ASUS TUF Gaming VG259QM Monitor Review

The ASUS VG259QM looks almost identical to its bigger brother, the ASUS VG279QM, just in a smaller, more compact size. It has thin bezels on three sides and a slightly thicker bottom bezel. It isn't too flashy and won't look out of place in an office setting.

The stand is relatively small and doesn't take up too much desk space. It supports the monitor well, and there's minimal wobble.

Outstanding ergonomics. It has a wide swivel range and can rotate to portrait mode in either direction.

The back of the monitor is plastic and relatively plain. It can be VESA-mounted, but there's no quick-release feature. There's a small cutout at the bottom of the stand that serves as cable management.

The borders are thin, making it a good option for multi-monitor setups.

The screen itself is thin, and even when mounted on the stand, it doesn't take up much space.

The ASUS VG259QM has a great build quality. It's mostly plastic, but it's of good quality and feels sturdy. There aren't any obvious issues with the construction.

The ASUS VG259QM has an okay contrast ratio. It's quite decent for an IPS panel, but blacks still look grayish in the dark.

Note that the contrast ratio can vary between units.

The ASUS TUF VG259QM doesn't have a local dimming feature. The video above is provided for reference only.

Great SDR peak brightness. It's bright enough to combat glare in most lighting conditions and very consistent across different content.

We measured the SDR peak brightness after calibration, using the 'Racing' Picture Mode and with Brightness set to maximum.

The HDR peak brightness is okay. The brightness is very consistent when displaying different scenes. It's bright enough to deliver an alright HDR experience in games, but not in HDR movies. It's also significantly dimmer than the ASUS VG279QM, which is expected.

We measured the HDR peak brightness before calibration, using the 'ASUS Gaming HDR' Picture Mode. The screen's brightness is locked in this picture mode.

Like most IPS panels, the ASUS VG259QM has good horizontal viewing angles, but it isn't as good as the ASUS VG279QM. Colors appear washed out when you reach moderate viewing angles, and brightness decreases as well.

The vertical viewing angles are okay. The top and bottom of the screen remain accurate even if you sit up close due to the smaller screen size. It's more important if you have a multi-monitor setup where it's mounted above eye level.

Gray uniformity on our unit of the ASUS TUF VG259QM is excellent. It's a bit darker at the edges, but it's otherwise very uniform, and it's even better in near-dark scenes.

Note that gray uniformity can vary between units.

Our unit of the ASUS VG259QM has decent black uniformity. There's clouding throughout, and a bit of backlight bleed along the top and bottom of the screen.

Note that black uniformity can vary between units.

Before calibration, the ASUS VG259QM has decent color accuracy. It has an sRGB mode that's more accurate than the Racing Mode that we used on the ASUS VG279QM, but using it locks the screen's brightness. There are some minor inaccuracies with a few colors, and white balance is off. Gamma doesn't follow the curve all that well, making dark scenes too dark and bright scenes brighter than they should be. The color temperature is very close to our 6500K target.

Note that the pre-calibration color accuracy can vary between units.

After calibration, color accuracy is superb. Any remaining color inaccuracies shouldn't be visible to the naked eye. White balance and gamma are nearly perfect. The color temperature is a bit warmer than what we initially started with, but still close to our target.

You can download our ICC profile calibration here.

The ASUS VG259QM has an excellent SDR color gamut. It has near-full coverage of the commonly-used sRGB color space, but its coverage of the Adobe RGB color space is only decent.

Excellent SDR color volume. It has trouble displaying very bright blues, which is typical for LCDs, and it can't display dark colors well due to its low contrast ratio.

Although the ASUS VG259QM has a decent DCI P3 color gamut, it can't display a wide color gamut for HDR content.

The HDR color volume is mediocre. It can't display a wide color gamut, and can't display dark colors well.

There are no signs of temporary image retention on this monitor.

Note that temporary image retention can vary between units.

Great gradient handling. There's a small amount of banding in all colors, particularly in the grays, greens, and reds.

Unlike the ASUS VG279QM, it can only receive an 8-bit input signal.

There's a small amount of vertical color bleed; however, it shouldn't be noticeable in regular content.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG259QM's reflection handling is good. The matte anti-reflective coating does a great job of reducing the intensity of direct reflections but doesn't do as well when it comes to bright ambient lighting.

Text clarity is decent. With Windows' ClearType enabled (top photo), the letters look more fleshed out, particularly the diagonal lines on the R and N. The pixels look blurry in the picture due to the monitor's matte anti-reflective coating.

Update 08/28/2020: There's a hidden overdrive setting of '120'. It can be accessed through the service menu, as described here. Despite the name, it's actually between the 60 and 80 settings, but we don't recommend it, as there's too much overshoot.

The ASUS VG259QM has exceptional response time when playing at its maximum refresh rate, resulting in minimal motion blur in fast-moving scenes. There are many overdrive settings available. We recommend using '60', as it provides the best performance with virtually no overshoot.

Note that we found almost no difference between the '0' and '20', or the '40' and '60' overdrive settings. We suspect that the current firmware may be causing some bugs with these settings at the maximum refresh rate. We'll retest it once a firmware update is available.

Update 08/28/2020: There's a hidden overdrive setting of '120'. It can be accessed through the service menu, as described here. Despite the name, it's actually between the 60 and 80 settings, but we don't recommend it, as there's too much overshoot.

The response time at 60Hz is excellent, although not as good as its bigger brother, the ASUS VG279QM. The best overdrive setting is '40,' as there's only a small amount of overshoot in the darker transitions and when transitioning from dark to bright scenes.

The backlight is flicker-free, which can help reduce eye strain.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG259QM has an optional Black Frame Insertion feature to help improve motion clarity called 'ELMB,' and it can be used at the same time as variable refresh rate (VRR). The standard ELMB setting (without VRR) works between 120Hz and 280Hz, while the ELMB Sync setting (with VRR) works between 50Hz and 280Hz. That said, we found that it doesn't work at all between 50Hz and 85Hz. These results are consistent with our findings on the ASUS VG279QM.

The ASUS VG259QM's native 240Hz refresh rate can be overclocked to 280Hz using the OSD menu setting called 'Overclock,' but only over a DisplayPort connection, as the refresh rate over an HDMI connection is 240Hz. It supports FreeSync and is compatible with NVIDIA's G-SYNC; the latter only works over a DisplayPort connection.

The ASUS VG259QM has exceptionally low input lag, even with VRR enabled. However, it rises significantly when playing at 60Hz, making it less suitable for console gaming. This higher input lag at 60Hz is also something that we noticed on the ASUS VG279QM.