Acer Predator XB271HK bmiprz 27-inch IPS UHD (3840 x 2160) NVIDIA G-Sync Widescreen Display (2 x 2w speakers, 4- USB 3.0 Ports, HDMI & Display Port)

Comment

This is my 3rd one of these monitors and all of them have been defective. The defect usually shows up after a couple weeks to multiple months. The screen splits down the middle periodically and shows a mirror image of whatever programs you have open on the left side. literally 3 different monitors have all had the exact same problem. I originally bought 2 of them. and returned and got a replacement for 1 of them. The replaced one ended up having the same problem and then the 2nd monitor started having the same issue again. Amazon ( I spoke with a customer rep that claims his name is "Jay" on 9/23/2018 @11:L30AM) refused to give me a full refund for these monitors but instead told me that I can return both monitors and receive a partial refund for them. This is an absolute joke and I will no longer be purchasing items from Amazon or Acer. Acer knows about this issue and the only way to fix it is apparently to send it back to them at your cost and have them do an in house Firmware upgrade. Unacceptable for such an expensive monitor.

Show more

Comment

I think this is the best competitive first person shooter monitor available to date. Perhaps next year we get 240hz at 2560x1440 along with Nvidias Volta graphics cards but until then this is it. I tried the Asus PG258Q but it was a downgrade from the Asus PG278QR, which is 165hz at 2560x1440 and 27 inches. Despite the 240hz refresh rate of the 258 I couldnt see very well on it and my performance suffered greatly. I was pleasantly surprised by this Acer monitor in contrast. It isnt only bigger, its picture quality, for whatever reason, seems superior to me too. So it came down to the refresh rate as I didnt find myself significantly disadvantaged by the overall quality of what I was seeing. 240hz from 165hz probably isnt as big of a jump in effect as 144hz from 60hz but the difference is there. I dont have the precise terms to describe it but if you thought 144hz is the human limit for perceiving smooth motion youre simply mistaken. Its one thing to not want to spend the money for a monitor like this, its something else to incorrectly claim there is virtually no difference. If you have a serious mindset for competitive first person shooters I dont think youll regret buying this monitor. In the future Im inclined to stick with Acer as well. G-sync is too important for multiple reasons to favor BenQ (by capping your frame rate at 237 you can play any game more or less free of tearing and with seemingly negligible to no extra input lag), which like Asus doesnt have a 27-inch version of 240hz. This is the one 240hz monitor at a good size for me, with a good picture, G-sync, and without an obnoxious Republic of Gamers tax with anything but a justification for it. Well done. By the way, the regular price is $680. Dont buy over it.

Show more

Comment

I should of listened to the reviews. Im not sure whats wrong with this screen. It looks like there is a smudge on the entire screen which cannot be wiped off. Ive actually tried my best to wipe it down too, didnt fix anything. Its significantly worse than the S2417DG which I tried to replace, being that the previous monitor came with dead and stuck pixels twice. Also this monitor isnt that different, it also came with a stuck pixel. Im about to just stick with my old monitor that Ive been using for almost a decade now. Im not sure whats going on with monitors, never had so many problems before. No customers that forks over $400+ should have a brand new monitor with a dead or stuck pixel. I get it, there are more pixels and theyre getting tiny, but there is no excuse for this. I rather spend another $100 to make sure my monitor will arrive without defects. I advise everyone to do a color test on their monitors before they keep it and if it has a problem, send it back. Hopefully if we do it enough times, Amazon would stop supporting sellers with defective products. I feel terrible that this is costing Amazon money.

Show more

Comment

If you value your sanity and time, PLEASE do not buy this monitor or anything from Acer. The quality control is very lacking and dealing with customer support wasn’t a very pleasant experience. Some time after I bought this monitor I noticed it was having artifacting problems. A brief google search revealed this to be a known issue since at least 2016 with this line of monitors. I sent the monitor to the repair department and the unit was sent back to me unrepaired. I managed to get a replacement monitor sent to me after that, which had the same exact issue in less than a week. After all of these problems, Acer was unwilling to provide me with a refund. I will take this time to give Amazon customer service an A+, however, as they were willing to refund my purchase after I explained my situation. Unfortunately I can’t speak the same praises about this particular product, and I would recommend looking elsewhere if you want a new monitor.

