Acer XV272U Review 2024: Everything You Need To Know (2024)

The Acer XV272U is a 27″ 1440p 144Hz IPS gaming monitor with entry-level HDR, AMD FreeSync, 1ms MBR and professional-grade color calibration out of the box.

What’s more, it has rich connectivity options,an ergonomic design and it’s reasonably priced! What more do you need?

Note that this is a review of the XV272U Pbmiiprzx variant (sometimes shortened as XV272UP) as there are three more different XV272U models with other suffixes.

Nowadays, it’s mostly out of stock or overpriced, we recommend the newer Acer XV272UV model.

Image Quality

For its price, the Acer Nitro XV272U provides more than a good enough picture quality regardless of its only entry-level DisplayHDR 400 support.

Sure, it would have been better to have a bit stronger HDR (High Dynamic Range) capability with at least DisplayHDR 600 certification, and FreeSync Premium Pro support for that matter.

However, then you’d also have to pay more for the monitor, and you still wouldn’t get that excellent HDR viewing experience the more expensive monitors with FALD offer.

Let’s look a bit more into the details: based on an IPS panel by Innolux, the Acer XV272U monitor supports 10-bit color via dithering (8-bit + 2-bit FRC) and covers 95% of the DCI-P3 color space (~130% sRGB). However, for 10-bit color, you will have to limit the refresh rate to 120Hz.

Moreover, the monitor is factory-calibrated at Delta E < 2, so you get precise colorsstraight out of the box. So, if you’re a designer,photographer, content creator, etc., it’s the perfect monitor for both gaming and work!

There’s an sRGB mode in the OSD menu, which clamps the monitor’s native ~130% sRGB gamut to ~100% sRGB for more accurate colors when viewing sRGB content.

It gets better: thanks to its 1440p resolution, the 27″ Acer XV272U has a pixel density of 108.79 PPI (pixels per inch), which ensures plenty of screen space and detail clarity without any scaling necessary.

Other panel-related specs include a 1,000:1 contrast ratio, a 350-nit peak brightness (400-nit for HDR content), a 4ms (GtG) response time speed and 178-degree viewing angles.

Performance

The Acer Nitro XV272U 144Hz gaming monitor supports AMD FreeSync with a 48-144Hz variable refresh rate (VRR) range. With NVIDIA’s 441.66 (or newer) drivers, the Acer XV272U is also certified as G-SYNC compatible by NVIDIA.

Note that you cannot use both FreeSync/G-SYNC and HDR at the same time.

Alternatively, you can use the 1ms VRB (Visual Response Boost) technology, which via backlight strobing further decreases motion blur. VRB has only two options: Normal and Extreme, and there is no option to tweak the pulse-width or frequency of the strobing.

Turns out, its Motion Blur Reduction implementation is not the monitor’s strongest point.

Luckily, the 4ms (GtG) response time can remove most of trailing behind fast-moving objects in fast-paced games, though there are faster IPS models at this price range, which we’ll get into later.

Now, there are three response time overdrive presets (Off, Normal and Extreme). You cannot use ‘Extreme’ and VRR (FreeSync) simultaneously. Nevertheless, the ‘Extreme’ mode is useless anyway since it adds too much overshoot, so we recommend using the ‘Normal’ mode.

On the other hand, some smearing will be noticeable in fast-paced games, mainly in darker scenes, but much less than that of any VA monitor at this price range.

For most gamers, the response time will be just fine, but if you play a lot of FPS games competitively and if you’re sensitive to ghosting, we recommend getting a faster display (two alternatives are mentioned below).

At 144Hz, theAcer XV272U input lag amounts to only ~4ms when you enable the Ultra-Low Latency option in the OSD (On-Screen Display) menu.

Features

Apart from FreeSync and VRB, available gaming features include Aim Point (custom crosshair overlays) and Black Boost, which increases the visibility of objects in dark parts in video games.

Other adjustable features are gamma presets, 6-axis hue and saturation and color space modes (sRGB, Rec. 709, EBU, DVI, SMPTE-C and Standard).

There are also three Game Modes where you can save/edit your settings as well as the Picture by Picture and Picture in Picture modes available.

Design & Connectivity

TheAcer XV272U IPS monitor has an ergonomic stand with up to 120mm height adjustment, -5°/20° tilt, 90° pivot, 360° swivel and VESA mount compatibility.

Further, connectivity options include two HDMI 2.0 ports, one DisplayPort 1.4 port, a quad-USB 3.0 hub, an audio jack for the 2x2W speakers and a headphone jack. FreeSync works over both HDMI and DP for AMD cards, and over DP for NVIDIA cards.

Even though Acer specifies that the XV272U has DisplayPort 1.4, it’s still limited to the DisplayPort 1.2 bandwidth (hence the 120Hz at 1440p 10-bit limitation) but with the added HDR implementation.

So, if you need a DisplayPort cable for G-SYNC, you don’t need a 32.40 Gbit/s DP8K or ‘DP 1.4 HBR3’ cable.

A standard 21.60 Gbit/s DisplayPort or ‘DP 1.2 HBR2’ VESA-certified cable will suffice.

Price & Similar Monitors

TheAcer XV272U price ranges from $250 to $450.

The Acer XV272UVis a newer model, which has a faster 1ms GtG response time speed for virtually zero motion blur.

On Amazon, you will also find the Acer Nitro VG271UP (VG271U Pbmiipx), which is the same monitor as the XV272U, but with a tilt-only stand.

In the table below, we compare the key specifications of all XV272U variants.

Basically, the XV272UV and XV272UKV have a new ‘K7E’ panel with a faster response time speed and factory-overclocked 170Hz refresh rate, while the XV272UX has a 240Hz (270Hz OC) panel.

We recommend getting the newest Acer XV271U M3 model, which can be found on sale for just $200.

Conclusion

While the Acer XV272UP was one of the most popular 27″ 1440p high refresh rate IPS gaming monitors back in the day, there are better alternatives available nowadays.

Specifications