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 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.

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

The monitor's controls are located on the right backside of the monitor. There are four buttons and a joystick, and they allow you to navigate the on-screen menu.

• User guide
• Power supply
• Power cord
• HDMI cable
• DisplayPort cable

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

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.

These measurements are 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 not bright enough for bright highlights to stand out at all. It displays most scenes at the correct brightness, though, except for bright scenes, which are a bit too bright. There's also a very sharp cut-off at the monitor's peak brightness, which causes a loss of fine details in bright scenes.

These measurements are 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 a good horizontal viewing angle, 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 angle is 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.

The ASUS TUF VG259QM has good gray uniformity. It's a bit darker at the edges, but it's otherwise very uniform, with very little dirty screen effect in the center.

The ASUS VG259QM has decent black uniformity. There's clouding throughout due to the low contrast ratio, and a bit of backlight bleed along the top and bottom of the screen.

Before calibration, the ASUS VG259QM has good color accuracy. It has an sRGB mode that's more accurate than the other picture modes, but using it locks most picture settings. It's not very effective at limiting colors to the sRGB color space, but the other picture modes are more over-saturated. There are some minor inaccuracies with a few colors, and white balance is a bit off. Gamma is close to the sRGB target curve, but dark scenes are a bit too dark and bright scenes are slightly brighter than they should be. The color temperature is quite cold, giving everything a slightly bluish tint.

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 no longer cool and is nearly perfect.

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 mediocre. If you want a gaming monitor with an even wider SDR color gamut, check out the ASUS ROG Strix XG27AQ.

This monitor has fantastic SDR color volume. It can't display dark colors well due to its low contrast ratio, but there are no real issues otherwise.

Although the ASUS VG259QM has decent coverage of the DCI-P3 color gamut used by most current HDR content, it can't display a wide color gamut.

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

The ASUS TUF 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.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG259QM has outstanding gradient handling. At the max refresh rate it only supports an 8-bit signal, and there's some banding in darker shades. If you decrease the refresh rate to anything below about 237Hz, it can also accept a 10-bit signal, and there's barely any banding in any shade.

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.

The ASUS TUF VG259QM supports FreeSync variable refresh rate technology, and it's compatible with NVIDIA's G-SYNC Compatible mode which only works over a DisplayPort connection.

The ASUS VG259QM has an excellent response time when playing at the maximum refresh rate of 280Hz, resulting in minimal motion blur in fast-moving scenes. Like most monitors, there are many overdrive settings available to customize your gaming experience. We recommend using the '120' overdrive mode, as it provides the best performance with virtually no overshoot. This mode is actually a hidden setting that has to be enabled through the service menu (find out how here). If you don't want to use this hidden mode, the '60' mode is almost as good, but it has a slower rise/fall time, so there's a longer blur trail behind fast-moving objects.

This monitor has an excellent response time when gaming at 120Hz from a PS5 or Xbox Series X. Again, the level of overdrive can be customized, but unlike at the max refresh rate, the '40' setting delivers the best experience overall at 120Hz. If you're looking for a "set-and-forget" mode that works well at both 120Hz and 280Hz, the '60' setting is your best choice, but it has a bit more inverse ghosting at 120Hz than at the max refresh rate, and it's not a very good choice for 60Hz gaming.

The response time at 60Hz is great. The best overdrive setting is '20,' as higher settings have way too much overshoot. Like at the max refresh rate, the '120' setting is a hidden mode that has to be enabled in the service menu. Although it's the best mode at 280Hz, it's terrible at 60Hz, with terrible overshoot that makes it unusable for gaming. Unfortunately, this means you'll likely have to go into the monitor's menus and change your overdrive setting each time you switch to 60Hz, as there's no single mode that performs well at any refresh rate.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG259QM has an optional backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion, to help improve motion clarity. Unlike most monitors, the amplitude of each pulse can be adjusted, as the backlight setting isn't locked when ELMB is enabled. The standard ELMB setting (without VRR) works between 120Hz and 280Hz, while the ELMB Sync setting (with VRR) can be enabled between 50Hz and 280Hz, but it doesn't actually do anything between 50Hz and 85Hz.

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

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.

The ASUS VG259QM has a decent resolution and size. The screen may be a bit small for multitasking since there's less room to have multiple windows opened side-by-side, but it's a good size for a 1080p display, as it makes the pixel density higher.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG259QM only supports basic 1080p formats from the PS5. It supports HDR, but can't downscale a 4k image. If you want something that can downscale a 4k signal, then check out the ViewSonic XG2431.

Unfortunately, this monitor has very limited compatibility with the Xbox Series S|X. VRR works, but if you disable VRR from the monitor's menus, you'll have to turn the monitor off and on again to reenable it. This is only an issue with the Xbox. It can't downscale a 4k image, which means that HDR doesn't work either, since the Xbox only supports HDR with 4k signals. 1080p @ 120Hz works, but you have to override the resolution and refresh rate on the Xbox.

The USB input is a service port and can only be used for firmware updates.

The ASUS TUF VG259QM doesn't quite work properly with recent Macs. The 280Hz overclock feature doesn't work at all, so you're limited to 240Hz. VRR works, but if you toggle it off and on while connected to a Mac, it sends the monitor into power save mode. There are also some intermittent issues with sleep mode, as windows wouldn't always return to their original position when closing the lid on an M1 MacBook Pro.

The ASUS VG259QM has many extra features, including:

• Crosshair: Puts a virtual crosshair for shooter games.
• Timer: Puts a timer on the screen.
• FPS counter: Overlay that shows the current frame rate.
• Display alignment: Helps align monitors in a multi-monitor setup.
• Zoom: Zooms in to enlarge a section of the image.
• Shadow Boost: Helps make objects more visible in dark scenes.
• Blue light filter: Helps reduce eye strain.