ASUS VG248QG  Monitor Review

The ASUS VG248QG has a simple design similar to other ASUS gaming monitors but with thick bezels. It has an all-black design with some red accents on the stand, and it has a gaming-oriented design on the back. There are also rubber covers to hide the screws, which is nice.

It comes with the same square-based stand that we normally see on ASUS monitors. It takes up a good amount of space on the desk, but there's still enough room that you can place stuff in front, like your keyboard and mouse.

The ASUS VG248QG has incredible ergonomics. It has a wide swivel range, and you can rotate it into portrait mode in either direction, both of which are a nice addition to a budget-friendly monitor.

The back of the ASUS VG248QG is plastic with a few etched designs. There are vents on either side, and there's a Kensington lock on the right side of the back. There's also a cutout in the stand for cable management.

The borders are thicker than most modern monitors, so they're not ideal for multi-monitor setups, but they're still not distracting if you use the monitor on its own.

As the stand is a bit on a tilt, the distance between the viewer and the screen depends on the height it's at.

The ASUS VG248QG 24 has good build quality, better than most entry-level monitors. The all-plastic construction feels solid, and even though there's some flex to the bezels and back panel, it's nothing to worry about. The stand also holds the screen well, and the ergonomic adjustments are solid.

The ASUS VG248QG has a TN panel with a low contrast ratio, so blacks look gray when viewed in the dark. Contrast varies between units, but we don't expect it to be much higher for a TN panel. VA monitors like the Lenovo D27-30 look much better in a dark room.

The ASUS VG248QG doesn't have a local dimming feature. We still film the video so you can see how the backlight performs versus other monitors.

The SDR peak brightness is good. Although it's not as bright as the advertised 350 cd/m² peak brightness, it's still close enough, and it's bright enough for a room with a few lights around. Brightness is consistent across scenes, and even though small highlights are slightly dimmer, it's not noticeable. We tested the peak brightness after calibration in the 'User' Picture Mode with Brightness at its max.

The ASUS VG248QG doesn't support HDR.

The ASUS VG248QG has mediocre horizontal viewing angles. TN panels are known to have narrow viewing angles, and this one is no exception. The image quickly loses accuracy, and it also looks like it has a yellow tint when viewing from wide angles. If wide viewing angles are important to you, check out the Dell S2421H, which is a very similar monitor with an IPS panel.

Once again, the vertical viewing angles are bad. A distinct problem with TN panels is how the vertical viewing angles are worse from the bottom than the top. The image looks inverted when viewing from below, so we don't suggest mounting it above eye level.

The ASUS VG248QG 24 has decent gray uniformity. The top of the screen is noticeably darker than the rest, but this is because of the narrow viewing angles and how the image looks worse when viewing from below than from above. Luckily, there's not much dirty screen effect in the center. Uniformity is better in near-dark scenes, but there's some backlight bleed along the bottom edge. Keep in mind that uniformity can vary between units.

The black uniformity is poor. There's clouding throughout, and the screen looks blue due to the low contrast. It's not the worst for a TN panel, but even though uniformity can vary between units, we don't expect the uniformity to be much better on other units.

The ASUS VG248QG has okay out-of-the-box accuracy. We used the sRGB mode, which has some inaccuracies to most colors and the white balance. It also has a cold color temperature, giving the image a blue tint. Gamma seems to follow the sRGB target well, but most scenes are too dark. The sRGB mode locks you out of most picture settings, including brightness and contrast, and that out-of-the-box accuracy may vary between units.

The accuracy after calibration is incredible. Any remaining inaccuracies to the color and white balance can't be spotted by the naked eye, and the color temperature is nearly spot-on with our 6500 K target. However, gamma didn't improve as scenes are slightly too bright now.

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 ASUS VG248QG has an excellent SDR color gamut. It has near-perfect coverage of the sRGB color space used in most content, but its coverage of the Adobe RGB color space used in photo editing is limited.

The SDR color volume is excellent. It's limited by its low contrast, so it can't display dark colors, but other than that, it displays colors at different shades well.

