The Acer Nitro VG271 Pbmiipx is a good 27" IPS monitor, with a 1080p resolution and 144Hz refresh rate. It has excellent low input lag and outstanding motion handling, making it a great choice for gaming. It delivers decent picture quality overall, with great peak brightness, excellent gray uniformity, and wide viewing angles. Unfortunately, like the majority of IPS monitors, it doesn't look as good in a dark room. It also has a very basic stand, with bad ergonomics, so it might be difficult to place in an ideal viewing position.
We buy and test more than 30 monitors each year, with units that we buy completely on our own, without any cherry-picked units or samples. We put a lot into each unbiased, straight-to-the-point review, and there's a whole process from purchasing to publishing, involving multiple teams and people. We do more than just use the monitor for a week; we use specialized and custom tools to measure various aspects with objective data-based results. We also consider multiple factors before making any recommendations, including the monitor's cost, its performance against the competition, and whether or not it's easy to find.
Our Verdict
Overall, the Acer Nitro VG271 is a good monitor for most uses. It has wide viewing angles, great peak brightness, and great uniformity. It is a very good monitor for gaming, as it has low input lag and a fast response time. Although it supports HDR, it can't get bright enough and can't display a wide color gamut, so it isn't great for HDR gaming.
- Excellent low input lag.
- Outstanding motion handling.
- Bad ergonomics.
- Low native contrast ratio and bad black uniformity.
The Acer Nitro VG271 Pbmiip is a decent monitor for office usage. It has wide viewing angles and thin bezels, great for a multi-monitor setup. Although it doesn't look as good in a dark room, this monitor is a great choice for a bright room, as it has great peak brightness and decent reflection handling. The Acer Nitro VG271 has a decent amount of screen real-estate, but the 1080p resolution might disappoint some users. Unfortunately, the stand has bad ergonomics, and it can only tilt.
The Acer Nitro VG271 is a very good monitor for gaming. The fast, 144Hz refresh rate and excellent response time deliver outstanding clear motion, and it supports FreeSync, even from recent NVIDIA graphics cards. There's very little input lag, for an extremely responsive gaming experience. The 1080p resolution might be disappointing for some gamers, though.
The Acer Nitro VG271 is a decent monitor for multimedia. It has wide viewing angles and a large display, great for sharing the latest trends with some friends. It isn't as well-suited for watching movies late at night though, as it can't display deep blacks in a dark room, and it has bad black uniformity. The fast response time delivers outstanding motion, with almost no noticeable blur behind fast-moving objects.
The Acer Nitro VG271 is decent for media creation. The large screen and wide viewing angles make it easier to see your work, but the relatively low native resolution might disappoint some users. The stand has bad ergonomics, and it can't swivel to share the screen with someone standing nearby.
The Acer Nitro VG271 Pbmiip is okay for HDR gaming, mainly due to its very good gaming performance. Unfortunately, the Acer Nitro VG271 can't display a wide color gamut, and can't get bright enough for HDR content to really shine.
Changelog
- Updated Jul 02, 2021: Changed height adjustment result from 'N/A' to '0' to match our methodology.
- Updated Jun 12, 2020: Converted to Test Bench 1.1.
- Updated Jun 10, 2019: Review published.
- Updated Jun 08, 2019: Early access published.
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Differences Between Sizes And Variants
We tested the 27" Acer Nitro VG271, version Pbmiipx, which is the only size available. The Nitro VG271 is part of Acer's Nitro VG1 lineup, which has other models available. We do not expect our review to be valid for the other models.
If someone comes across a different type of panel or if their Nitro VG271 doesn't correspond to our review, let us know and we will update the review. Note that some tests such as the gray uniformity may vary between individual units.
| Model | Part Number | Size | Resolution | Refresh Rate | Notes |
| VG240Y | UM.QV0AA.002 | 24" | 1080p | 75Hz | FreeSync, no HDR |
| VG271 | UM.HV1AA.P02 | 27" | 1080p | 144Hz | FreeSync, HDR |
| VG271UP | UM.HV1AA.P01 | 27" | 1440p | 144Hz | FreeSync, HDR |
The Nitro VG271 we reviewed was manufactured in December 2018.
Popular Monitor Comparisons
The Acer Nitro VG271 is a good gaming monitor but is a bit worse overall than most comparable models. See our recommendations for the best monitors, the best 27 inch gaming monitors, and the best budget monitors.
