ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDP  Monitor Review

The ASUS ROG Swift OLED PG27AQDP has a gamer-oriented design with a thin panel and thick housing for the inputs. There's branding throughout, including with the RGB lighting below the stand and on the back. It has thin physical bezels, but there's still space before the image starts.

The build quality is excellent. The housing holding the panel is metal, and the transparent plastic on the back covering the inputs doesn't flex easily. The stand is well-made and features a plastic pillar and metal feel that hold the screen well. Overall, there aren't any major issues, and there isn't any noticeable coil whine or fan noise, either.

The ergonomics are fantastic. You can easily adjust it in a number of ways, and the screen stays in place once you do. The stand also has a cutout for cable management.

The tripod stand takes up a lot of space, but there's space between the feet to place your keyboard and mouse. As the stand is tilted, the thickness from the display to the back of the stand depends on the height at which you set the screen. The thickness measurement is with the screen at the lowest height, and thickness at the max height is 8.3" (21.0 cm).

There are two buttons and a joystick to control the on-screen display and turn the monitor on/off.

• DisplayPort cable
• HDMI cable
• USB-A to USB-B cable
• Power cable and supply
• VESA mounting bracket
• Accessories for stand lighting
• Cleaning cloth
• Accessories bag
• ROG stickers
• User documentation, including calibration report

The ASUS PG27AQDP has a near-infinite contrast ratio to display perfect blacks next to bright highlights.

Settings

• Game Visual: User Mode (after calibration)
• Uniform Brightness: Off
• Brightness: 100
• Power Setting: Performance
• OLED Care: All settings off

The SDR brightness is very good. It gets bright enough to fight glare in most well-lit rooms, but you may struggle to properly see the screen if you have it opposite a sunny window. Although turning Uniform Brightness off results in some changes in brightness between different content, it isn't distracting. Turning it on makes the brightness more consistent between different content, but it makes the screen dimmer, as you can see below:

Settings

• HDR Setting: Console HDR
• Adjustable HDR: On
• Brightness: 100
• Uniform Brightness: Off
• OLED Care: All settings off

The HDR brightness is okay. It gets bright enough to fight glare in most well-lit rooms, and it also makes small highlights pop against the rest of the image. However, it doesn't sustain the brightness with larger highlights. The 'Console HDR' mode is the brightest and most accurate as it follows the PQ EOTF well for the most part, but bright highlights are overbrightened. It has a sharp cut-off at the peak brightness, so highlights get the brightest they could.

The EOTF is the same in the 'True Black 400' picture mode, for which you can see the brightness results below, along with the Uniform Brightness setting on, which you can only enable if you also turn on Adjustable HDR.

The black uniformity is outstanding, with a uniform black level across the screen.

The accuracy is great before calibration in the 'sRGB Cal Mode' Game Visual. It locks colors well to the sRGB color space, but it isn't perfect, as there are inaccuracies with the white balance and most colors. Even gamma is very off, as bright scenes are overbrightened. The 'User' mode has better gamma tracking, but colors are oversaturated.

The 'sRGB Cal Mode' locks out the following settings:

• Blue Light Filter
• Color Temp.
• Contrast
• Saturation
• Shadow Boost
• Sharpness
• Uniform Brightness

The accuracy after calibration is fantastic. Although it isn't perfect, like with gamma tracking, it improves the overall image accuracy.

The SDR color gamut is incredible. It displays a wide range of colors in both the sRGB and Adobe RGB color spaces, but oversaturates some colors in both.

The HDR color gamut is fantastic. It covers nearly all of the DCI-P3 color space used in most content, with minimal inaccuracies. However, it has a more limited coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space.

The HDR color volume is great. It displays dark colors well, but bright colors aren't as vivid as on QD-OLED displays.

The ASUS PG27AQDP has an incredible horizontal viewing angle. Although it technically isn't perfect, you visually won't see any inconsistencies when viewing from the sides or if you sit close to the screen.

The ASUS PG27AQDP has okay text clarity. When using ClearType, it has less fringing than other 27-inch, 1440p OLEDs with an RWBG subpixel layout, like the ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDMG, which you can see in the close-up photos. However, it doesn't make text significantly better when reading from a normal viewing distance, and there's still some fringing. The coating also introduces some haziness. You can see examples of this in the table below.

Without using ClearType, there's no fringing, but letters are harder to read. These photos are in Windows 10, and you can also see them in Windows 11 with ClearType on and with ClearType off.

