It's no secret that I'm a man who loves
a good monitor. So, when ASUS reached
out and offered to sponsor this video so
I could unbox not one, but two new
gaming OLED monitors, I couldn't say no.
[music] We've got not only the
XG27AQDMGR,
a 27-in 1440p 240 Hz WOLED gaming
monitor, but we've also got the XG27AQD
M E S. I had to look at the box cuz I
couldn't memorize two of these in a
single video. But, this guy is a little
less expensive, and it's QD OLED. But,
there's a reason we're going to be
opening this one. This guy doesn't get
as bright as you might expect. So, we're
going to look at it later, but not right
now.
With W or white OLED, one of the biggest
advantages is just how bright these
things can get. With ASUS claiming this
guy gets up to 1,300 nits peak. Now,
that is only going to be
peak brightness. So, you know, just
little spots or whatever on your
display. It's not going to be full field
white. Uh sustained is probably a lot
less than that. But, the nice thing is
this means that with OLED's per pixel
level dimming zones cuz they just turn
on and off when you need them, you're
going to get an amazing HDR experience
regardless of whether you pick this
monitor or the QD OLED that we're going
to look at closer to the end of the
video.
Let's see. What do we got here? We got a
stand
that is actually really small.
I think ASUS has made this a little
smaller than before, which is fantastic
cuz now you get just a much tinier
footprint on your desk. I also like how
robust their rubber feet system is. It's
a minor thing, but like most of the time
these are just little strips. Like,
they're not tall at all, but these are
like thick. And there's a bunch of them,
too, and it's a little elevated. I'm a
big fan. The rest of our stand says ROG
on the back with the ASUS ROG logo.
Um
cable management. Actually, it's labeled
cable management. That's It's of nice.
And it's actually a really nice and big
hole. Uh sometimes these are a little
annoying because they're tiny or they go
like down and then out and it's really
hard to fish like big C13 power
connectors through. And a nice thing
about ASUS is a lot of their more
premium monitors have uh a place to
mount your camera or webcam or whatever
else you have that's going to fit in
there. Maybe a little ring light or
something. The terrible thing about
technology these days is most of it's
getting more and more expensive. But on
the other hand, the nice thing about
monitors is that they're either coming
down in price or we're getting more
features at the same price.
>> [music]
>> And so
with these guys
I won't talk about the price yet, but
it's really not that bad and you're not
losing any premium features. As per
usual, we've got ASUS's bag of tricks.
One thing that I actually really like
about buying monitors from them is they
tend to have this little carry bag for
all of your cables, which is great
because I mean, most of you're probably
just going to throw all this packaging
away. You can keep this. It's got
everything you might want. Throw your
warranty card in there, you know,
cables, whatever. HDMI ultra high speed
HDMI 2.1 cable, DisplayPort, but what
are you? Probably DP 1.4. We've also got
a USB B cable as well as a very typical
C13 power cable. One thing I'm not
seeing as a power brick. So that means
that we are going to have an internal
power supply and it's just going to plug
straight from our monitor into our wall.
What else we have? Ooh.
I believe this is an adapter plate. Not
every single monitor I've ever bought
comes with an adapter plate if you want
to put it on the wall or something.
That's what this looks like it is. And
thank you ASUS for including it because
it really sucks having to 3D print
something to mount your monitor to an
arm, which I've definitely had to do on
premium monitors.
And at last, what is this last? ASUS
warranty card. This guy and its
companion both come with three-year
warranties,
which is great because while image
retention on OLEDs
it's gotten a lot better to the point
where like I haven't seen any on either
of my displays that I've owned for years
now,
um
little piece of mind certainly doesn't
hurt. But now, the part that I've been
waiting for. As per usual, we're just
going to do the old click clack, pull it
out of the box. Took the box with it.
You ready? Are you ready?
Wow!
It's cleaning steps. I think this is the
first time I've actually seen cleaning
steps on here.
What you need? Microfiber cloth, turn it
off, dry the screen, wet cloth cleaning,
pure water, spray bottle. They know what
they're talking about. For stickier
messes, you can use a little bit of a
solvent. You just really don't want to
use too much. Maybe the smallest amount
of isopropyl alcohol mixed with water.
Very small amount.
Because it is very easy to ruin your
screen. Very easy. Ask me how I know.
I've ruined them. We got one more peel
on the back here with what I'm guessing
is a big RGB matrix. So, that's also,
you know, always really cool to see. Um
I'm not crazy about RGB being on the
back cuz you don't see it that much. But
hey, you know what? Especially like an
internet cafe where you've got like
tables like that and you can see the
backs of each other's monitors, you
know, it's pretty cool.
What have we got? The old height
adjustment.
Very nice. Swivel? No problem. Actually
quite a bit of swivel. And then, can we
We can.
