ASUS TUF Gaming VG27WQ1B  Monitor Review

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG27WQ1B is a simple-looking monitor geared towards gamers, but it doesn't look out of place in an office environment, either. It has a slightly curved screen with thin borders on three sides and a thicker bottom bezel. It has the same V-shaped stand as the ASUS TUF Gaming VG27AQL1A, but the back looks a lot less premium.

The trunk of the stand is plastic and the feet are metal, but with a plastic covering. There's enough space between the feet to put stuff in front, like your keyboard. The stand supports the monitor well and there's little wobble.

Update 01/20/2021: For consistency, we've changed the height adjustment from N/A to 'No'. The score has been adjusted accordingly.

Sadly, the ASUS VG27WQ1B has bad ergonomics. Unlike the ASUS TUF Gaming VG27AQ1LA, it doesn't have any height adjustment. It also has a narrow swivel range, and you can't rotate it into portrait mode.

The back panel is basic plastic that feels solid. It's mainly matte throughout with a glossy strip near the inputs. Cable management is serviced through a hole in the stand.

The borders are thin, great for a multi-monitor setup.

Despite the slight curve, the ASUS TUF VG27WQ1B isn't very thick, even with the stand attached.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG27WQ1B's build quality is good. It's made mainly out of plastic and it feels solid. It has the same textured matte plastic throughout, except for some glossy plastic near the inputs. However, it seems like this glossy part comes from another model because the markings on it don't match up with the inputs. The stand supports the monitor well with almost no wobble, and the hinge doesn't feel like it would break. Overall, there's nothing fancy about this model, but it feels stable.

The contrast ratio is great, which is expected from a VA panel, and blacks look good. It's higher than the advertised 3000:1 contrast ratio, but this is something that may vary between units. Sadly, there's no local dimming feature to further improve the contrast.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG27WQ1B doesn't have a local dimming feature. The video above is provided for reference only.

The ASUS VG27WQ1B has good SDR peak brightness. It maintains its brightness very consistently across different content, and it gets bright enough to combat glare in well-lit rooms. Also, it gets much brighter in real scenes than the advertised 250 cd/m².

We measured SDR peak brightness after calibration in the 'Racing' Picture Mode with RGB set to 'User'.

The ASUS VG27WQ1B has disappointing HDR peak brightness. Surprisingly, it gets less bright in HDR than in SDR, and it doesn't get bright enough to make highlights pop. We measured the HDR peak brightness in the 'ASUS Gaming HDR' Picture Mode.

The ASUS VG27WQ1B has a disappointing horizontal viewing angle, which is expected from a VA panel. The image looks inaccurate as you move off-center, so it's not ideal for sharing your screen with others. The edges may also look washed out if you sit really close, but the curved screen helps with this issue. If you want a similar monitor that has an IPS panel and wide viewing angles, look into the Gigabyte G27Q.

Once again, the vertical viewing angle is disappointing. You lose image accuracy if you mount it above eye level or if you sit too close.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG27WQ1B's gray uniformity is outstanding, but this may vary between units. The corners are slightly darker, but it's hard to notice, and there's no dirty screen effect in the center. Uniformity is improved in near-dark scenes, but there's a bit of backlight bleed.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG27WQ1B has bad black uniformity, but this may vary between units. The entire screen looks closer to blue/gray and there's backlight bleed along the top and bottoms edges. There's also a bit of blooming around the center cross.

The ASUS VG27WQ1B's out-of-the-box accuracy is great. Some colors are inaccurate, but they're hard to notice. Color temperature is close to the 6500K target, but it's a bit on the cold side. Gamma doesn't follow the target curve all that well and most scenes are brighter than they should be. Note that out-of-the-box accuracy may vary between units.

The ASUS VG27WQ1B's accuracy after calibration is outstanding. Any remaining color and white balance inaccuracies can't be spotted by the human eye, and the color temperature is slightly closer to the target. Gamma does a better job at following the target curve, except some really bright scenes are still over-brightened.

You can download our ICC profile calibration here. This is provided for reference only and shouldn't be used, as the calibration values vary per individual unit even for the same model due to manufacturing tolerances.

The SDR color gamut is outstanding. It has near-perfect coverage of the commonly-used sRGB color space. Also, it has excellent coverage of the Adobe RGB color space used in photo editing.

