ASUS TUF Gaming VG249Q1A Monitor Review

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG249Q1A is a compact gaming monitor with thin bezels on three sides and a wide V-shaped stand, similar to the ASUS TUF Gaming VG27AQL1A.

The ASUS VG249Q1A's build quality is decent. The all-plastic construction is pretty generic and doesn't feel premium. The stand is very basic, but there isn't much wobble due to the compact screen size. The spacing between the bottom bezel and the screen isn't quite uniform, but that may be just on our unit, so your experience may vary.

The ergonomics are terrible. It only allows for tilt adjustment.

The V-shaped stand doesn't take up too much desk space because the feet are relatively thin. It's made of generic plastic that doesn't feel particularly premium, but it supports the monitor well.

There are four buttons and a joystick on the right backside of the screen. They let you turn the monitor ON/Off and navigate the on-screen menu.

• User guide
• DisplayPort cable
• Power cord

The ASUS TUF VG249Q1A has a mediocre contrast ratio that causes blacks to appear gray when viewed in the dark. It's slightly above the typical 1000:1 contrast of most IPS panels; however, this can vary between individual units.

The ASUS VG249Q1A doesn't have a local dimming feature. The video above is for reference only.

The SDR peak brightness is decent. It's incredibly consistent when displaying different content and slightly brighter than the advertised 250 cd/m², but it's still not bright enough to overcome intense glare. It's best suited for a moderately lit room.

We measured the SDR peak brightness after calibration with Game Visual set to 'Racing Mode', and Brightness set to max.

The ASUS TUF VG249Q1A doesn't support HDR.

The ASUS VG249Q1A has good horizontal viewing angles; however, colors begin to fade relatively early when moving off-center, followed by a loss in brightness. It should be fine for sharing content casually or playing co-op games, but it might not be ideal for work that requires accurate color reproduction.

The vertical viewing angles are okay. There's gamma shifting and color washout when viewing from above or below.

Gray uniformity is great, although this varies between units. Ours has corners and sides that look darker, but dirty screen effect is pretty minimal in the center. Uniformity is much better in dark scenes.

Black uniformity is sub-par. There's clouding throughout, as well as some backlight bleed at the top and bottom edges of the screen. Note that black uniformity varies between individual units.

The ASUS VG249Q1A's out-of-the-box accuracy is great. The slight inaccuracies with the white balance shouldn't be visible to most people, but some colors are noticeably off, especially yellows and greens. The color temperature is almost spot on our 6500k target. Gamma is not bad; however, dark scenes are over-darkened, while bright scenes are mostly too bright.

Accuracy is outstanding after calibration; however, we had trouble calibrating yellow without affecting everything else. It's noticeably off, and we're not sure what the cause is. That said, the inaccuracies with other colors and white balance aren't visible to the naked eye. The color temperature is a bit warmer than before calibration, but it shouldn't be noticeable. Gamma is significantly better, but very dark and very bright scenes appear a bit brighter than they should.

The ASUS VG249Q1A has an excellent SDR color gamut. It has near-full coverage of the commonly-used sRGB color space. Its Adobe RGB coverage is decent, but it might not be good enough for professional photo editors.

The SDR color volume is excellent. It mostly has trouble with dark colors due to its low contrast ratio.

The ASUS TUF VG249Q1A doesn't support HDR.

The ASUS TUF VG249Q1A doesn't support HDR.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG249Q1A has great reflection handling. You shouldn't have any problems in most lighting conditions; however, it's still best to avoid very bright environments due to the screen's limited brightness.

Text clarity is decent, mostly limited by the screen's pixel density. Enabling Windows ClearType (top photo) makes diagonal lines look bolder, but vertical lines look thinner.

Gradient handling is great. There's banding in the darker shades of gray, red, and green.

The ASUS VG249Q1A's refresh rate can be overclocked up to 165Hz, but only over a DisplayPort connection. It's supposed to support FreeSync over DP and HDMI, but it seems to only work over DP at this time. When connected over HDMI, the Radeon Control Panel shows that the monitor doesn't support FreeSync, and there's a lot of tearing when running the pendulum demo. G-SYNC compatibility only works over DisplayPort. ASUS advertises 1080p @ 120Hz support for the PS5 and Xbox Series X; however, we don't test console compatibility.

The ASUS VG249Q1A has superb response times at its max refresh rate, resulting in clear motion with almost no blur trail behind fast-moving objects. The best Overdrive setting is '40' because it has the fastest total response time with very little overshoot. The '100' option manages to reach 1ms gray-to-gray response time, but its total response time is slower, and it has a significant amount of overshoot.

The ASUS VG249Q1A has exceptional response times at 60Hz. The image is noticeably blurrier than at max refresh rate, and there's slightly more ghosting due to a couple of slow transitions. The best Overdrive setting at 60Hz is '20' because it has the fastest total response time.

The ASUS VG249Q1A has an optional Black Frame Insertion feature to improve motion clarity, called ELMB in the settings menu. It's backlight strobing, to be more precise. It only works above 100Hz, and it isn't usable simultaneously with VRR. There are two ELMB settings, 'Standard' and 'Turbo'; we used the latter. Enabling ELMB causes slight motion duplication due to crosstalk.

The backlight is entirely flicker-free. This eliminates motion duplication and helps reduce eye strain.

The ASUS VG249Q1A has a remarkably low input lag, which results in a responsive desktop and gaming experience. We measured the BFI input lag in the 'Turbo' mode. The input lag in the 'Standard' mode is 6.7ms.

The ASUS VG249Q1A has a relatively small screen. While it's not the most immersive, some gamers might prefer the smaller size because it's easier to see the entire screen for better environmental awareness in games. The 1080p resolution is typical for a screen this size. It should be sharp enough for most people for gaming and media consumption, but it might not be if it's for work, especially content creation.

For the most part, this monitor works well with recent M1 MacBooks. Windows return to their original position when waking from sleep, but like most monitors, they don't return to their original positions if you just close the lid. The variable refresh rate feature works well at 144Hz, but not if you enable the optional overclock at 165Hz. The overclock works fine with variable refresh rate disabled.

The ASUS VG249Q1A has many features, including:

• Crosshair: Adds a virtual crosshair on the screen.
• Timer: Adds a timer on the screen.
• FPS counter: Displays your game's current frame rate.
• Display Alignment: Helps with alignment in a multi-monitor setup.
• Shadow Boost: Makes objects more visible in dark scenes.
• Ultra-Low Blue Light: Blue light filter to help reduce eye strain.
• DisplayWidget Lite: Software that lets you control the monitor's settings with your mouse and keyboard.