We can pivot. But the real question is,
this is where, you know,
>> [gasps]
>> we can go both ways. And while that
doesn't matter to a lot of you, you
know, it's a 240 Hz gaming monitor. The
chances of you putting it in portrait as
your secondary display, at least right
now, is low. But in like 5 years, when
it's still going strong,
you know, you want to make sure that
this bezel down here is not going to
line up like in between. You want to put
it on this side. Actually, how bad is
the top versus the bottom? Yeah, it's
not too bad, but I don't want to see the
ASUS logo. I want to like hide it all.
Whatever you want to do, whatever your
setup is, you can arrange it in that
way. Also, as per usual, uh with an
OLED, you know, the panel itself is like
laser thin, um and then you've got this
giant control box on the back.
>> [music]
>> And so,
it's not super bulky. I'm personally of
the opinion that, you know, to make the
whole thing feel a little more durable,
I'm not against like just extending this
out to the full thing like the control
box and you got a thick monitor. Like,
I'm okay with that. Um but what I can
see is a bunch of cooling vents. This
thing probably has a custom heat sink in
it. Okay, this is great. This is
actually something I don't think I've
noticed on a lot of monitors before.
We've got a bunch of text on the back
here. And at first, I thought it was
like labeling for the IO, which I'll get
to in a sec, but it's actually like for
those who dare, uh game on hashtag ROG.
Oh, that one does say power. Okay.
Power, navigation, navi, and then that
one is key. I don't know why that's key,
but sure. And then what's this? 25.
Let's just like longitude latitude? Are
they telling us where their office is?
I've always wondered what the 206 on the
top here is. That's when ROG launched,
February of 2006. Our IO is also nicely
labeled. We've got a couple of HDMI
ports here, DisplayPort, headphone
jack, Kensington lock. See we got the
little K Kensington lock symbol, our USB
B, and then a couple of USB A ports as
well.
Oh, I almost forgot about our power
connector over here. And if you don't
want to use their display widget center,
which we'll check out later, they also
have physical navigation controls.
Thank you so much. Please, monitor
manufacturers, never take those away
from me. I will die inside. So, it looks
pretty on the outside, but what does it
look like on the inside? To do that,
we'd have to take it apart. So, instead,
we're just going to turn it on and take
a look at our panel.
I'm going to find it. Ready. All right,
it's all set up on the desk here. Looks
great. I'm just
make some minor adjustments, which is
easy enough cuz the stand is so good,
and then I'm going to look at the OSD.
Uh we should be at 240 Hz. Hey, I love
that the OSD actually tells me that, so
I don't even have to go into Windows
settings. It's got some G-Sync [music]
support. It'll support uh FreeSync as
well. And then Oh, yeah, FreeSync
Premium Pro turned on. And it's also got
ELMB, ASUS's extreme low motion blur,
basically BFI or black frame insertion.
We'll probably get some lower
brightness, but it should be even
clearer uh MPRT, which is wild because
OLED is already
lightning fast how these pixels change.
Oh, they've got OLED anti-flicker,
uh brightness,
uh HDR settings, gaming HDR set to on.
They've also got a HDR 400 True Black
mode that we don't want to use. We just
want to stick to gaming HDR. Adjustable
HDR. One problem about a lot of HDR
displays is to keep that PQ EOTF curve
like the way they set it. You'll notice
that a lot of uh display options are
locked or grayed out. And [music]
with now with this custom mode, we can
do whatever we want. Is it going to be
as color accurate? Probably [music] not.
But, we can make those changes as we see
fit. I'm going to keep adjustable HDR
off [music] because, you know, I want to
keep everything as color accurate as
possible. Uh it actually tested pretty
well out of the box. We'll get to
results in a bit here. [music]
Um what else do we have? OLED care.
There's a bunch of screen saver stuff,
pixel cleaning, pixel refresher. I don't
want to do that. One problem is [music]
the navigation is a little sensitive,
and I've definitely misclicked um the
wrong thing a few times, so just be
careful with that. Basically,
everything, logo brightness, uh
everything that most brands come with
these days. But, [music] the nice thing
about ASUS is they've got this new
proximity sensor, and this thing's
actually great. Um my biggest concern
with my monitors at home is if I forget
to turn them off or forget to lock
[music] my screen so they auto turn off
or just whatever, cuz I've definitely
left it up and come back like a day
later and it's still the exact same
screen. And hey, I haven't seen any
image retention yet, but of course I'm
still worried. This really helps
alleviate that. You can set it to a
bunch of different distances. [music]
Um and I think you can even change the
timer if you turn it to [music] tailored
mode.
The sensor will start detecting your
location. Oh, this is to detect my
location after Okay, yeah, let's do it.
Confirm. Five. I'm 70 This is so cool.
Woah.
Okay, I don't want to be that far away.
Okay, I I probably screwed that up by
moving. Um that's sick. I've never seen
like a little measurement thing uh on
the screen
while we do that. It's awesome.
