Asus TUF Gaming VG28UQL1A
One of the new wave of HDMIHDM 2.1 gaming monitors, there’s much to like here – apart from the price
SCORE ★★★★☆
PRICE £637 (£764 inc VAT) from uk.insight.com
It isn’t often that anyone gets excited by a 0.1 jump in a spec, but it’s worth marking the increase from HDMI 2.0 to HDMI 2.1 with a shiny gold star. The new spec means that consoles such as the
Xbox Series X and PlayStation 5 can stream at 120 frames per second at 4K, adding welcome flexibility to “PC” gaming monitors.
To take advantage, you will need to use the HDMI 2.1 cable that Asus includes in the box; this cable is described as Ultra High Speed, a reflection of the almost tripling of bandwidth from 16Gbits/sec to 48Gbits/sec. And, of course, you will need one of the new consoles, because all their predecessors are limited to 4K at 60Hz at best.
Without wanting to sound like a heretic, the other question is how much you will really notice; I hooked up a Nintendo Switch to the Samsung Odyssey Neo M9 opposite and it looked amazing at 60Hz at 1080p. Still, keener gamers than I will undoubtedly appreciate the extra smoothness and competitive advantage that higher refresh rates bring, and the TUF Gaming VG28UQL1A can hit 144Hz over the single DisplayPort connection on offer. There’s no USB-C, but four HDMI ports (two HDMI 2.0, two
HDMI 2.1) will surely meet most people’s needs.
This screen supports AMD’s FreeSync Premium adaptive sync technology and is G-Sync Compatible too. Asus promises even more anti-ghosting and anti-tearing measures via its own Extreme Low Motion Blur Sync (ELMB Sync) technology, and I certainly didn’t spot any issues during games. The 1ms grey-to-grey response times certainly helped too.
Head into the onscreen display and you will find five options to aid gamers, including two crosshairs
(one normal, one for snipers) and an FPS counter. Asus makes it similarly easy to switch between colour modes, with seven to choose from – including dedicated modes for racing, RTS/RPG and first-person shooters. To avoid overt sharpening, I chose the sRGB mode for day-to-day use.
This is also the fairest mode to test the panel’s quality, even if it looks subdued next to its more vibrant brethren. It covered 95.3% of the sRGB colour olour space out of a 96.2% 6.2% volume, which h is a strong result. Its average Delta E of 0.63 is similarly excellent. I would have liked the colour temperature to be closer to its target of 6500K, but 6060K is close enough for most people not to notice.
If you want warmth, head to the Cinema mode. This covers many more colours in the DCI-P3 space, where I measured 85% out of an 86% volume. The only drawback is that it lost colour accuracy, slipping to an average Delta E of 2.36.
You can tweak the colours yourself, but this involves spending time in Asus’s clumsy onscreen display. The rear-mounted buttons are large and therefore easy to hit, but the reliance on four buttons that you can’t see and a joystick feels old-school compared to recent and more intuitive OSDs.
You might also o expect more ore brightness ghtness than an the VG28UQL1A 28UQL1A offers. ers. It hit a peak eak of 289cd/m 9cd/m2 in our r tests, although hough activating ivating HDR DR means it can an reach closer ser to 450cd/m 0cd/m2 in localised alised areas. as. Clearly VESA agrees, as this monitor tor holds a DisplayHDR 400 certificate, te, but it’s perhaps notable that Asus us doesn’t shout about t this –
DisplayHDR HDR 1000 certification is the real prize for a monitor with strong HDR aspirations.
What Asus does crow about is support for 4:4:4 chroma for consoles, and this will occasionally be noticeable for areas of smaller text; it will be that fraction more readable as no colours are lost. Again, this ties in with HDMI 2.1 and its greater bandwidth.
The question for Asus is whether all these positives will be enough to separate it from what will soon be a crowded field of HDMI 2.1 monitors. Whilst Asus can point to its use of IPS technology rather than MVA, which gives whites a cleaner look, the flip side is that this is a flat screen rather than curved (MVA is much more suited to curved designs). This is a bigger problem with 32in panels, which seem to stretch for eternity when they’re flat, but even on a 28in 16:9 aspect ratio panel such as this I longed for curvature to bring the edges closer to my field of vision.
There are lots of technical benefits to the VG28UQL1A compared to what has come before, and it may appeal to console gamers looking for a competitive edge, but the drawbacks above are enough to prevent it from winning an award. It doesn’t help that Asus is charging more than £700 for the privilege.
SPECIFICATIONS
28in 3,840 x 2,160 IPS panel up to 144Hz 10-bit panel (1.07 billion colours) DisplayHDR 400 certification AMD FreeSync Premium Nvidia G-Sync Compatible 1ms response time DisplayPort 1.4 2 x HDMI 2.1 2 x HDMI 2 2 x USB-A 3.1 2 x 2W speakers 120mm height adjustment 30° swivel -5°/20° tilt 640 x 214 x 540-660mm (WDH) 6.9kg 3yr warranty
“Keener gamers than I will undoubtedly appreciate the extra smoothness and competitive advantage that higher refresh rates bring”