Acer XB270HU - Worlds First IPS, 1440p, 144hz, Gsync

titaniumx3 · 30 Apr 2015 at 22:47

Got mine packed away again, such a shame.

What grinds me is that apart from the backlight bleed and stuck pixels the monitor features and performance is absolutely stellar. I had ordered a Zowie EC1 mouse to replace my MX518 as I was told that a 125hz mouse would result in noticeable stuttering on a 120hz+ screen. Got it hooked up today, before packing away the Acer, loaded up BF4 and was left in total awe :eek:

... the level of smoothness and responsiveness was just out of this world. Despite increasing the res from 1080p to 1440p, it felt like fps had increased.

Again, what a shame Acer, so close yet so far. :rolleyes:

texxx74 · 30 Apr 2015 at 23:32

Is it possible to make a new thread with a poll, something like, I bought the Acer XB270HU and a)I am going to keep it, b) sending it back and post the reason?

darket · 30 Apr 2015 at 23:55

Well , i used mine for about 20 mins, Gsync is amazing , the monitor itself is garbage , Several stuck red pixels , DREADFUL backlight bleed and a large gap in the bottom panel by the power led that splashes light everywhere.

This is coming from a Dell U2713HM so i know the difference between backlight bleed and ips glow.

Edit. Not coming from, the dell is going back on my desk.

silverfoxxxx · 30 Apr 2015 at 23:58

Well my backlight glow in the bottom right seems to be getting worse, is that possible or am I staring to much??, and now I have a couple of white pixels on a black background that were 100% not there this afternoon as I completely checked with some of the stuck pixel vids on YouTube.

Going to bed feeling a bit pee'd off when I should be dreaming of gaming at 1440p g sync'd to the max!!

Also does anyone else have a gap where the buttons are, I can see the metal holding the screen in looking down at this point only, then it curves back in and covers for the rest of the screen.

Sylver123 · 1 May 2015 at 00:09

silverfoxxxx said:
Well my backlight glow in the bottom right seems to be getting worse, is that possible or am I staring to much??, and now I have a couple of white pixels on a black background that were 100% not there this afternoon as I completely checked with some of the stuck pixel vids on YouTube.

Going to bed feeling a bit pee'd off when I should be dreaming of gaming at 1440p g sync'd to the max!!

Also does anyone else have a gap where the buttons are, I can see the metal holding the screen in looking down at this point only, then it curves back in and covers for the rest of the screen.

You not seeing things. My backlight bleed also got worse as well after using it for a few hours.

BaDBoY_uK · 1 May 2015 at 00:23

BG1980 said:
First time I've used this monitor at night, was playing Alien : Isolation and my eye kept getting drawn to the bottom right of the Screen. Would like people's opinion if this level of backlight bleed is acceptable.

and

The bottom right of the second image should be black. Gibbo/Bailey is this deemed an acceptable level of bleed?. Not sure what to do now

edit: the screen is only at 24% brightness and noticed 2nd pic had a swear word in it

Alien Isolation is a great game to test backlight bleed

ancientmariner · 1 May 2015 at 00:24

I too would dearly love the option to have a monitor inspected and checked prior to shipping. Would be worth the premium. It is a huge gamble these days considering the price. I have been waiting 6 months to replace my Asus VG278H and had planned on the swift but was forced to dismiss it based on the sheer amount of reported issues. I expect better for £700, i sincerely hope they revise the later models as this thing sounds great minus the dead pixels and BLB.

texxx74 · 1 May 2015 at 01:01

ancientmariner said:
I too would dearly love the option to have a monitor inspected and checked prior to shipping. Would be worth the premium. It is a huge gamble these days considering the price. I have been waiting 6 months to replace my Asus VG278H and had planned on the swift but was forced to dismiss it based on the sheer amount of reported issues. I expect better for £700, i sincerely hope they revise the later models as this thing sounds great minus the dead pixels and BLB.

I would like to have the option as well but if 9 from 10 monitors are garbage, that is not an option. They will tell you, they sold hundreds of monitors but only about 20 people complaining here :-)

Guess what, others are not using this forum and they are seating at homes by now thinking to themselves how ... .... I spend £700 on this thing :confused:

TooTay · 1 May 2015 at 02:22

So I've had some time to test my monitor and I have no dead pixels that I can see and some tolerable levels of back light bleed. There is some minor bleed in the top right and bottom left but I can't notice this in general use or gaming, the most notable bleed is in the bottom right corner, it is noticeable when driving around in GTA at night or viewing any content in a dark/black scene.

