Acer K272HUL
MSRP $44,999.00
“The $450 Acer K272HUL offers a 2560×1440 resolution, 27-inch panel, and decent picture quality; not bad for the price.”
Avg
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Cheap
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Multiple video inputs
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Gamma 2.2 out of the box
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Bright backlight
Against
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Unimpressive gamma outside the frame
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Best color accuracy achieved at low brightness settings
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The stand and frame feel cheap
4K is a big buzzword in the monitor business these days, but its debut does more than add another resolution for buyers to think about when weighing their options. The move to 4K is also pushing panels that were once king of the hill downmarket. Two years ago, 2560×1440 (or 2560×1600) was the best desktop monitor resolution, but now it’s just fine.
This has resulted in lower prices for some previously expensive monitors. Dell is now selling its basic 27-inch Ultrasharp for just $650, while Asus and Samsung offer the WQHD 27-inch for $550. Acer, meanwhile, has entered the fray with its K272HUL, which retails for just $450.
That’s not much for a screen with more than 3.6 million pixels; in fact, this is the cheapest WQHD monitor on Newegg sold by a major brand (some monitors from other brands are cheaper). Does this make the K272HUL a value leader, or has the price cut resulted in a major compromise in quality?
It’s a monitor, okay
The Acer K272HUL is built to fit a budget rather than make a design statement, and this is evident in the monitor’s construction. Plastic is the material of choice in most displays, and while it serves its purpose, no one will mistake this for a luxurious, super-premium display. The monitor is only a few inches thick, but the glossy black bezel flexes significantly when touched, as if the monitor is held together by just a few dots of super glue.
The Acer K272HUL is one of the best budget monitors we’ve reviewed.
Buyers looking for a highly adjustable stand will have to look elsewhere. The stand firmly holds the monitor in place and provides a wide, stable base, but tilt is the only adjustment allowed here. There is no way to change height, rotation or orientation. However, a VESA mount is included, so you can mount the K272HUL on an aftermarket stand.
Connectivity, on the other hand, is robust. There are two HDMIs, a DisplayPort and a DVI in addition to an audio port for speakers built into the monitor. However, all the connectors face downwards, which can make connecting cables difficult.
A control puzzle
The physical buttons located at the bottom right of the screen can be used to adjust the image. There isn’t much to change as the controls only allow users to change the brightness, contrast and color temperature (which offers warm, cool and sRGB presets). There are no controls available to adjust sharpness, black level, response time or precise color temperature. That said, it’s rare for a budget monitor to offer advanced controls, and Acer delivers no less than we’d expect.
Navigating these settings can be a chore. Acer’s menu uses many icons, but the purpose of each icon isn’t always obvious, meaning it takes some trial and error to understand what each button does. We eventually became adept at navigating the monitor, but it took longer than most.
Image used with permission of the copyright holder
The only additional feature worth noting is the picture-in-picture display feature, which allows the user to display content from another entry in a small window on the screen. You can place the window in one of the four quadrants, or you can split your screen down the middle. However, the PiP content area is of course quite small, which limits its use. Acer’s claim that PiP can replace multi-monitor situations seems dubious.
Is this thing included?
The speakers in the K272HUL serve no purpose other than to add another tick to the feature list. Most smartphones are louder, and by a significant margin! You’d have to be desperate to rely on this monitor’s built-in speakers for your sound.
Image quality before calibration
Like most consumer monitors, the Acer K272HUL is calibrated out of the box for flash, not accuracy. The backlight, which is set to maximum, creates an impressive 347 lux according to our meter. Throw in a semi-gloss panel and you’ve got a recipe for a monitor that can be used in almost any lighting condition.
Our calibration tools found color gamut to be a weak point, however, as the uncalibrated display only displayed 90 percent sRGB and 67 percent AdobeRGB. Black levels turned out to be average at best, and the contrast ratio was a modest 630:1. Overall, these range numbers are the worst we’ve seen on a large monitor in the past year. LG’s LN450W managed 81 percent of AdobeRGB without calibration, while the Samsung S24C770T rendered 75 percent and the Dell P2714T 73 percent.
