HP X27q  Monitor Review

The HP X27q monitor has a simple design that looks good in any environment. It has slim bezels on three sides, and even the bottom bezel isn't very thick or distracting.

The HP X27q has decent build quality. It's mostly made of plastic that feels pretty cheap, but there are no significant issues with it.

The HP X27q monitor has satisfactory ergonomics. The height adjustment is a bit limited, but it's fairly easy to place it in an ideal viewing position. It can rotate to portrait orientation, but only in one direction, so the normally down-facing inputs always face to the left in portrait mode. The back of the monitor is pretty basic. There's no RGB bias-lighting or gamer aesthetic to it, and the stand offers no cable management.

The stand is fairly well-built, but it slides around easily and tends to wobble a lot.

Sadly, instead of a much easier-to-use joystick control, HP has opted for five fixed buttons on the back of the monitor for navigating the OSD.

• Power cable
• DisplayPort cable
• Documentation

Unfortunately, the HP X27q has a sub-par contrast ratio, so blacks look gray in a dark room. The local dimming feature is only available in HDR, which locks the backlight to max, resulting in significantly raised blacks compared to SDR. If you care about better contrast, check out the Samsung Odyssey G5/G55C S27CG55.

Unfortunately, although the HP X27q has a local dimming feature, it's bad. It's limited to eight single columns that span the entire height of the display, so they can't dim tightly around bright objects in dark scenes. This results in considerable blooming, and with most real content, the entire screen is lit up. The processing is pretty good, though, as there's almost no black crush, and it keeps up well with fast zone transitions. Unfortunately, it's always on in HDR, and there's no option to disable it. It can't be enabled in SDR, either.

The HP X27q has impressive peak brightness in SDR. It's bright enough to easily overcome glare in a bright room, and there's no noticeable variation in brightness with different scenes. The minimum brightness is low, which is great for working in a dark room if you're sensitive to bright lights.

These results are with the calibrated settings in the 'Custom RGB' Picture Mode with Brightness at its max.

The HP X27q has decent peak brightness in HDR. It's not certified under the VESA DisplayHDR Certification program, but it easily exceeds the requirements for DisplayHDR 400. Unfortunately, it doesn't track the PQ EOTF well, as near-dark scenes are crushed, and midtones are boosted a bit higher than they should be. There's also a very sharp cutoff near the monitor's peak brightness, so bright scenes all appear at the same brightness.

There are no picture settings available in HDR, so these results are with the default modes.

The HP X27q has an impressive horizontal viewing angle. This is great for sharing your screen with someone sitting beside you, as they'll see the same thing you do. It's also useful if you like to sit close to the screen, as the sides remain uniform.

Unfortunately, the vertical viewing angle is mediocre. Colors shift quickly and appear washed out as you move off-center, so it's not ideal for sharing the screen with someone standing next to you.

The HP X27q has great gray uniformity. The sides of the screen are a bit darker than the center, but there's very little dirty screen effect in the center, where it's usually most noticeable.

Unfortunately, the HP X27q has poor black uniformity. There are a few bright spots along the top and bottom edges where the backlight is bleeding through. The screen also appears cloudy due to the low contrast ratio. Sadly, the local dimming feature is ineffective at improving uniformity in dark scenes due to the large zone size.

The HP X27q has good accuracy out of the box. The white balance is excellent, with no noticeable issues. Most colors are displayed accurately, but the monitor targets a wider color gamut than sRGB, so saturated colors appear oversaturated, and there's no sRGB clamp to prevent this. The color temperature is very close to the target temperature. Gamma is a bit high, so most scenes are too dark. If you want a monitor that has an sRGB mode with better accuracy, check out the HP OMEN 27q.

The accuracy after calibration is fantastic, and there are no noticeable issues after calibrating it.

The HP X27q has a superb SDR color gamut. It covers the entire sRGB color space used by most desktop and web content, including most games. It can't display much of the Adobe RGB color space, though, so it's not ideal for print processing.

The color volume in SDR is fantastic. It's mainly limited by its low contrast ratio, as it struggles to display saturated colors well in dim scenes.

The HP X27q has a decent color gamut in HDR. It has satisfactory coverage of the DCI-P3 color space used by most current HDR content, including most games and movies, but it can't display the full range of greens. Coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 color space is limited, though, so it's not very future-proof.