The Acer Nitro VG271 Pbmiipx and the Acer Nitro VG271UP Pbmiipx are extremely similar. The VG271UP has a higher native resolution, but unfortunately, the unit we tested has terrible black uniformity. The VG271 is significantly brighter in SDR, but there are no other significant differences between these two models.
The ASUS VG279Q is better than the Acer Nitro VG271 Pbmiipx. The ASUS has a much better stand, with a full range of ergonomic adjustments, and it has slightly better black uniformity, but this varies between units. Unlike the VG271, the VG279Q doesn't support HDR, but this doesn't add much on the Acer anyway.
Although they use different panel technologies, the Acer Nitro VG271 Pbmiipx is much better than the MSI Optix G27C. The Acer uses an IPS panel, and has much wider viewing angles, better gradients, and better motion handling. The Acer also supports HDR, and has an optional black frame insertion feature. The MSI, on the other hand, has better reflection handling.
The Acer Predator XB271HU Bmiprz is slightly better than the Acer Nitro VG271 Pbmiipx for most uses and is much better for gaming. The XB271HU has a much better stand, offering a full range of ergonomic adjustments, and it has better motion handling, with a slightly faster response time. The XB271HU also has a higher resolution screen, so you can see more fine details in your favorite games.
Test Results
The stand is quite small, leaving lots of room in front of the display for small objects. Unfortunately, it wobbles quite a bit when nudged.
The stand has a great tilt range, but that's it. It can't swivel, and there's no height adjustment. There's no cable management either. For similar budget monitor with better ergonomics, check out the LG 32QN55T-B instead.
The back of the monitor is quite basic. There are vents along the 'v' shaped protrusion on the back, and a VESA mount can be attached directly to the back, without any spacers or adapters. There's a quick-release on the stand, great for mobile professionals that need to move the monitor quickly.
The borders of the monitor are very thin on three sides, and look great in a multi-monitor setup.
The monitor itself is fairly thin, but the stand sticks out quite a bit, preventing the monitor from being placed flush with the back wall.
Although the monitor wobbles quite a bit, it has overall decent build quality. It's almost entirely made of plastic, but there's a nice finish on it, and there are no gaps in the bezel.
The Acer Nitro VG271 Pbmiipx has a decent contrast ratio, but like most IPS monitors, it doesn't produce deep blacks in a dark room. It also lacks a local dimming feature, which could improve dark room performance. For better dark room performance, check out the MSI Optix G27C or the Lenovo D27-30.
The Acer Nitro VG271 Pbmiipx doesn't have a local dimming feature. The above video is for reference only.
Great peak brightness, very similar to the ASUS VG279Q. This monitor gets bright enough for any room, even if you have a lot of natural light. There's no noticeable variation in brightness with different content, which is great.
Decent peak brightness in HDR, slightly better than the Gigabyte Aorus AD27QD. Small highlights in dark scenes stand out, but in bright scenes they aren't as bright as they should be.
For HDR to work, you have to choose the 'HDR' Picture Mode, and set the HDR setting to either 'Auto', or 'HDR400'. For the purposes of our testing, we chose the 'HDR400' setting.
Like most IPS monitors, the Acer Nitro VG271 has decent horizontal viewing angles. When viewed at wider angles, the black levels remain the same, but the brightness decreases gradually, causing the contrast ratio to decrease and the image to appear washed out. At wider angles, colors lose accuracy.
Like the majority of IPS displays, the Acer Nitro VG271 has very good vertical viewing angles. At moderate angles, colors begin to shift. When looking at the monitor from above, the black levels remain almost constant, but from below, there's a bit more of a noticeable shift in black levels. This is only at very wide angles, though, and shouldn't cause any issues for most people.
Excellent gray uniformity. The sides of the screen are slightly darker, and there's some noticeable banding near the center, which may be distracting in some cases.
Unfortunately, the Acer Nitro VG271 has bad black uniformity. There's noticeable backlight bleed from the corners, and there's clouding throughout the display. These results are worse than the ASUS PG279QZ, but not quite as bad as the Aorus AD27QD.
With the out-of-the-box settings, the Acer Nitro VG271 has decent accuracy. The color temperature is a bit warm, and gamma is relatively flat at 2.2, but still close to the sRGB target curve. The average color error is acceptable, but some colors have noticeable inaccuracies, as do brighter grays.
After calibration, the Acer Nitro VG271 Pbmiipx has excellent accuracy. There are no noticeable errors remaining in any color, and gamma follows the target curve almost perfectly. The color temperature is almost perfect.