The ASUS VG27WQ1B's SDR color volume is incredible. It displays colors at a wide range of luminance levels, but it still has some trouble with dark colors despite its high contrast ratio.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG27WQ1B has a good HDR color gamut. It's considered a wide color gamut with excellent coverage of the common DCI P3 color space. However, it has limited coverage of the wider Rec. 2020.

The DCI P3 coverage is much lower than the advertised 90% coverage. This is normal and is due to the way we measure DCI P3. We measure DCI P3 by sending a Rec. 2020 signal, but unlike most reviewers, we limit the colors we're sending to the DCI P3 primaries. This results in a lower, but arguably more accurate measurement.

The HDR color volume is decent. It displays brighter colors well, but struggles with some darker colors.

There are no signs of temporary image retention on our unit, but your experience may vary.

The ASUS VG27WQ1B has great gradient handling. There's clear banding throughout, especially in the darker shades. It performs like an 8-bit panel and has worse banding than most 10-bit panels we've seen.

There's some very minor color bleed, but most people shouldn't notice it.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG27WQ1B has good reflection handling. It shouldn't be an issue with some light on it, but the glare may become too distracting if it's in a room with direct sunlight.

The ASUS VG27WQ1B has good text clarity. It's a bit better than most 27 inch, 1440p monitors we've tested such as the ASUS TUF Gaming VG27AQL1A. Enabling ClearType (top photo) helps improve the appearance of diagonal lines, but some straight lines aren't as bold.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG27WQ1B has a decent response time at its max refresh rate of 165Hz. The recommended overdrive setting is '100' because it has the quickest response time, but there's noticeable overshoot in some transitions. There's also visible blur trail and smearing with fast-moving objects in dark scenes, which could be distracting.

Update 07/14/2021: We updated the links in the above table, as they were incorrectly linking to the max refresh rate results.

The response time at 60Hz is good. There's less blur trail than at its max refresh rate, but the response time is slow in dark transitions, so there's still a bit of smearing. The recommended overdrive setting is '60' as there's minimal overshoot in most transitions, so you may have to change the setting if your game's frame rate drops.

The ASUS VG27WQ1B has a flicker-free backlight, which helps reduce eye strain.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG27WQ1B has a Black Frame Insertion feature to help improve the appearance of motion, but it has a somewhat narrow flicker range. It can't be used with VRR enabled, and we experienced some issues when trying to enable BFI after disabling VRR. When we disabled VRR in the on-screen menu, it didn't disable G-SYNC in the NVIDIA Control Panel. After, we tried to enable BFI and it wasn't working properly because G-SYNC was still enabled. You have to first disable G-SYNC in the NVIDIA Control Panel, disable VRR in the monitor's settings, then enable BFI for it to work properly.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG27WQ1B has an outstanding refresh rate. G-SYNC only works over DisplayPort, and the refresh rate is capped at 144Hz over HDMI.

The ASUS VG27WQ1B has an incredibly low input lag, and it remains low with VRR enabled, which is great. We didn't measure the 10-bit HDR input lag because you can only achieve its 165Hz refresh rate with a 10-bit signal over a DisplayPort connection, and we don't have the tools necessary to measure input lag with HDR over DisplayPort. The max 10-bit refresh rate over HDMI is 60Hz. That said, we don't expect the 10-bit HDR input lag to increase significantly from its native resolution.

This monitor has a great resolution and size. There's enough space to open multiple windows side-by-side, and the 1440p resolution helps deliver crisp images.

The markings on the glossy plastic above the inputs don't seem to line up with the actual inputs. The DisplayPort input is labeled as VGA, and it doesn't have a VGA input. Also, there's a symbol for an Audio Line Out, when there is none. If you have this monitor and notice the same issue, let us know.

The ASUS VG27WQ1B has a few extra features, which are listed below:

• Shadow Boost: Brightens the shadows in dark areas, making it easier to see your opponents.
• GamePlus
• Crosshair: Adds a virtual crosshair on the screen for FPS games.
• FPS Counter: Displays the current frames per second.
• Timer: Adds a timer on the screen.
• Display Alignment: Adds a grid to make it easier to set up in a multi-monitor configuration.
• Low Blue Light: Removes blue light, which helps reduce eye strain.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG27WQ1B has four buttons and a joystick on the back to navigate the on-screen menu.

• DisplayPort cable
• HDMI cable
• Power cable
• User manuals