding calibration, so they come very well calibrated out of the box (instead of trying to recreate wow effect for being different like other gaming monitors), there are very simple steps how to bring it to perfection as well (racing+warm, or for even better follow tftcentral's calibration) and the osd adjustments doesn't degrade the white/grey by that much (=more flexible osd calibration, more accurate calibration with colorimeters).

 

I believe this is the best monitor for the combination of gaming, photo editing and conservative use. Although the big trade off is the quality. Prepare yourself on potentially sending a few units back in case you get some bad ones and don't expect perfection from them either. Just make sure it works well enough for you. Let me explain what to look for in regards to any editing. Firstly, the BLB isn't as a big of a deal imho unless you get a very nasty one. Just make sure it doesn't bother you - sometimes they aren't naturally visible unless you look at them directly on black background (=not in an angle), so if there's one like on the bottom, you won't see it because you don't have the bottom frame at your eye level, etc. Secondly, and most importantly for editing work, watch out for the uniformity (color/temperature). This is always a problem on gaming monitors, because it's simply not something gamers care about. Even Dell yolos it on gaming monitors these days. But this can get pretty bad on this one. Check out for the color shifts / accents (on white background) as well as the temperature shifts (on light grey background) to see how bad it is and whether the affected area affects you in editing. And the last thing to watch out - for the first month or so, keep an eye whether the monitor doesn't yellow-out. Like by using a second monitor as the reference. In very small extent, it happens naturally after small period of use (discovered by people getting these for triple monitor setups), but there are a few rare cases that seem that got pretty nasty.

 

Whether to wait, it depends. If you don't mind waiting like even a year for a successor to PG279Q, then I'd strongly suggest to wait. This monitor has just too many QC issues and yet, there's no better alternative like this atm. And whether to wait for OLED, I don't think it will be ready for mainstream that soon. But I'm not sure, I'm not fan of the OLED yet anyway. Simply because I don't like it when there's way too much contrast. But that's more of a matter of content adjusting to the better technology, I'm hoping 10 bit plus some new standards and habits will fix this before OLED becomes a mainstream.

[Raccatography]

6 hours ago, tohico said:

I'd go for the PG279Q (again) simply because of the photo editing requirements. Asus has very conservative approach with their top line up monitors regarding calibration, so they come very well calibrated out of the box (instead of trying to recreate wow effect for being different like other gaming monitors), there are very simple steps how to bring it to perfection as well (racing+warm, or for even better follow tftcentral's calibration) and the osd adjustments doesn't degrade the white/grey by that much (=more flexible osd calibration, more accurate calibration with colorimeters).

 

I believe this is the best monitor for the combination of gaming, photo editing and conservative use. Although the big trade off is the quality. Prepare yourself on potentially sending a few units back in case you get some bad ones and don't expect perfection from them either. Just make sure it works well enough for you. Let me explain what to look for in regards to any editing. Firstly, the BLB isn't as a big of a deal imho unless you get a very nasty one. Just make sure it doesn't bother you - sometimes they aren't naturally visible unless you look at them directly on black background (=not in an angle), so if there's one like on the bottom, you won't see it because you don't have the bottom frame at your eye level, etc. Secondly, and most importantly for editing work, watch out for the uniformity (color/temperature). This is always a problem on gaming monitors, because it's simply not something gamers care about. Even Dell yolos it on gaming monitors these days. But this can get pretty bad on this one. Check out for the color shifts / accents (on white background) as well as the temperature shifts (on light grey background) to see how bad it is and whether the affected area affects you in editing. And the last thing to watch out - for the first month or so, keep an eye whether the monitor doesn't yellow-out. Like by using a second monitor as the reference. In very small extent, it happens naturally after small period of use (discovered by people getting these for triple monitor setups), but there are a few rare cases that seem that got pretty nasty.

 

Whether to wait, it depends. If you don't mind waiting like even a year for a successor to PG279Q, then I'd strongly suggest to wait. This monitor has just too many QC issues and yet, there's no better alternative like this atm. And whether to wait for OLED, I don't think it will be ready for mainstream that soon. But I'm not sure, I'm not fan of the OLED yet anyway. Simply because I don't like it when there's way too much contrast. But that's more of a matter of content adjusting to the better technology, I'm hoping 10 bit plus some new standards and habits will fix this before OLED becomes a mainstream.

I see. I'm not taken aback by BLB since I've been using IPS panels since the start. However, I'm turned off by the intense BLB on some PG279Q panels. Thankfully there's an ROG shop in my city! I just learned of it today. They let customers cherry pick their monitors in their shop. I'll remember to bring some photo samples as well as white, light grey, and black backgrounds once I.

 

They don't refresh these kinds of things a lot huh? I can wait but if I get a great unit at a good price, then I'm sold.

 

Thank you for the very informative reply! I was afraid no one would post here.

[tohico]

3 hours ago, Raccatography said:

I see. I'm not taken aback by BLB since I've been using IPS panels since the start. However, I'm turned off by the intense BLB on some PG279Q panels. Thankfully there's an ROG shop in my city! I just learned of it today. They let customers cherry pick their monitors in their shop. I'll remember to bring some photo samples as well as white, light grey, and black backgrounds once I.

 

They don't refresh these kinds of things a lot huh? I can wait but if I get a great unit at a good price, then I'm sold.

 

Thank you for the very informative reply! I was afraid no one would post here.

That's the best way to go. The BLB won't be easy to spot in a lit room though. Either way, look at the frame directly (=not in an angle), that's always the way the come up easily even in lit rooms. It'll be just harder to tell how significant they will be in real use (dark room, eyesight in the middle of the monitor).

 

Their refresh cycle is hard to tell, but it seemed to be a year for this line up. So any successor (maybe even as 4k high-refresh rate) would have come out by already. On the other hand, they've come out with an ultrawide and some smaller screens recently, plus the revised version of the PG278Q, the PG278QR. So I don't expect the successor any time soon. (meant as IPS QHD/UHD 144 Hz or more)