Acer Nitro XV275K P3biipruzx Monitor Review

The Acer Nitro XV252K has a rather simple aesthetic with an all-black plastic body and a plain back that has a strip of RGB backlighting. It also features a tripod stand with wide-set feet.

The build quality is great. There aren't any obvious issues, and it's mainly made of plastic that feels well-built with minimal bending. Only the base of the stand is metal, and adjusting the screen on the stand feels stable. There isn't any noticeable fan noise, but you can hear some very minor noise if you put your ear right up to the monitor, which is normal.

The Acer XV275K has outstanding ergonomics, as you can easily adjust it. This includes the height adjustment, which, at its minimum, the top of the screen is 17.1" (43.4 cm) from the desk. It's best to use this monitor with the included stand because the VESA mounting size is 75x75, so it's too small to use a 100x100 mounting arm, which is disappointing. Lastly, the stand features a clip for cable management.

The monitor has five buttons to control the on-screen display, but they aren't user-friendly. They feel stiff, and they even leave an imprint on your fingers. The OSD is also difficult to use, as settings with numbered adjustments take time to change, and some settings, like its RGB lighting, even reset to their default when changing other settings. While this isn't an issue if you don't change settings much, it's a downside if you like to change settings often.

• DisplayPort cable
• HDMI cable
• USB-B to USB-A cable
• USB-C cable
• Power cable and suply
• User guides

The contrast ratio of the Acer XV275K is acceptable. Its full-array local dimming feature helps it display deep blacks with most content, but it doesn't show this with the checkerboard test pattern. Interestingly, setting Adaptive Dimming to 'Fast' results in a lower contrast with the checkerboard pattern than setting it to 'Low', which has a contrast of 2,625:1, but 'Fast' still offers the best overall performance.

The picture above has a warm color temperature, but this is due to an interaction between the camera and the display, similar to the Acer ‎Predator X32 Fpbmiiiiphuzx. This isn't visible in person, though.

The full-array Mini LED local dimming feature has 576 dimming zones and performs decently. Setting Adaptive Dimming to 'Fast' results in the best performance out of the three settings, as it helps it display deep blacks. There isn't too much blooming either, but it doesn't completely eliminate it as there's a bit around bright objects, like subtitles, and the blooming looks worse from the sides than from in front. It keeps details well in dark scenes as there's minimal black crush because the 'Fast' setting spreads light across zones at the expense of the contrast. Besides that, the algorithm keeps up with fast-moving objects well, but there's visible flicker when viewing from the sides, and it's still noticeable when each zone turns on and off.

The Acer Nitro XV275K has excellent SDR peak brightness. It easily gets bright enough to fight glare and maintains its brightness well across different content. These results are from after calibration in the 'User' Picture Mode with the Brightness at its max, Max Brightness on, and Adaptive Dimming on 'Fast'. The screen actually gets brighter in the Real Scene test with Adaptive Dimming off as it goes up to 605 cd/m², but the overall picture quality is worse with it off due to its lower contrast.

Unfortunately, the minimum brightness is high if you're sensitive to bright lights and want to use it in a dark room. This result is with Max Brightness on and Adaptive Dimming on 'Low' as it gets brighter with any other combination of settings, even with Max Brightness and Adaptive Dimming off.

The HDR brightness is fantastic. It easily gets bright enough to make highlights stand out and pop, but small highlights are muted. The PQ EOTF tracking is decent, but dark scenes are slightly too dark. That said, because there's a sharp roll-off at the peak brightness, it lets highlights get the brightest they can.

These results are with HDR on, Max Brightness on, Brightness at its max, and Adaptive Dimming on 'Fast'. Like in SDR, the Real Scene test gets brighter with local dimming off, but the picture quality is best with it on 'Fast', and the EOTF is the same between any of the local dimming settings.

The Acer Nitro XV275K P3 has a decent horizontal viewing angle. While the image washes out from wide angles, it's still good enough to share the monitor with someone sitting next to you.

The vertical viewing angle is good. The image remains consistent if you're standing up and looking down at the monitor.

The Acer XV275K P3 has good gray uniformity. While the edges of the screen are slightly darker, there's minimal dirty screen effect in the center, which is great.

The picture above has a warm color temperature, but this is due to an interaction between the camera and the display, similar to the Acer ‎Predator X32 Fpbmiiiiphuzx. This isn't visible in person, though.

The black uniformity is decent, and it performs best with local dimming enabled. It helps it display deep blacks, and there isn't too much blooming, but it doesn't completely eliminate all blooming, either. Turning off local dimming results in a worse contrast ratio, and there's more backlight bleed.

The Acer Nitro XV275K has incredible accuracy before calibration in the sRGB mode. Setting Color Space to 'sRGB' locks colors well to the sRGB color space, and colors and the white balance have minimal inaccuracies. The color temperature is also close to the 6500K target, and gamma follows the sRGB curve well, but some dark scenes are too dark. Unfortunately, using the 'sRGB' Color Space setting locks other settings, including Contrast and Black Boost. So, if you want to use those settings, you need to change Color Space to something else, which results in oversaturated colors.

The accuracy after calibration is remarkable. There aren't any obvious inaccuracies, and the main advantage of calibrating it is that you get access to other settings, and the image also gets bright.

The SDR color gamut is fantastic. It has perfect coverage of the commonly-used sRGB color space and displays a wide range of colors in the Adobe RGB space used in photo editing, but it does this by oversaturating colors.