I have calibrated my monitor with an i1Pro to a 6500k colour temp, 120CDm2 luminance and 2.2 gamma, the screen brightness is at 20 in the OSD.

Photos taken in a "warmly" lit room with a Note 3 at 800ISO :rolleyes:

Before this monitor I was using an Dell U2412M IPS 1920x1200 60Hz monitor, image wise this appears sharper and more clear, the colours seem to be more vivid even at the same measured calibrated levels as my Dell (Placebo?).

G-Sync is amazing, the smoothness is noticeable immediately I loaded up Diablo 3 first to try it and dashing around in my Monk was so fluid

, in GTA V I used to notice slow downs when moving towards heavy grass areas as the FPS would drop down to the 40's, now it's completely smooth in the 40's region.

Some things I noticed though, I used to use DSR/Dynamic Super Resolution for some games e.g. Diablo 3 which I'd run at 4k, with G-Sync enabled you can NOT use DSR, I don't see that advertised anywhere... but you can either have G-Sync on and no DSR or you can disable G-Sync and get DSR... don't understand this limitation I would have thought that those two technologies complimented each other.

The other thing I have noticed, which is bloody annoying, is my monitor refuses to save the settings when you power it off or restart the pc, I have to adjust the brightness and colour settings each time my computer is switched on or rebooted as they go back to defaults e.g. 100% brightness :confused:

Overall I think this is an amazing monitor, while I wish my panel was flawless and quite frankly I feel they should be at this bloody price, it's just the way things are at the moment with monitors, I've accepted this and the levels of bleed I have are tolerable for me, so I think I'll be keeping it.

Mark_D · 1 May 2015 at 02:31

Add me to the list of people massively dissatisfied with the monitor. The amount of backlight bleed I'm getting is totally unacceptable and really distracting. I was wary of buying an Acer monitor, but the specs seduced me. I should have listened to my gut instinct. I've just packed it up again and will be contacting OCuk tomorrow to get it sent back.

Just to illustrate again what a lot of other people have already posted. The first picture is the Acer monitor showing TERRIBLE glowing from the corners.

Since photos taken in the dark tent to exaggerate the lighter areas due to contrast issues with camera sensors and ISO/shutter settings, I took the second photo just for comparison. It's my BenQ panel which was taken in exactly the same lighting conditions and at exactly the same distance and angle. The difference is night and day and it's simple not acceptable from a monitor which costs so much.

HACO · 1 May 2015 at 03:06

ancientmariner said:
I too would dearly love the option to have a monitor inspected and checked prior to shipping. Would be worth the premium. It is a huge gamble these days considering the price. I have been waiting 6 months to replace my Asus VG278H and had planned on the swift but was forced to dismiss it based on the sheer amount of reported issues. I expect better for £700, i sincerely hope they revise the later models as this thing sounds great minus the dead pixels and BLB.

This is the same argument for the silicon lottery and the CPUs, especially the more expensive ones (talk to me about getting a bad £850 CPU). You're right though, it would be great if OcUK did some binning of the monitors and charged a premium for it. I haven't seen anyone do it in the UK though.

Deo_volente · 1 May 2015 at 03:20

TooTay said:
Some things I noticed though, I used to use DSR/Dynamic Super Resolution for some games e.g. Diablo 3 which I'd run at 4k, with G-Sync enabled you can NOT use DSR, I don't see that advertised anywhere... but you can either have G-Sync on and no DSR or you can disable G-Sync and get DSR... don't understand this limitation I would have thought that those two technologies complimented each other.

Are you using sli? think i read somewhere while using sli and gsync you can't use dsr.

WhiteHawk77 · 1 May 2015 at 03:26

Seems like most people are getting the worst of it in the bottom right like me, I guess the buttons might have something to do with that perhaps.

If that area was half as bad I might have accepted it, aaaagh. :mad:

Sylver123 · 1 May 2015 at 03:54

WhiteHawk77 said:
Seems like most people are getting the worst of it in the bottom right like me, I guess the buttons might have something to do with that perhaps.

If that area was half as bad I might have accepted it, aaaagh.

It is even worse when you have never really had a screen with backlight bleed before and this is your first time experiencing it.

I have come from a HP ZR24w screen which is also my first ever PC LCD Monitor which does have IPS glow but has no backlight bleed at all.