Show more

Comment

I really, really wanted to like this monitor. It has great color accuracy, the fluid motion of 144hz was awesome, 450 nits was definitely bright enough, and the HDR was above average for 400. Unfortunately, there is so much light bleed or IPS glow that I could not rightly justify considering this keeping this monitor for the price. The corner glow was plainly visible in no ambient light, low ambient light, full lighting, low monitor nits, high monitor nits etc. In games with things like caves, a good 25% of the screen from each corner bled bright glow that altered colors to almost green. This may have been ok at a lower glow, but not this much. The glow was even clearly visible on edge to edge full bright images. Its really disappointing because I could see that the panel itself was solid and it was likely due to the construction of the bezel or casing. I believe this because on an upper corner, I could place my pointer and index behind the panel on the corner and my thumb 3ish inches in on the near side to apply slight pressure to pull the corner towards me. This would almost completely remove the bleed and/or glow and make the panel uniform. Upon release, the glow would immediately return. Maybe I got a warped casing. If that were the case, I guess I would have expected it to not pace Acer QC since there is even a sheet inside the box saying it was professionally tested for things like uniformity and color. TL:DR - On fluidity (hz/refresh), color, and brightness the monitor knocks it out of the park. However, the corner glow is so bright and distracting that I couldnt justify using it for the price.

Show more

Comment

I recently purchased this monitor after much deliberation. The main selling point was that it would be overclockable to 180Hz, which as of 9.26.2018 is contained in a video attached to the exact XB321HK model that I purchased. This was the main selling point, including G-Sync that led to my purchase. However, this monitor does not and CAN NOT go beyond 60Hz due to the restriction of its display port 1.2. DESIGN The design is very attractive. I dont mind that it is extra game-y. I love the red feet, and I love the stylish and durable with which the monitor is made. However, the OSD is hard to navigate and has a learning curve. While I like its red feet, they do take up a lot of space and jettison out forward. Luckily, I have a large desk, but if you do not, they could be a problem. The bezel is a great size...not too thin but not too large either. It is actually just right. PRICE This particular model is WAY overpriced. If there were a 32" model of the X27, I would return this one in a heartbeat to purchase it. For $1099.00, It is probably better to get two smaller 144Hz or 240Hz monitors that are 27" or smaller (assuming the primary usage is gaming). For those not gaming, I would definitely go with a much cheaper model -- even without G-sync or free-sync. CUSTOMER SUPPORT Customer support is atrocious. I contacted the customer service using the card provided with the monitor to inquire about the 180Hz issue. I was transferred to what some creepy out of warranty department where I was asked to purchase a service contract for $199.99 in order for them to even answer if I am able to overclock to 180Hz. The guy on the phone sounds exactly like those folks calling from "Windows Support" about an error on your PC all named John Smith. It was so sketchy; I did not pay. I had to research the community forums where the answer was there. QUALITY I was previous gaming on an AIO that was only capable of doing 30Hz, so there is a MUCH better quality than that now that I have 60Hz. And, G-Sync does an amazing job with my Nvidia 1080 Ti graphics card. In that regard, I am pleased. But, I still had to buy a slightly smaller 144/240Hz capable monitor to supplement this monitor. It is great with 4K video and gaming. My Xbox One X connects flawlessly. There is some weird synchronization if you connect the monitor to your PC after it has been booted. It will only output at 30Hz. You have to restart it in order to fix this. It is quite strange; however, it isnt a deal breaker. Overall, I would recommend the monitor as it is great for 4K. But, there are much nicer 2K monitors with all the features provided and supporting more Hz. If I wasnt tired of contending with support, I would return it. So, Im only keeping it to preserve my sanity.