The ASUS VG248QG doesn't support HDR.

The ASUS VG248QG doesn't support HDR.

There are some minor signs of temporary image retention after displaying a high-contrast static image, but it disappears quickly. Also, this may vary between units.

The ASUS VG248QG only supports a maximum bandwidth of 8-bit, so there's banding typical of 8-bit signals, mostly seen in darker shades.

There aren't any signs of color bleed on our unit. It can vary between units, but it's rarely an issue with regular content.

The ASUS VG248QG 24 has impressive reflection handling, which is a nice touch for a cheap monitor. It absorbs light well and does a good job at diffusing it, so you don't get mirror-like reflections. Combined with its high peak brightness, visibility won't be an issue in most rooms.

The ASUS VG248QG has decent text clarity. Despite having a 1080p resolution, the smaller screen helps achieve a higher pixel density, which improves the text clarity. Enabling Windows ClearType (top photo) makes diagonal lines more clear to see.

The ASUS VG248 has an incredible response time at its max refresh rate of 165Hz. Motion looks smooth thanks to the quick response time with minimal overshoot on the recommended '40' overdrive setting. We recommend setting it to '40' because it has the fastest response time without introducing much overshoot, but '60' is even quicker with a bit more overshoot if you don't mind that. It performs much better than the Dell S2421H.

The response time at 60Hz is excellent, but there's more motion blur than at its max refresh rate. The overdrive settings perform strangely here; the '40' setting has the quickest total response time out of them all, as '60', '80', and '100' have an even slower total response time, but with a quicker rise/fall time and more overshoot, leading to inverse ghosting. The '40' setting has overshoot too, so if that bothers you, you can use '20', but that means you'll have to change the overdrive setting if the frame rate of your game drops.

The ASUS VG248QG monitor has a completely flicker-free backlight at all backlight levels, which helps reduce eye strain. It's different from the ASUS VG248QE, which had a unique flicker of about six times the refresh rate.

The ASUS VG248QG 24 has a backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion, to reduce persistence blur. It flickers within a narrow range, and you can't use it at the same time as VRR; it does a good job at reducing motion blur, but the flicker is a bit off, which leads to some image duplication behind fast-moving objects. Keep in mind that the BFI scoring is based on the flicker range and not the actual performance.

The ASUS VG248QG has a high 165Hz refresh rate, an upgrade from the 144Hz ASUS VG248QE. You can achieve the entire refresh rate range and both the native FreeSync support and G-SYNC compatibility over a DisplayPort connection. Over HDMI, the max refresh rate is 144Hz, and only FreeSync works. If you're looking for a monitor with a higher refresh rate, consider the BenQ ZOWIE XL2546X, which has a 240Hz refresh rate.

The ASUS VG248QG 24 has low input lag for a responsive gaming experience. It doesn't increase with VRR enabled, but strangely it increases with the BFI feature enabled. We measured the BFI input lag at 120Hz, and without it, we measured a lag of 5.2 ms, so the BFI increases the lag by about 15 ms. It's still low enough that most people won't notice it, but it's not ideal for competitive gaming.

The ASUS VG248QG gaming monitor doesn't have the biggest screen or highest resolution, but it's still good enough for gamers.

Unlike many monitors, the ASUS VG248 has a DVI input, and the HDMI input supports HDMI 1.4 bandwidth instead of HDMI 2.0, but that doesn't make much of a difference since it has a 1080p resolution. In addition to the Analog Audio Output, it has an audio input, so you can connect an aux cord between your PC and the monitor and use the speakers.

The ASUS VG248QG has a few extra features to improve the user experience, including:

• Blue Light Filter: Removes blue light, which helps reduce eye strain.
• Crosshair: Ability to add a virtual crosshair on the screen that your system won't detect.
• Display Alignment: Adds a grid on the screen so you can align it in a multi-monitor setup.
• FPS Counter: Displays the current frame rate of your source.
• Timer: Adds a timer on the screen.

There's a joystick and four buttons on the back right side to control the on-screen menu.

• DisplayPort cable
• Power cable and power supply
• User guides