The IPS glow doesn't bother me in the slightest because you can only notice it if your viewing the screen at an angle.

I am usually always sitting at my desk viewing the screen dead on so I don't see the IPS glow anyways.

You can however see backlight bleed no problem even when viewing the screen dead on.

TooTay · 1 May 2015 at 04:23

Deo_volente said:
Are you using sli? think i read somewhere while using sli and gsync you can't use dsr.

Seems to be some sort of combination of both, SLI and G Sync from what I am reading.

Shinobi026 · 1 May 2015 at 07:14

I hope acer realise what a huge mistake they have made with these - with all the hype they built around them too. Even some of the youtube reviews from well known tech channels have commented on the bleed saying its most likely because they are reviewing a test unit that has been all around the country / world getting banged up. Nope it's us too, with shiny brand new ones! Also why are the Gsync monitors only made by a few companies. Is it some sort of contract? If so why on earth would they choose acer?!

ashmanuk67 · 1 May 2015 at 08:20

Shinobi026;27981872Nope it's us too said:
Good point in regard if it's a Gsync monitors, when Nvidia are using 3rd party's for there graphics cards they seem quite strict in regards what a vendor can/can't do, so I would have thought that when Nvidia have given Gsync to a vendor (Acer) you would have thought that the finished product would have much tighter Quilty control in place?

Gibbo · 1 May 2015 at 08:36

eyetrip said:
While I agree IPs glow is inherent in the technology, backlight bleed is something people shouldn't have to put up with or accept.

If some screens can be fine, and others not, it points to some rubbish manufacturing in my opinion.

It's one thing I find utterly beautiful on my Philips 40 inch. Not a lick of bleed.

I could put up with a little bleed, but I find it very, very distracting. Like when I tried the 34um95. Bottom left corner bled, and my eyes just kept getting drawn to it in games.

I'm not really surprised an acer has issues. Have always considered them to be a real budget brand. Granted this monitor does not have a budget price... But still appears done on the cheap.

Unfortunately though, 99% of people probably won't care or don't even notice. So people will still keep buying in droves.

To be honest it does not seem to be down to brand with current new IPS screens hitting the market, I've seen both bleed and complaints about bleed on all the latest LG, DELL, Acer on their IPS models, LG and DELL are by no means a low-end brand. Maybe we are too quick judge and blame poor manufacturing and it could be something to do with the hardware and very hard to avoid.

But on excessive bleed I agree and in my conversations with Acer yesterday and previous conversations with LG I simply exploded and informed them when someone is spending over £500 on a premium monitor they do not expect to see dead pixels or insane backlight bleed and as such improved QC measures need to come into place.

But anyone expecting perfect blacks on a black background in a dark room, it is not going to happen on an IPS monitor, not even with 0% brightness. VA/TN do seem to give better blacks, VA for sure.

BG1980 · 1 May 2015 at 08:40

Gibbo I switched to mine from another ips monitor so I knew about the blacks and glow before buying. What I didn't expect was the level of backlight bleed thats present.

Gibbo · 1 May 2015 at 08:40

BG1980 said:
Just wondering if OcUK would RMA it or I would have to contact Acer myself which is something I would rather avoid given their reputation for customer service.

Depends what you want, if its a refund then call OcUK.

If you want to chance exchanging it for another brand new one and hope to get less backlight bleed then Acer are dealing with these and have setup a special contact for OcUK customers.

The reasoning for this and I shall be honest:

If you send the monitor back to OcUK and simply want another new one and want to keep swapping until you get one with less backlight bleed, very quickly OcUK has a lot of stock of B-Grade monitors, that in the first place we only made single digit margin on selling, so about £50 profit, yet every B-grade one sold would lose us £200-£300.

As such OcUK is not willing to keep simply swapping out monitors, of course it could be argued that by law we have to and yes we do, but also the law allows us to charge upto 25% to taking the none faulty monitor back.

OcUK does not want to be in either position, where were losing money on B-grade or having to upset customers by charging them upto 25% for returning under CCR.

As such Acer have agreed that if the customer has excessive backlight bleed, that the customer should contact James in returns at OcUK who will provide contact info for an Acer engineer who will do an on-site swap out for a new monitor, hopefully with less bleed. The Acer engineer has being made fully away of the issue and is willing to help our customers who have excessive bleed. Let us make it clear excessive, I do not believe there will be any panel with zero bleed so if your looking for zero bleed, send it back to OcUK for a refund and simply forget about this monitor.