Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)I purchased this monitor to use specifically for gaming as my current PC monitor just wasn't fast enough for gaming. My main monitor is designed for photography, graphic design or similar uses where color accuracy is more important than speed. Before I go into detail, let me just explain why I gave four stars instead of 5. I feel perfection should be hard to get. Now back to the review. The monitor is well packaged. When I received the monitor, I first tested my PS3 games and no surprise, games look fantastic. I do not really see any ghosting which I do see in my Dell U2410. Contrast and colors look great. Blu-ray movies also looked great. I was surprised at the audio as it was louder and cleaner than I expected for a 3 watt speaker. You can not turn the bass all the way up to the highest setting because the audio starts to distort but it does provide decent bass a couple of notches down. Fortunately my monitor arrived without any dead pixels. The mesh covering the speakers are an interesting choice. Nice if you like flowers but you don't really notice it unless you are paying attention to the detail.
Now the next test was connecting it to my PC. This monitor has three inputs, two digital (HDMI) and one analog (VGA). I tried the HDMI input and no surprise, the colors don't look as great as my Dell U2410 but that is to be expected since this panel is a TN 6-bit panel. It doesn't look bad but it is definitely IPS quality. The screen is a matte screen and not glossy which helps if you work in a room with direct sunlight. Glare sucks on glossy screens and so I avoid them at all cost. Glossy screens do add more contrast but in my opinion, the contrast on this monitor looks amazing.
The monitor runs pretty cool. I used to own a Dell 30" monitor and in the summertime, it made my office get really hot. Since this monitor also has an LED panel, it should use less electricity than a traditional CCFL panel.
The game I play most often is Street Fighter IV (but in a month, that will change when Super Street Fighter IV comes out). I just love how clean and smooth it looks on this screen. There is literally no lag on this monitor. I also tried Unreal Tournament 3 on my PC and wow, the game looks terrific on this monitor. This monitor is definitely my favorite monitor for gaming.
Keep in mind that since the two digital inputs on this monitor are HDMI, you may have a problem initially when you connect your PC to this monitor as it may detect it as an HDTV instead of a PC monitor. You will need to turn off overscan correction on your graphics card settings. This will get rid of the black bars on the side of the screen
The bezel on this monitor is a bit big which means those with ATI graphics cards who want to try out Eyefinity may not want to go with this monitor.
The monitor includes a handy little remote. I am personally not a fan of the credit card sized remote controls which the Asus monitor includes as they tend to get lost easily and due to its size, you can not put a great description of what each of the buttons do. The HDTV does have a slot to hide the remote but I would have rather preferred a slightly larger remote. I sometimes forget what each symbol means but I am sure after a while, I'll get over that.
The monitor includes a 3 year warranty which is rare for computer LCD monitors. Hopefully I won't have to use it but its good to know its there if I need it.
Now for some cons. First of all, I generally like to view my Blu-ray movies at 24 frames per second since that is what movies are generally filmed at. This monitor does not support 24P, or at least when I set it to 24P on my Sony Playstation 3, it loses sync when I play a Blu-ray movie. Since this monitor came out in late 2009, I was expecting it to support 24P. Also the monitor stand can not be tilted. Since I use this as a second monitor, it doesn't line up with my Dell 24" so tilting would have been nice. For the price this monitor goes for, I was hoping it would allow tilting. The volume also does not go low enough. This is a problem because it is in my office and my walls are not thick enough and so I have to wear headphones to make sure I don't wake up my 2 year old son when he is napping. All of the buttons are on the top of the Asus monitor except for the power button. All of the HDTVs in my house have the buttons located in the same section so when I want to power on or off the Asus monitor, I sometimes accidentally reach for the top. I know this is a minor detail but I just wanted to point this out.
Overall I really like this monitor a lot and am happy with my purchase. There are some other features to this monitor which I haven't mentioned yet but its nice that it has a headphone jack for when you want to game at night when everyone in your house is asleep. It has SPDIF output for when you need thumping audio through an audio receiver or a sound bar. I don't expect I'll ever use that but its good to know its there. It is not a very portable monitor but since it doesn't weigh much, you could technically use it for lan parties and such. This monitor is a keeper and I hope it lasts me a long time. If you have any questions, feel free to comment and I will do my best to answer them. If I could give a more accurate score for this monitor, I would rate it a 4.5.
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ASUS MT276HE - 27" Wide LCD Monitors - Black
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