Show more

Comment

This monitor is the more premium Gsync version of the XV273K. Unlike the XV273K, all of its features seem to actually work together. + HDR works without toggling in software. + HDR works with Gsync without toggling using the Acer Widget + Overdrive Normal is excellently tuned. No smearing in even in the mid-tones -> dark grey transitions (i.e. Discord night mode background and PFP). The XV273K in comparison smeared like crazy in the same scenario. + No flickering when hitting the low Gsync limit (this causes the display to oscillate between min and max Hz in the XV273K and the display flickers slightly) + Very responsive OSD = Has a fan. I cannot hear it where I sit, but this may bother others. = Variable backlight feature seems to be some dynamic contrast implementation. Maybe a slight boost in contrast? Not too noticeable in SDR. = Gsync can only be used with Nvidia GPUs - Lower brightness on the left and right edges. This doesnt seem to be an artifact with the IPS viewing angles; the display is just less bright on the very edge. - More expensive than the XV273K. It was only $100 more on sale, but normally the price difference is much greater. Unfortunately my sample has fairly severe backlight bleed. I know the panel isnt inherently like this (neither of my XV273K had backlight bleed, one just had a busted backlight on the left side) so its just a matter of the monitor lottery.

Show more

Comment

If you are on the fence, buy it! For the first time I went kind of "all in" with a desktop gaming computer. I got a 7700k and gtx 1080 8gb with 32gb of ram. I started playing on my original asus 1ms 60hz monitor that Ive had since 2014. The games were beautiful and performed well over 60fps. Well, I wanted to take advantage of that. So I did a lot of research. I was about to drop $499 on Dells 2k 1ms gsync monitor. But then I realized I didnt want to play in 2k since that would impact my fps in a negative way. So I finally started digging in the 1080 144hz gsync options. I was afraid going from 27 inches to 24 inches would hurt, but 24 inches is actually the perfect size for a gaming monitor imo! So being a noob, I followed instructions, set my monitor to 144hz, and booted up overwatch (which I usually get around 120fps on ultra). Started playing and was like "Ehhhh I guess it looks good, but I dont really see the difference." Then I finally realized (like I said, Im a noob at this), you needed to change the settings in game for 144hz. When I did that, man I was blown away. Instantly saw the difference jumping from 60hz to 144hz. The clarity is REAL, Gsync is REAL. Such smooth gameplay that I have been missing out on playing in the console world for so long. Im never going back! I also played bf4 and PUBG on this and it is a beautiful experience. I cant emphasize enough how awesome it feels gaming on this level. To be honest, I have never experienced 2k or 4k gaming. But I would much rather prefer playing 120+fps on 144hz 1080p monitor with ultra settings. Than to have to dumb down my graphics to achieve high fps on a 2k or 4k monitor. The stand is super high quality with a nice red finish. The monitor itself is super solid. Cons: The speakers are laughably quiet, but I use headphones anyways lol.

Show more

Comment

I really love the image quality etc. However it was manufactured and shipped with outdated firmware that can only be updated by Acer. The image would get skewed and have artifacts on the side of the screen. It happened so often and the only fix is to turn the monitor off and back on. I sent it in for repair two weeks ago and its still unknown eta. Support is useless and just says its in repair. If you want Gsync to work check the mfg date on box and the firmware that it is running and if its not current return it to amazon and just keep exchanging one so you dont have to deal with their support or just go by the Asus version which you can update yourself. Since you have to pay to send it in for repair also.

