TheNitro XV273Kis much cheaper, often retailing foraround $900.
Naturally, some features have been cut to bring the price down.
The big omission here is FALD or full array local dimming backlight that was found in the Predator X27.
The XV273K is still “DisplayHDR 400” certified, but that validation stamp is pretty much meaningless.
Design
Acer has given this monitor a definite gamer aesthetic without going overboard with it.
Overall the stand is very sturdy, which is great to see.
In terms of connectivity there are two HDMI ports and two DisplayPorts, plus some classic USB hub action.
The monitor requires an external power brick as well.
The on-screen menu uses a directional toggle that’s a tick in my book plus a few shortcut buttons.
With that said, we can understand what Acer has tried to do here.
The other reason to stick to 120 Hz are the response times.
The monitor comes with two overdrive modes: normal and extreme.
However the extreme mode introduces overshoot with many transitions.
In other words, there isn’t much to be gained from jumping up to 144Hz.
Moving on to brightness and contrast.
As for contrast, it’s typical for an IPS at around the 1000:1 mark.
You won’t see VA-like numbers, but it’s decent enough.
We’ll quickly run through default out of the box performance.
It’s nothing amazing but we don’t imagine too many people will launch the monitor in this mode.
There’s also an incorrect white point, and generally deltaE averages are above 4.0 which is not accurate.
Switching to the sRGB mode things do improve, but perhaps not to the level we’d have liked.
Greyscale deltaE averages are still around that 4.0 mark as a result.
DeltaE averages for some colors are better than others, but it evens out to around 2.5.
Unfortunately fixing the incorrect white point does require a software profile.
Uniformity is not amazing and about a typical result for a gaming-grade monitor.
Perhaps there’s a higher level of factory calibration for what is a $2,000 display.
HDR isn’t worth touching because we’re looking at another fake HDR display.
The DisplayHDR 400 certification means the XV273K fails two of the three key metrics for good HDR performance.
We wouldn’t buy this monitor for HDR and we wouldn’t bother using the mode altogether.
There is also the XB273K which is a G-Sync variant of essentially the same display.
If high-refresh 4K is what you want, the XV273K is definitely the monitor you should get.
In a number of areas Acer is providing a great high-end gaming experience.
The included sRGB mode is great for standard gaming and you get wide gamut support on top of that.
Plus it supports FreeSync and is G-Sync Compatible certified.
