Acer Predator XB271HU
A stunning high-framerate gaming monitor, but it isn’t the only option.
We’re getting mighty close to the perfect monitor. The Acer Predator XB271HU is a gorgeous display, and ticks almost all the boxes. But, sadly, it’s turned up to the party the wrong side of fashionably late, and wearing the same outfit as the host.
Acer has got so much right with the new Predator; it’s rocking a high-end GPUpleasing 2,560 x 1,440 native resolution, laid out on a 27-inch IPS panel. It comes sporting Nvidia’s G-Sync frame synchronisation tech and is capable of hitting a top refresh rate of a 165Hz. The beefy GPU brigade may be hankering for a 4K IPS panel in there, like the ASUS RoG Swift 27AQ, but we’re still some way off getting one running at those refresh speeds.
The 27-inch screen is the perfect scale, in terms of pixel pitch, for a 1440p resolution — and with a decent GPU, you’ll be running games at the native res of the panel at speeds that will make G-Sync look its best. Though that 165Hz refresh rate is a thing to behold. Don’t get us wrong — 144Hz monitors still look great, but you can see a boost in visual clarity when things are shifting around the screen. Running two identical panels side by side, one at 144Hz and the other at 165Hz, you can easily see the difference.
It’s those two identical panels that are the problem for Acer, though. ASUS beat Acer to the punch when it released the RoG Swift PG279Q earlier this year — that monitor runs the same AU Optronics AHVA panel as the Predator. So ASUS has stolen some of Acer’s thunder by releasing its own 165Hz IPS beast, and that meant that, when we turned on the Predator, we were impressed that it looked pretty much just as good, but not blown away. To find a place for it, Acer has sanded off the corners, which means it can offer the Predator for around $100 less than the RoG Swift. As a result, it doesn’t look as good; the slightly weird, aggressively angular feet are a little off-putting, the controls are rather basic and unintuitive, and the screen has that faux bezel-less look, where it’s recessed to the same level as the panel. We much prefer the slimline bezel of the Swift. More importantly, though, we also prefer the visuals of the ASUS screen.
They’re rocking identical panels; how could we prefer one over the other? AUO only delivers the panel itself to Acer and ASUS; the extra electronics and calibration are polished off at the manufacturer level, and no matter what we tried with those awkward controls, we couldn’t get the Predator to look quite as good as the Swift. But therein lies the rub; our preference for the ASUS is born from testing the two cheek-by-jowl — most people are unlikely to sit these two stunning monitors together. Everyone else is just going to be too busy falling in love with the incredible clarity, colour reproduction and impressively accurate blacks they both produce. We doubt anyone gaming on their Predator will shed any salty eye-juice over their experience.
When it comes down to it, the ASUS RoG Swift PG279Q is the better all-round monitor. But the extra savings you get with the still-lovely Predator makes the decision between the two one born of cost above anything else.