Acer Predator CG7
An epic screen.
“It’s clear that this is a monitor that’s aimed at people who want to game on a large TV, while also benefiting from tech usually found in gaming monitors. ”
At this price, the Acer Predator CG7 is certainly one of the more expensive gaming monitors you can buy right now – but then it’s also one of the largest (apart from those 65-inch Nvidia Big Format Gaming Display (BFGD) monitors like the HP Omen X Emperium 65).
However, when compared to 43-inch 4K TVs, like the Panasonic GX800, it’s also pretty pricey, and many 40-inch 4K TVs can be had for half the price, and offer comparable visual quality, including HDR support.
What these sets don’t offer, however, is the high refresh rates and gamingcentric features of the Acer Predator CG7. So, it’s clear that this is a monitor that’s aimed at people who want to game on a large TV, while also benefiting from tech usually found in gaming monitors. That’s a tricky – and niche – market to go for, and if you’re not careful, you can end up appealing to no one.
The design of the Acer Predator CG7 is similar to what we’ve come to expect from Acer’s Predator lineup of gaming peripherals, so you get some rather angular corners and RGB lighting that leaves you in no doubt that this is a product aimed at gamers. One rather nice touch is the icons on the stand that encourage you to store your game controllers there. The RGB lighting can be configured with preset lighting patterns, or set up to sync to your music and games, which is a nice touch.
Port-wise, the Acer Predator CG7 comes with three HDMI ports, two DisplayPorts, a USB Type_C port, four standard USB ports (two 2.0 and two 3.0) and a USB input, allowing you to turn the monitor into a USB hub. That’s a good selection of ports, though it doesn’t come with a TV tuner. That means, if you want to use the Acer Predator CG7 as a TV – and considering its size, you probably will – then you’ll need to plug in a separate set-top box.
When it comes to performance, the Acer Predator CG7 is an impressive beast – though there’d have to be something seriously wrong if it wasn’t at this size. Plugging it into our test machine, Windows 10 discovered and configured itself accordingly, though we did have to pop into the settings to find a level of scaling that works best considering the size of the screen.
The Acer Predator CG7 has HDR (High Dynamic Range) support in the form of VESA DisplayHDR 1000.
This is a high-end implementation of VESA DisplayHDR which has a peak luminance of 1,000 cd/ m2. While it’s not up to the standard of high-end TVs that have HDR10+ and Dolby Vision, it’s one of the better implementations of VESA DisplayHDR – and the fact that it has a very bright peak luminance means it’s capable of vibrant images.