Acer managed to exceed our performance expectations without introducing any drawbacks.
Color accuracy reached an average error of 1.92 DeltaE. As is almost always the case with modern LED-backlit monitors, cyan was the furthest away from 5.47 DeltaE, but yellow was also significantly off from 3.42 DeltaE. A DeltaE of 1 is considered the minimum visible to the human eye, so the significant errors this monitor generated when asked to produce cyan and yellow are not difficult to detect with the naked eye. Still, these scores are better than the LG LN450W’s average DeltaE of 2.58, and about on par with the other large mid-range monitors we’ve reviewed.
Gamma is a strong point though, as the monitor comes out of the box with a perfect 2.2 Gamma curve, meaning the K272HUL displays images with adequate brightness levels. The 6800K white point was also pretty close to our 6500K target.
Subjectively, we found the Acer’s quality to be pleasing enough, although inaccurate cyan rendering meant images suffered from a cold, sterile look. The contrast ratio is enough to make movies and games look good, if not great, and accurate gamma ensured that details in dark scenes were rendered correctly. While what’s on offer here is no match for a top-of-the-line monitor, the K272HUL holds up well when compared to the LG LN450W and Dell P2714T.
Image quality after calibration
Calibrating this monitor proved difficult. Our biggest frustration was the sRGB mode, which only works at 80 percent of maximum brightness. This is simply too bright for viewing in a dark room and did not result in the best color accuracy.
Instead, we achieved our best results by dimming the backlight to 20 percent of maximum and using a preset warm color temperature. This expanded the range to 100 percent sRGB and 81 percent AdobeRGB. Average color accuracy, meanwhile, improved to a DeltaE of 1.07. Cyan was still the worst with a DeltaE of 3.92, but all other colors had DeltaEs below 1, which is great for a $450 monitor of this size.
Image used with permission of the copyright holder
However, this brought Gamma down from the target of 2.2, which it achieved immediately, to 2.1. The brightness decreased to 124 lux and thus decreased the contrast, narrowing the ratio to 540:1. And the white point barely budged, improving just a tiny bit to 6700K. In a dark room, the end result was a superb image, but the backlight was no longer strong enough to allow comfortable use in a sunlit area.
We never found the perfect compromise. Increasing the backlight brought the gamma back to 2.2 and improved overall contrast, but inevitably affected color accuracy, resulting in a less realistic image. Still, it has to be said that the Acer performed admirably for its price, as its calibrated color and gamma accuracy beat the LG LN450W, Dell 2714T and came shockingly close to the much more expensive Samsung S27C750.
Conclusion
The Acer K272HUL is the cheapest WQHD 27-inch monitor from a well-known brand on the market, so it’s no surprise that its performance isn’t groundbreaking. You’ll get more color accuracy and superior contrast than something like the Dell U2713HM or even the ASUS PB278Q, which is only $100 more.
However, this Acer is far from doomed. The overall screen quality, while far from the best, is probably “good enough” for most owners. We’ve watched quite a few YouTube trailers and, while we’ve never been blown away by what we’ve seen, we’ve never been disappointed either. And in some areas, like gamma and calibrated color accuracy, this monitor can compete with alternatives that sell for hundreds more.
We could certainly criticize the K272HUL for its poor build quality, lack of adjustable stand and confusing controls, but what’s the point? This is a budget monitor, and what we expect from a budget monitor is simple; decent image quality, low price and no display-stopping flaws. Acer managed to exceed our performance expectations without introducing any drawbacks, making the K272HUL a good choice for budget buyers.
Tall
- Cheap
- Multiple video inputs
- Gamma 2.2 out of the box
- Bright backlight
Falls
- Unimpressive gamma outside the frame
- Best color accuracy achieved at low brightness settings
- The stand and frame feel cheap
Editor’s recommendations
Categories: GAMING
Source: newstars.edu.vn