Gamers, especially professional gamers have always sacrificed color accuracy in favor of getting the best possible response time and refresh rate giving them a competitive advantage against other players who don’t enjoy those said features. While most IPS panels can go as high as 165hz and provide G-Sync support, they can only go as low as 4ms grey-to-grey response time. This 4ms response time is what makes competitive gamers go back to TN panels as they don’t want to sacrifice color accuracy over a screen’s responsiveness.
Asus keeps on expanding their almost complete line-up with the addition of the VG279Q monitor. What makes this monitor unique is it’s
of the first monitors to sport a 1ms response time on an IPS panel.
SPECIFICATIONS
Panel Size:Wide Screen 27.0″(68.6cm) 16:9
Color Saturation :72%(NTSC)
Panel Type :IPS
True Resolution :1920×1080
Display Viewing Area(HxV) :597.6 x 336.15 mm
Display Surface: Non-glare
Pixel Pitch :0.311 mm
Brightness(Max) :400 cd/㎡
Contrast Ratio (Max) :1000:1
ASUS Smart Contrast Ratio (ASCR) :100000000:1
Viewing Angle (CR≧10) :178°(H)/178°(V)
Response Time :1ms MPRT , 3ms(Gray to Gray)
Display Colors :16.7M
Refresh Rate(max) :144Hz
Unboxing and First Impressions
As feature-rich as the VG279Q stands, it still sports the MG / VG packaging which gives away that it’s not under the ROG brand. Both sidesfeature the same set layout with the exception of a different image on one side.
As with other Asus gaming monitors, the VG279Q comes with a DisplayPort cable, an HDMI cable, a power brick that’s surprisingly small and a 3.5mm cable for passthrough. The monitor comes pre-attached to the neck, making it easier to assemble as youhave less to deal with. The stand is separated at another compartment.
The VG279Q shares a similar look with the rest of the MG and VG series. The clean look of the monitor thanks to its thin bezels is contrasted by the busy looking stand. While it sports the same old design, the stand still offers complete flexibility while also being much more compact compared to their bigger brothers, the ROG PG line-up. That’s because the stand offers complete flexibility.
The monitor’s pivot functionality is the best that you can get. It can be used in portrait mode to maximize the vertical real estate. Moreover, the VG279Q also supports tilt and height adjust for an optimal experience, regardless of your desk setup or preferred viewing angle.
If you don’t like the already great monitor stand, it can be mounted via VESA mounts supporting measurement of 100 x 100mm. Do note that you need to account for the weight of the screen despite its 27″ screen.
There’s a pretty standard amount of I/O for the VG279Q with DVI-D, HDMI 1.4, DisplayPort 1.2 and two 3.5mm jacks for the Earphone jack and AV audio. Both DisplayPort and HDMI ports support 144hz.
OSD Menu
The OSD setting of the VG279Q is easy to navigate thanks to its layout and the monitor’s joystick button. It has an almost complete range of options with the exception of Gamma and Hue setting which can’t be found in the menu. Moreover, you can’t enjoy both FreeSync and ELMB at the same time. One of them can only work at any given time.
SCREEN QUALITY
The Spyder 5 Elite Analysis tool helps us further examine the VG279Q’s IPS Panel by measuring its color accuracy, brightness and screen uniformity.
Color Gamut of VG279Q
Color Space is important for monitors as it displays the range of colors it can produce(which is the triangle) out of the millions of colors that our eye can see which is measured through the sRGB coverage. The 99% sRGB rating of the ASUS VG279Q is better than most IPS monitors considering that this is also marketed as a gaming monitor because of its key features like 1ms
Color and Screen Uniformity tells us how the monitor is able to keep its colors and light uniform throughout the display. The DeltaE is a value that notes the total color difference from 3 parameters(green/red, blue/yellow and light/dark) that provide a quantitative color measure. The closer the values are to 0 means better. Our Spyder Analysis show a large DeltaE value in the bottom left part of the grid which worsens if you tune up the brightness. While this may be alarming for some, we didn’t notice any noticeable colors shifting during gaming or watching movies. The bottom left part is where most menus and stats are located for some apps. While in games, the darkest part is where the HUD where stats or health are primarily located. It’s usually in white so you don’t have to worry about colorshifting. Overall, you’ll still enjoy the viewing and gaming experience with this monitor thanks to its aforementioned sRGB and aRGB rating.
