Acer Nitro VG271 Pbmiipx Monitor Review

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.

Update 07/02/2021: We incorrectly listed the Height Adjustment as 'N/A' as opposed to '0'. The review has been updated to reflect this change, as the Ergonomics score has dropped slightly.

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.

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.

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.

The controls are located on the back of the monitor, and consist of a joystick and 4 buttons. The controls are not very intuitive, and the menus can be difficult to navigate. Three of the buttons can be assigned as shortcuts to specific settings.

• User Guide
• Power Cable
• HDMI Cable