The Acer Nitro XV275K has an outstanding SDR color volume. It displays bright and dark colors without any issues.

The Acer XV275K has good reflection handling. While it struggles with strong light sources directly on it, it easily gets bright enough to fight intense glare.

The HDR color volume is amazing. It displays bright and dark colors well, but it's limited by its incomplete color gamut.

The Acer XV275K has good reflection handling. While it struggles with strong light sources directly on it, it easily gets bright enough to fight intense glare.

The pictures above have a warm color temperature, but this is due to an interaction between the camera and the display, similar to the Acer ‎Predator X32 Fpbmiiiiphuzx. This isn't visible in person, though.

The text clarity is fantastic, thanks to its high pixel density. Enabling Windows ClearType (top photo) helps improve the text clarity with bolder lines. These photos are in Windows 10, and you can also see it in Windows 11 with ClearType on and with ClearType off.

The gradient handling is outstanding, and you won't notice any issues with banding in scenes with shades of similar colors, like a sunset.

The picture above has a warm color temperature, but this is due to an interaction between the camera and the display, similar to the Acer ‎Predator X32 Fpbmiiiiphuzx. This isn't visible in person, though.

The Acer Nitro XV275K has a high 160Hz refresh rate. There's a Max Refresh Rate setting that's set to '144Hz' out of the box, but you just need to change it to '160Hz' to reach its max refresh rate. However, the refresh rate is limited to 144Hz over HDMI, even if the Max Refresh Rate setting is at '160Hz', and the only way to get a true 160Hz refresh rate over HDMI is with a custom resolution.

This monitor supports all common VRR formats, including HDMI Forum VRR. Both FreeSync and G-SYNC work over DisplayPort and HDMI, but as mentioned in the Refresh Rate section, the max refresh rate over HDMI is 144Hz. While it works well and reduces screen tearing, there is one bug when it's part of a multi-monitor setup. With VRR enabled at a high refresh rate on the Acer monitor and a secondary monitor that's also using VRR at a low refresh rate, there are some handshaking issues, as you can see here and here. This can be problematic if you have a secondary monitor with extra info while you're gaming on this monitor; otherwise, if you just have the monitor on its own, it isn't an issue.

The Acer Nitro XV275K P3 has an incredible response time at its max refresh rate of 160Hz. While there's just a bit of overshoot in dark transitions, it's hard to see, and motion looks smooth regardless. Using VRR turns off the Over Drive settings, but if you don't use VRR, the 'Normal' and 'Off' settings perform well. They don't have any overshoot, but the total response time is a bit slower than with VRR on.

Due to the monitor's high backlight flicker frequency, the response time charts are processed differently than normal, which means some of the transitions don't show as much overshoot as they have, but the difference isn't significant.

The response time at 120Hz is excellent. Like at the max refresh rate, there's minimal motion blur, and even though there's some overshoot, it's hard to see. If you disable VRR, leaving the Over Drive setting to 'Off' results in the best motion handling, as 'Normal' and 'Extreme' have more overshoot.

The response time at 60Hz is good. Unlike at higher refresh rates, there's overshoot that leads to noticeable inverse ghosting, but otherwise, motion looks smooth. If that bothers you, it's better to disable VRR and leave Over Drive to 'Off', as it has no overshoot.

The Acer Nitro XV275K has no optional backlight strobing feature to reduce persistence blur.

This monitor uses pulse width modulation (PWM) to dim its backlight at all brightness levels, but it's at such a high frequency that you won't notice it.

The Acer Nitro XV275K has low input lag for a responsive feel at high refresh rates. However, the input lag increases significantly at 60Hz, which is problematic for playing reaction-based games at that refresh rate, like from consoles.

This monitor supports all common signals with the PS5 thanks to its HDMI 2.1 bandwidth, and there aren't any compatibility issues.

The Acer XV275K P3 works well with the Xbox Series X|S, as it supports anything up to 4k @ 120Hz. Like other monitors, you need to enable the HDMI override setting in the console for 1440p @ 60Hz to work, which disables VRR.

With the USB-C port, you can connect your laptop and charge it simultaneously, as the 90W of power delivery is high enough to charge most laptops.

The Acer Nitro XV275K works well with macOS. Over USB-C, the default resolution is 1080p, so you need to change it to 4k, and the max refresh rate is 144Hz. VRR and HDR work simultaneously, and if you're using a MacBook and close the lid, windows return to their original position when opening it again. The supported signals over HDMI depend on which computer you're using, as it's limited to 4k at 30Hz or 60Hz with an HDMI 2.0 MacBook, but an HDMI 2.1 MacBook supports up to 144Hz with VRR.

The Acer Nitro XV275K has a few extra features, including:

• Aim Point: Displays a virtual crosshair that your game's anti-cheating tool won't detect, giving you a competitive advantage.
• Black Boost: Adjusts gamma so that it's easier to see opponents better in games.
• Low Blue Light: Reduces the blue light to help reduce eye strain.
• Max Brightness: Makes the screen the brightest possible, and disabling it reduces the ABL.
• Refresh Rate Number: Displays the current refresh rate of the display.

While there's a USB Port Select setting to change which USB upstream port you want to use, either USB-B or USB-C, this isn't the same as a KVM switch, and it doesn't automatically change when you switch inputs.

As explained in the Controls section, the OSD isn't user-friendly, and it takes time to switch settings with slider toggles, like Brightness and Contrast, especially if you need to go from the minimum to the maximum.