You can download our ICC profile calibration here. This is provided for reference only and should not be used, as the calibration values vary per individual unit even for the same model due to manufacturing tolerances.
sRGB Picture Mode: User (calibrated)
Adobe RGB Picture Mode: User
Excellent color gamut, very similar to the ASUS VG279Q. Unfortunately, coverage of the wider Adobe RGB color space might be too limited for professional photo and video editing.
sRGB Picture Mode: User
Adobe RGB Picture Mode: User
Excellent SDR color volume. Like most IPS monitors, it can't display dark saturated colors very well, and like most displays, blues aren't as bright as other colors.
DCI P3 Picture Mode: HDR→ HDR400
Rec. 2020 Picture Mode: HDR→HDR400
The Acer Nitro VG271 Pbmiipx can't display a wide color gamut, which is very important for HDR content. This isn't ideal for HDR gaming or watching movies in HDR.
DCI P3 Picture Mode: HDR→ HDR400
Rec. 2020 Picture Mode: HDR→HDR400
Mediocre HDR color volume. It is limited by the lack of wide color gamut, and it can't produce dark saturated colors very well.
There are no signs of temporary image retention on the Acer Nitro VG271 Pbmiipx, even immediately after displaying our high-contrast static test image for 10 minutes.
The Acer Nitro VG271 Pbmiipx has outstanding gradient performance, among the best we've ever seen. There's almost no noticeable banding in any shade.
Unfortunately, there are some signs of pixel errors, which is especially noticeable in the vertical columns, where each color extends above and below the block of solid color into the gray area. Although these are noticeable with our test pattern, they aren't noticeable with most regular content.
Decent reflection handling, very similar to the LG 27UD58-B. Reflections aren't diffused very much, and can be distracting in a really bright room with a lot of lights.
Response Time Off
Response Time Normal
Response Time Extreme
The Acer Nitro VG271 has an excellent response time, but it is a bit slower than other 144Hz monitors, like the ASUS VG279Q or Acer Predator XB271HU Bmiprz. There's very little distracting overshoot, but transitions between dark scenes are a bit slower, which can cause more noticeable blur behind fast-moving objects.
There are three options for the response time, but there's very little difference between them. We recommend the 'Extreme' setting, as it delivers the fastest response time with almost no downsides. Unfortunately, this setting isn't available when FreeSync is enabled, resulting in a slightly slower response time. If the Over Drive setting is set to 'Extreme', when FreeSync is enabled it will automatically switch to 'Normal'.
The Acer Nitro VG271 Pbmiipx's backlight is completely flicker-free, which is great. There's an optional Black Frame Insertion feature, which can be enabled by setting the VRB setting to either 'Normal', or 'Extreme'. The above charts were taken with the 'Extreme' setting. The 'Normal' setting, shown here, is a bit brighter, but slightly less effective at reducing persistence blur.
When connected to a source outputting 1080p, the refresh rate must be at least 120Hz for BFI to work.
The Acer VG271 Pbmiipx has an excellent 144Hz refresh rate, great for gaming. It also supports FreeSync, for a nearly tear-free gaming experience, over both HDMI and DisplayPort.
FreeSync also works with the latest NVIDIA drivers, as long as you have a recent 10- or 20- series NVIDIA graphics card, but for NVIDIA cards it only works over DisplayPort.
Like most monitors, FreeSync doesn't work if VRB (Black Frame Insertion) is enabled. When FreeSync is enabled, the 'Extreme' Over Drive setting isn't available, so the response time is a bit slower.
FreeSync is not available when either HDR or VBR (black frame insertion) are enabled.
The Acer Nitro VG271 Pbmiipx has excellent low input lag, even when gaming at 60Hz, great for console gamers. HDR doesn't add any noticeable input lag, but the VRB feature (Black Frame Insertion) is a bit higher, but still great. Both BFI modes (Extreme and Normal) have the same input lag. Non-native resolutions aren't scaled by the monitor, but this shouldn't be an issue for most people, as most graphics cards will scale the image before sending it to the display.
The 27", 1080p display provides a decent amount of screen real-estate, but some people might be disappointed by the relatively low native resolution.
The Acer Nitro VG271 Pbmiipx has a decent selection of inputs, so you shouldn't have any issues connecting your devices. There's an audio out port with adjustable volume, suitable for connecting headphones.
This is a relatively basic monitor, with few additional features. It supports Picture-in-Picture and Picture-by-Picture, and can add virtual crosshairs to any game.