Response Time: MPRT vs GTG – What’s the difference?
A gray-to-gray(GTG) response time of 1millisecond does not equate to a 1ms motion picture response time(MPRT). To clear things out first, a monitor’s response time is not the measured on how fast information shows on the screen as soon as there is an input from your peripherals, rather, how quickly the monitor’s pixels change its color from one to another. Going back to the MPRT vs GTG discussion, grey-to-grey measures how fast the pixels change from black-to-white or vice versa. MPRT measures the display persistency or motion blur.
In short, GTG measures pixel transition time while MPRT measures pixel visibility time.
A 1ms GtG measurement doesn’t always guarantee a fluid display experience especially if it doesn’t have a fast MPRT or if it doesn’t have any Motion Blur reduction feature such as ULMB, BFI or interpolation. Blur Busters has different UFOtests to validate your monitor’s MPRT or GTG response time.
As the VG279Q’s spec sheet says, it has a 1ms MPRT and 3ms GTG response time. In terms of GTG measurement, the VG279Q automatically defeats all, if not, most IPS monitors as they can only go as low as 4ms.
USER EXPERIENCE and CONCLUSION
Performance. The VG279Q checks all the key ingredients for a gaming slash productivity lifestyle. Its IPS panel make it a delight not just in playing competitive games, but also for consuming content and even in graphics intensive tasks such as Image editing in Photoshop or video editing with color grading. Gaming on the VG279Q doesn’t feel that it lags behind compared to a 144Hz TN monitor in terms of responsiveness. The 3ms GtG is already a big improvement from 4-8ms found on IPS monitors, coupled with the 1ms MPRT to further improve display persistency.
Its variable refresh rate ranges from 40-144hz with either FreeSync or G-Sync. With this, the user can crank up the settings of a non-competitive game to enjoy its graphics quality on the VG279Q’s IPS panel without sacrificing on gameplay smoothness.
BuildQuality. Despite the VG279Q sporting an old designed carried over from ASUS’ MG series, it still has its outstanding build quality that’s present across all of Asus’ gaming monitors. The stand secures the height of the monitor and doesn’t displace easily.
Functionality. Aside from the panel’s main features, you’ll be getting a fully functional stand that makes up the monitor’s value. The wide array of ports and the flexibility of the VG279Q’s OSD setting makes it easy for the user to adjust the monitor ergonomically. With all of the
Bundle.
The monitor’s ergonomic
Value. Aside from its competitive price of Php 20,480 / $400 USD, the feature that separates the VG279Q from other IPS gaming monitors is its 1ms MPRT response time. It’s still an affordable 27″ 144HZ 1080p IPS gaming monitors in the market for Php 21,000. With just a Php 6,000 price increase from traditional 24″ 144hz 1080p TN gaming monitors, you’ll be getting a bigger 1080p screen and the color accuracy of an IPS monitor without a heavy sacrifice in responsiveness thanks to the VG279Q’s 1ms MPRT and 3ms GTG response times.
Gaming on the VG279Q doesn’t really feel much different on a traditional 144Hz TN monitor aside from the stunning colors as expected from an IPS monitor. There is no noticeable loss in the monitor’s responsiveness when playing fast-paced shooters such as CS
Basically, the VG279Q offers a high refresh rate IPS monitor that’s on par, if not, very near response time with its TN counterpart. Coupled with a few extras such as the stand’s adjustment flexibility and ASUS exclusive features such as ELMB, the ASUS VG279Q is the best of both worlds at a competitive price.
ASUS backs the VG279 with a 3-year warranty. We give it our Gold Award!