The HP X27q has great color volume in HDR. Colors are bright and vibrant, and it's mainly limited by its incomplete coverage of both the DCI-P3 and Rec. 2020 color spaces. It's also limited by its low contrast ratio, as it can't display dark, saturated colors well.

The HP X27q has good reflection handling, so glare isn't an issue in bright rooms. The matte anti-reflective coating reduces the intensity of direct reflections, like a lamp or an open window during the day. Unfortunately, the coating also causes a halo effect around bright lights, which makes the area around the reflection a bit hard to see.

The HP X27q has good text clarity. With Windows ClearType disabled (bottom photo), diagonal lines are difficult to make out. After running the wizard (top photo), text is much sharper and easier to read. The matte coating adds a very slight haze to the screen, as you can see in the pixel photo, but it's very minor on this monitor and not noticeable.

The HP X27q has fantastic gradient handling. There's almost no noticeable banding in areas of similar color.

The HP X27q supports FreeSync variable refresh rate technology, ensuring a nearly tear-free gaming experience. It's also compatible with recent NVIDIA graphics cards, but only over DisplayPort, as it doesn't support HDMI Forum VRR. It supports Low Framerate Compensation (LFC), which is good as the panel can only adjust its minimum refresh rate down to about 55-60Hz, which means it starts multiplying frames at a much higher frame rate than most similar displays.

The HP X27q has a great response time at the max response time of 165Hz. Like most gaming monitors, you can adjust the level of pixel overdrive. The 'Level 2' setting delivers the best performance overall, with a fast rise/fall time, but it's not perfect, as there's a bit of noticeable overshoot when transitioning out of dark pixels. Higher settings have a slightly faster rise/fall time, as transitions approach their final shade quicker, but there's significantly more overshoot, resulting in a long trail of inverse ghosting behind fast-moving objects. There's no overshoot with the 'Level 1' setting, but the rise/fall time is slower, so there's more blur around fast-moving objects.

The response time at 120Hz is very good. The best overdrive mode at 120Hz is 'Level 1', as the higher settings have significantly more overshoot than they do at higher refresh rates, resulting in a long trail of inverse ghosting behind fast-moving objects. This unfortunately means that you'll likely have to change settings, as the best setting at 120Hz is different from the max refresh rate.

The response time at 60Hz is decent. Transitions are much slower on average than they are at higher refresh rates, but it's okay for casual gaming. Like at 120Hz, the best overdrive mode is 'Level 1', as higher settings have way too much overshoot. If you have VRR enabled, the monitor will almost never actually look like this, as Low Framerate Compensation kicks in just below 60Hz, so unless your source can consistently maintain 60fps, LFC will kick in and double the frames, so it'll perform closer to the 120Hz response time.

165Hz (max):

120Hz:

The HP X27q has a versatile backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion. You can adjust the width of each pulse, allowing you to fine-tune the brightness of the display with this feature enabled. The above photos are with the MPRT setting set to 'Level 5', with the Response Time set to 'Level 2'.

The backlight is completely flicker-free at all brightness levels, which is great as it helps reduce eye strain.

The HP X27q has fantastic low input lag across all supported resolutions, ensuring a responsive gaming or desktop experience.

Sadly, unlike most 1440p monitors, the HP X27q can't downscale a 4k resolution, so it can't take full advantage of the PS5. It doesn't support HDMI Forum VRR, so even though it has a variable refresh rate feature, it's not compatible with PS5.

Unfortunately, this monitor can't take full advantage of the Xbox Series X. It can't downscale 4k resolutions, which also means it doesn't support HDR from the Xbox, as the Xbox only supports HDR with a 4k resolution.

Unfortunately, the HP X27q has a limited selection of inputs.

Sadly, there's no built-in USB hub or USB-C support, so you'll need an adapter to connect your recent MacBook or Ultrabook. If you want a gaming monitor with USB connectivity, check out the MSI G274QPF-QD.

There are no issues using this monitor with a recent MacBook or Mac Mini. Windows return to their original position when you wake your computer from sleep, but not if you have a MacBook and just close the lid.

Unsurprisingly for a budget monitor, the HP X27q has very few additional features. It can add a virtual crosshair, display the current frame rate coming from your source, and there's a guide to help you align it with other monitors in a multi-monitor setup. It also has a low blue light mode, but this doesn't add much as most modern operating systems can do this automatically regardless of the display's capabilities.