Show more

Comment

At the time of this writing I have two of these displays and have learned a lot. So far this display does everything I would expect of a monitor of this type to do. This is it is a bright, color rich, reasonably accurate, large, high resolution display. As an added bonus it has g-sync. Of course with an IPS screen it has the dreaded glow / light bleed, but in a brightly lit room you will not notice unless there are really large patches of black and the brightness is turned up pretty high, especially if you are viewing off angle. (Then again brightness is a quick and easy adjustment.) The glow issue noticeability is a sliding scale based on ambient light levels, screen brightness level, and how large of dark area there is in the scene, plus off angle viewing. As these things with IPS screens are well documented and this screen seems to be the standard case, I wont go into it further for now. I have a 10 year old 24" professional display next to it and the advancements over the years are quite pronounced. For almost every metric across the screens it is either the same, nearly the same, or a lot better. The biggest improvements for a screen in this price range (I paid a similar amount for each screen just 10 years apart) color vibrancy and accuracy. Contrast seems to be a mild improvement. Glow seems to be about the same. Glare is worse on this display, but not by too much. So far I have been able to compensate for glare by turning the brightness up in the day and down at night where my previous displays I would normally leave at the same brightness level. There are certain things I have wanted to do for the longest time and now I can finally do many of them. Going through my digital picture collection, I have been taking high resolution photos for a long time, but I have always longed for a better display. This is good enough to bring those pictures back to life. I have wanted to cram more text on the screen and more windows as I have at least 20/15 vision and tend to do things like develop software on my computer which always ends up with lots of open windows and tabs while doing stuff and a whole lot will fit on this display for me. I have wanted to not just look at a grid of pixels, but also have it look reasonably smooth from a normal working distance and I can finally do that with this display. I have wanted to watch 4k video. Again check. Running various simulators and games I have wanted to focus in on distant objects more and with this I can do this along with some games being a lot more immersive now. I have wanted the ability to have two 32" displays on monitor arms on my desk and now have it and love it. Especially with the standard VESA monitor arms I can alternate between looking / turning left to right as I do various things across my virtual work space and moving one monitor in front for say some dedicated gaming time. At a normal viewing distance the corners of the screen are kind of far away and it would be nice to have a curve, but that is a hard find. I find myself moving my head around more because of this, however I am getting used to it at this point, so it doesnt bother me now. The place I have been updating this review the most is in the realm of g-sync. A lot of people swear by it. What I am seeing so far under Windows at least driving this beasty display with a liquid cooled Nvidia 1080 Ti is most titles look perfectly smooth for what 60 Hz is worth (and it is not a bad thing, just keep wanting more). The only problem so far is sometimes the screen comes up as 30 Hz, so I cycle the KVM to a different input and back and then it comes up as 60 Hz. The main take away I have is the biggest problems with 60Hz gaming without g-sync are repeated frames leading to stutter and frame tearing. G-sync + vsync or adaptive refresh or frame limiting makes that go away in some titles as long as you cohere to some reasonable parameters, making 60 Hz a much better refresh rate to game at (and really a pretty satisfying one for the most part, especially at 4k which looks amazing). However titles in both Windows and Linux will go over 60 fps, leading to terrible screen tearing, so I use G-sync needs to be used with another frame limiting method. G-sync is not a cure all, but instead can be used for an overall better experience in both smoothness and improved response times due to higher minimum frame rates (no sudden step down to 30 fps) and ability to turn off triple frame buffering. One thing I have found for maximizing the smooth experience is a high end gaming mouse with Windows with acceleration basically disabled and then get the sensitivity out of the mouses high DPI resolution. It also helps to have a smooth, completely non stick surface to move the mouse over as long as the mouse can find some sort of surface feature to latch onto. I snipe a lot more and miss a lot less now. While people go on about how framerate is everything, seeing that distant target first because 4k resolution and superior mouse control does have its advantages. Maybe if two people find they are pretty even when doing an FPS against each other, try the lower latency of a 2.5k 144Hz display against the higher res of a 60 Hz 4k display and see if latency or resolution comes out on top? If you are more of a strategy game fan, all this latency stuff is a bit moot, but instead questions like "are you looking at your base or the enemy base", of which the answer with this display is yes. For Linux, well g-sync does not seem to work for dual heads, which is rather annoying. I managed to get G-sync to work with my dual head setup with a combination of removing some old config files, installing the latest 418.43 drivers, and disabling the second display. I found with having one of these displays and having one of my old 24" DVI based displays plugged in, g-sync would not work after a couple of days, however with two of these new g-sync displays enough time has past where I feel confident in saying g-sync consistently works now. G-sync seems especially important under Linux because Windows based Steam games seem to skip a frame once per second with only v-sync, however with g-sync it is perfectly smooth and from a visual standpoint there is no difference at all between playing on my Windows box and playing the same Windows game on my Linux box. In summary with Linux you need up to date software and drivers, you may need to blow away old graphics configuration files if this is not a fresh