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.
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.
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 great monitor for gaming. The fast, 144Hz refresh rate and excellent response time delivers outstanding clear motion, and it supports FreeSync, even from recent NVIDIA graphics cards. There is 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 good 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 monitor 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.
Decent monitor 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.
The stand has a great tilt range, but that's it. It can't swivel, and there is no height adjustment. There is 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 is a quick release on the stand, great for mobile professionals that need to move the monitor quickly.
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 does not 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 is 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 is 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.
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 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→ HDR400Rec. 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.
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.
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 OffResponse Time NormalResponse Time Extreme
The Acer Nitro VG271 has an excellent response time, but it is a bit slower than other 144Hz monitors, like the VG279Q or Acer Predator XB271HU. There is 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 is 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 is 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 does not 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.