Although ASUS advertises a Pixel Edge feature, it isn't available in the settings.

The direct reflection handling is good. The coating spreads light out a bit, while also having some mirror-like reflections.

The black levels remain low in a bright room, but they still rise a bit, and you need to use the monitor in a dark room to get the best black levels.

This monitor does have some light reflected back, but overall, it absorbs most light, and reflections aren't distracting in a bright room.

The gradient handling is remarkable, and you won't notice any banding.

You can reach the max refresh rate as long as your graphics card uses Display Stream Compression (DSC). The monitor has a DSC Support setting to disable DSC if you prefer not using compression with a lower refresh rate.

On top of FreeSync VRR and G-SYNC compatibility, this monitor also supports HDMI Forum VRR.

The ASUS PG27AQDP has remarkable motion handling across its VRR range. There's minimal blur or smearing with fast-moving objects, and it remains consistent as the refresh rate drops. Any blur at low refresh rates is persistence blur.

The CAD at the max refresh rate of 480Hz is outstanding. Motion looks incredibly sharp with any noticeable blur.

The CAD at 120Hz is incredible. It has a near-instant response time, and although it isn't perfect, there isn't noticeable smearing or inverse ghosting.

The CAD at 60Hz is fantastic. Any noticeable blur is persistence.

The ASUS PG27AQDP has a black frame insertion feature to reduce persistence blur. It only works with fixed 240Hz or 120Hz signals and reduces blur well. You can also adjust the brightness too, with the minimum brightness being 16 cd/m². You can only enable ELMB with VRR disabled, and using this settings locks you out of the Aspect Control and Uniform Brightness settings.

This monitor has terrible VRR flicker with changing frame rates, which is most distracting in dark scenes. That said, it has an OLED Anti-Flicker setting that reduces the VRR flicker by limiting the refresh rate range, but it also introduces stutter and doesn't eliminate all flicker. You can see the results for the different settings below:

The ASUS ROG Swift PG27AQDP has low input lag with most refresh rates for a responsive feel. However, input lag increases a lot more with fixed 60Hz signals, including during a re-test we did with firmware MCM104. That said, this isn't an issue if you start gaming at a higher refresh rate and use VRR as the refresh rate drops.

We couldn't measure the input lag with Aspect Control because we couldn't enable it.

There aren't any compatibility issues, and the monitor downscales 4k signals, which results in a more detailed image than native 1440p.

This monitor works well with the Xbox Series X|S, and downscales 4k signals. This is useful as the Xbox only supports HDR with 4k signals.

The ASUS PG27AQDP works well with macOS. VRR works properly, but there's still VRR flicker with changing frame rates. The max refresh rate depends on the chip you're using, as it goes up to 240Hz with an M1 chip. If you're using a MacBook and close the lid, windows migrate to the screen, and opening the lid causes the windows to return to their original position.

The ASUS PG27AQDP has a ton of extra features to improve your gaming experience, including:

• AI Assistant: This includes AI Crosshair, AI Shadow Boost, and AI Sniper features that make it easier to see opponents that your game's anti-cheat tool won't detect.
• Aspect Control: You can change the display area to simulate a 24.5-inch image or a squared aspect ratio. You can also enable Pixel by pixel to stretch the image for a 3288x1850 resolution.
• Blue Light Filter: Reduces blue light to help reduce eye strain.
• GamePlus: Includes gaming modes like FPS Counter, Crosshair, Sniper, and Display Alignment.
• Lighting Effect: Offers settings to control the monitor's RGB lighting.

It also includes a few settings to reduce the risk of burn-in associated with OLEDs. They're all under the OLED Care section:

• Screen Saver: Dims the screen when there's no movement on the screen after a certain period.
• Screen Move: Moves the image by a few pixels at a time so that pixels aren't always displaying the same thing.
• Pixel Cleaning: This feature fixes any burn-in issues, and it runs when you turn the screen off. It takes about six minutes to complete, and there's a reminder that pops up when to start it.
• Auto Logo Brightness: Dims static logos on the screen. There's also a Taskbar Detection setting to move the taskbar to the outer parts of the display area.

We tested this monitor with firmware MCM103 and experienced many bugs with it. The settings often change or become grayed out for no reason, even without us changing any settings. Some settings, like Aspect Control, didn't work at all. We also experienced issues with the monitor having to reset the image a few times when changing the refresh rate or turning VRR on/off from our PC.

We'll check for these issues if there's a new firmware update.