install, and you either run one display or you have two g-sync displays and disable one to get g-sync to work. You can still technically game without g-sync in order to have both screens enabled, but it starts to become the question of why did you shell out extra for a g-sync display and what games are you playing that need dual displays or even uses dual displays as especially with Linux you pretty much can only game on one display at a time anyway due to lack of native dual head games? As for power consumption, compared to my old 24" monitor this replaces, it uses about 40% less power. However when gaming and driving 8 million pixels, the driving computer draws an additional 200 - 300W over non gaming demands / idle (my main Linux box is running multiple real time tasks 7/24 and so never reaches an idle state) while with the old 24" displays I would only see 100W over base power consumption. That extra power demand can really heat up hardware, especially the GPU, so in addition to a good outlay of cash for that big video card, you really want a good cooling solution with that. My personal solution is custom loop liquid cooling, which is working well, though on my Windows box with an Intel 7700K I ended up delidding the CPU and applying a high grade liquid metal thermal compound in order to get down to target temperatures while at stock clock speeds. My dads 9900k seems to run much cooler according to him, so maybe with that you will feel less compelled to delid. You may be able to achieve acceptable results dissipating this much heat under air, but you are talking massive custom heat sinks in a high air flow case, plus a HEPA filter in the room so dust and crud does not clog up the machine too quickly as high air flow (high enough for this heat load) means super dust magnet. In summary why I consider this monitor a Jack of most trades a master of one is: 1. 4k Res - Master. This is probably the highest resolution display you would want on your desk, especially for the 32" size. Even with my 20/15 vision, once things are properly anti-aliased it looks rather smooth from a normal viewing distance. 2. Color accuracy - For normal day to day use this looks great. However if you are focused on professional color accurate work, will probably go for a different display. 3. Gaming capability - While up to 60 Hz and G-sync is pretty decent, if you are an avid FPS gamer, your focus will be on a 144Hz display, probably a 2.5k one, not 4k in order to be able to achieve the high refresh rates. However just going after the highest refresh rates at the sacrifice of resolution may be overrated. Also g-sync with things like triple buffering disabled because you just dont need it with g-sync does help lower latency. 4. Size - If you are looking for one big display on your desk, while this is a nice big display, a lot of people go for bigger and even curved displays for their one big display. Even with my idea of having two 32" displays and move them around on monitor arms, in the side by side dual configuration it is a lot of turning and moving your head around with this much screen space, though I am getting used to it. Also if you are thinking about having this screen flanked with other screens turned on their side, I have found at least my old 24" displays develop jello vision in that it takes time to scan from what is now side to side. So you would have to be careful in such a flanking monitor selection or just not mind the jello look of it. This screen is kind of too big to flank with horizontal displays. 5. Cost - You are paying for a range of capabilities for this monitor and they are pretty good capabilities for a range of tasks. For more specialized uses, you would focus on a display that would normally be cheaper, but in some cases more expensive to get the capability you are after. I have been hoping for a display that masters more than this one for more money, but that has only materialized for the 27" displays for a whole lot more money, meaning if it ever does show up for the 32" size, it is probably going to be for a huge amount of money. When it comes for this much of an increase and cost (and more difficulty in finding a KVM if you need one as nothing officially supports DP 1.4 at the time of this writing), you really have to think long and hard if the improvements are worth it unless you are super rich and money is no object. Then again monitors do tend to last a long time, so it would be nice to get an ultimate display and more fully grow into its features as time goes on, so it might be worth it as it this is not the ultimate monitor here, just a pretty decent one. Update: After 2 1/2 months of regular home use, the first of these monitors I bought refused to turn on in the morning. I had to power cycle from the back switch. (There is a deal with this monitor that is kind of nice where you can hit the power button in the front and turn the display elements on and off, however there is still some power to the monitor and it will register to the computer it is on, causing a DVI like behavior where the display is always registered by the computer.) Went to Acers tech support area and filled out an online request only to have their system fail to submit the last step, instead displaying a rather generic error message. As I am a professional software engineer, I have found this sort of thing to be a standard deal in H1-B shops and the H1-B workers have even gone against me when I go to fix these sorts of things with the ticketing system, so it is not surprising to me with Acer also being an H1-B heavy shop. I then called up the 7x24 Acer tech support, they did answer promptly and had me unplug the monitor and hold the front power button down for 1 minute. It is the next day and this problem is not happening now, at least at the time of this writing. Seeing I find what happens once (especially in the computer world) tends to happen again, I think I will eventually take a star off. However my rubric is to not fault one episode fixable by a hard reset, so the star is remaining for now. As I have two of these displays made with a significant difference in manufacturing date (one was a clearance item collecting dust for a while before I bought it and one seems to have been a fresh shipment), I may be able to gain more insight into this problem over time, however for the moment with only one correctable episode of failures on one display, it is insufficient data to really gauge.

Show more