Acer Nitro XF252Q Xbmiiprzx Monitor Review

The Acer XF252QX has a very simple design. The back of the monitor looks like most Acer monitors, while the round base stand is different other Acer stands, such as the VG271.

The round stand is great for placing small objects in front of the monitor. It supports the display well but doesn't completely prevent it from wobbling.

The Acer XF252QX has fantastic ergonomics. The stand allows for any type of adjustment, including switching it into portrait mode. It has a very wide swivel range, but it's not a traditional swivel. The base turns on a fixed ring underneath, and depending on the surface, it might be difficult to swivel it. You might need to turn the entire monitor if it's too difficult to swivel.

There's a quick-release button for the stand, and it can be VESA-mounted. There 's no cable management.

The borders are thin on three sides, making this a good choice for a multi-monitor setup.

The stand leans back a bit, so it's a bit thicker than most monitors. When VESA-mounted, it's thinner and doesn't stand out much.

Note: Thickness with the stand was measured with the monitor at the highest point. At the lowest point, the thickness is 5.5" (14cm).

The Acer XF252QX has decent build quality. It doesn't wobble as much as the VG271, and although the external panels are made of plastic, there are no gaps or noticeable weak points.

Like other TN monitors we've tested, the Acer XF252Q has a disappointing contrast ratio. This results in grayish blacks, especially in a dark room. If you prefer a monitor with a VA panel for better contrast ratio, then check out the ASUS TUF VG27VQ.

This monitor doesn't have a local dimming feature. The above video is provided for reference only.

This monitor has great SDR peak brightness. There's no variation in brightness with different content, and it shouldn't have any issues overcoming glare in a bright room.

Decent peak brightness in HDR, but only slightly brighter than SDR. Unfortunately, this isn't bright enough to bring out specular highlights in some scenes, so HDR content doesn't stand out the way it should.

Mediocre horizontal viewing angles. You quickly lose image accuracy when viewing from the side. This isn't ideal if you need to share your screen with others. If you want a similar monitor with better viewing angles, check out the Dell Alienware AW2521HF.

Poor vertical viewing angles. As is the case with TN panels, the colors invert if you place the monitor above eye level. Even if you place it below eye level, you still lose image accuracy.

Decent gray uniformity, but there's some noticeable dirty screen effect, and the sides of the screen are noticeably darker. The top of the screen appears darker due to the poor vertical viewing angles. In near-dark scenes, the uniformity is much better.

The Acer XF252QX has terrible black uniformity. Due to the low native contrast ratio, the entire screen appears blueish-gray, and there's significant bleed along the bottom edge, causing the screen to appear green.

Good out-of-box color accuracy. Most colors are inaccurate, although not by much and most people won't notice anything. The color temperature's slightly colder than the 6500K target, so colors are closer to blue. The gamma follows the target well for dark and moderate scenes, but bright scenes are significantly brighter than they should be.

The Acer XF252QX has excellent color accuracy post-calibration. Any remaining color inaccuracies aren't noticeable to the naked eye for most people. The gamma follows the target much better than pre-calibration, but bright scenes are still over-brightened.

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.

Great SDR color gamut. It has excellent coverage of the sRGB color gamut used in most content, but only decent coverage of the Adobe RGB color space, which isn't good for professional photo editing. If you want a similar monitor with a better SDR color gamut, check out the BenQ ZOWIE XL2546K.

Great SDR color volume. It's limited mainly by the low contrast ratio, which prevents the monitor from displaying dark, saturated colors very well. Like most LCDs, it can't display very bright blues.

The Acer XF252QX can't display a wide color gamut, and it has only decent coverage of the DCI P3 color space used by most current HDR content.

Mediocre HDR color volume. It's limited by the lack of a wide color gamut, and it can't display dark, saturated colors due to the low contrast ratio.

There are no signs of temporary image retention on the Acer XF252QX, even immediately after displaying our high-contrast, static test image for 10 minutes.

The Acer XF252QX has excellent gradient handling. There's noticeable 8-bit banding, as it can't display 10-bit color. This shouldn't be very noticeable with regular content, but there's more noticeable banding with HDR content.

There's some extremely minor color bleed, but this isn't at all noticeable with regular content.

Overall, the Acer XF252Q has good reflection handling, better than the VG271UP.

Update 02/27/2020: After comparing the Acer XF252QX with similar monitors, we've decided to reduce the text clarity score to better align with other 1080p monitors.

The text clarity is decent. It can be improved using ClearType (top photo), which makes the diagonal lines on the letters R and N clearer.

Outstanding response time, which is expected from a 240Hz monitor. Motions looks amazing on the Acer XF252Q and the best Overdrive setting is 'Normal'. There's still a bit of overshoot in darker transitions, but if that bothers you, 'Off' has a slower response time with no overshoot, but motion is slightly more blurry.

Okay response time at 60Hz, which might disappoint some console gamers. Like at its max refresh rate, the best Overdrive setting is 'Normal', although there's significant ghosting. The 'Off' setting has visible motion blur and the 'Extreme' setting has a lot of overshoot in all transitions.

The Acer XF252QX has a flicker-free backlight, which helps reduce eye strain.

There's an optional black frame insertion (BFI) feature, which can help to improve the appearance of motion.

The BFI is a bit strange.You can't adjust the backlight when the BFI is enabled. The backlight instead changes to a fixed level, which varies depending on the refresh rate. With Overdrive set to 'Extreme' and the refresh rate set to 240Hz, the backlight pulses twice, which can cause noticeable duplication in motion.

The Acer XF252QX has an outstanding 240Hz refresh rate, and it supports AMD's FreeSync VRR technology to help reduce screen tearing. At frame rates below 48 fps, it supports low framerate compensation, and frames are multiplied automatically to bring the frame rate back within the monitor's range.

Although this monitor isn't officially NVIDIA G-SYNC compatible, it does work with NVIDIA's adaptive sync mode over DisplayPort only, but this has to be manually enabled from the NVIDIA Control Center.

The Acer XF252QX has outstanding low input lag at its native refresh rate of 240Hz. The 60Hz refresh rate is quite a bit higher, which may be disappointing to console gamers. Unlike the vast majority of monitors, this display has a low latency mode which must be enabled to get the lowest input lag. This mode is known as Ultra Low Latency, and it can be enabled from the monitor's on-screen display, under the 'Gaming' tab.

The 25 inch, 1080p display might be a bit small for some people. It's great for some games, as you can easily see the entire interface, but larger monitors deliver a more immersive gaming experience.

The audio out port has an adjustable volume.

This monitor has very few additional features. The Acer XF252QX doesn't support picture-in-picture or picture-by-picture and like most recent gaming monitors, it can add a crosshair to any game, but there aren't any additional overlays.

The controls are easy to use. There's a joystick to navigate the menus, and three shortcut keys that can be assigned to different settings.

• User Guide
• Power cable
• USB-B cable
• HDMI cable