It's the little things, you know? And
then on top of that, you can set it
between 5, 10, 15 minutes. So, you know,
if it doesn't detect anything for 5
minutes,
it just turns black.
It's great. You're not going to burn in
with a black screen, that's for sure.
And then it's even got a time on
counter. That's fantastic. OLED track
OLED time track 11 hours. Pixel clean
times 11.
That's fantastic. If you're ever buying
a monitor second hand, you can check
that out and see how much they've
actually abused it before you decide if
you want to purchase it.
So, love to see that sort of thing.
Aside from that, you know, pretty
typical input selection, lighting
effect. Oh, how's our RGB?
It's off right now. Let me turn it on.
There it is.
I can confirm it works. But we'll show
you too, just in case. And if you don't
want to use the physical buttons, they
do have their display widget center. So,
we've got it up here. I'm going to
change this to cinema mode.
It's not HDR anymore, that's pretty
obvious, but now I can change like
brightness and stuff right here on the
fly. So, I'm not going to mess with
contrast or saturation or anything, but
you can also turn on some of the other
settings that I didn't really go into,
like the crosshair if you want to turn
that on or a timer, uh whatever you feel
like. My only complaint, ASUS, please
make it look almost the exact same as
this OSD, so I don't have to learn two
different sets of menus.
It's a minor thing.
This looks fancier.
>> [music]
>> I don't know which one I like more, but
make them the same, please. I don't
think I will ever get tired [music] of
looking at the footage that we shot for
the RE video. Uh I think I don't know if
this is 4K. Let me do do do. Yeah, this
is 720p, but the HDR looks good. In
testing, we slightly exceeded their
claims of peak brightness with about
1321 nits. So, it's going to get super
bright for you. Um
>> [music]
>> we tested the color gamut coverage. We
got a little less than their claim of
99% of DCI-P3. I think we hit closer to
98. That's still great. And then on top
of that, it is very color accurate. I
think we measured a delta E of less than
two average in SDR. And then for HDR,
when we're measuring with delta E ITP,
we get a very respectable just under 17
delta E average. [music] Pretty solid
and pretty in line with similar monitors
that we've tested around this price
range. But, this is a video. What about
gaming? I want to use that actual 240
Hz, and I want to see the lightning-fast
0.03 ms response times on these pixels.
So, let's do it. God, the fire.
The HDR in Doom 2016, Dark Ages, and
Eternal has all been
pretty top-notch, even if Doom Eternal
uh was a bit of a letdown in other ways.
But yeah, the way it handles dark and
bright parts of the scene,
absolutely
phenomenal. 240 Hz, I mean, obviously,
you know, reason like a 5090 if you
really want to get that. Actually, you
know what? I just realized it's 1440p
and not 4K. So, to get 240 Hz,
you probably don't even need a 5090,
which is fantastic. But hold on a
second. I've I've a whole other monitor
I've got to check out. Okay, we've got
the XG27AQDMES
set up now. ASUS, please start removing
letters from your product names because
they're getting a little long. This
one's the QD-OLED. It is very similar in
spec to this guy in that it's 27 in,
1440p, 240 Hz.
>> [music]
>> It's a little cheaper, but there is a
kind of major downside that I can't
ignore despite this being a sponsored
video. You're only going to get about
400 nits [music]
of peak brightness on this guy over
here, and that's kind of been the
problem with OLED for quite a while is
the lack of brightness. But, I will say
despite that you are getting a much
wider coverage of color gamut thanks to
quantum dots, and the viewing angle
should be a little better. For me, I
personally lean towards this guy. Most
people just prefer brightness. That's
kind of the human experience. Even if
colors look a little different or off,
the brighter object or display just
tends to be what people gravitate
towards. There's a reason why most TVs
in Best Buy is set up in vivid mode.
Another
>> [music]
>> kind of big difference you might notice
is that this guy's only got the
semi-glossy coating, and so it doesn't
get quite as perfectly black as I'd
like, but most people aren't really
going to be able to tell if it's by
itself. Right next to this guy with the
fully super true black glossy coating,
it's a little obvious. There are two
other spots where you kind of miss out
on if you go for the less expensive
model. There is no RGB on the back,
which hey, that's fine with me. However,
you do lose the USB hub feature
that's on the WOLED. At time of filming,
the WOLED is currently on sale for about
$550, which is a pretty reasonable
price, and the QD-OLED is currently
$599, which is 50 bucks more than this
guy, although regular price is 650. So,
buy whichever one you think makes the
most sense if you're looking for a
monitor.
>> Listen up, chump. You got to enter the
Worth the Upgrade Challenge brought to
you by ROG, where you can win one of
eight ROG OLED monitors. You can do that
even if you already own an OLED monitor
from ROG. And you can do it if you don't
cuz you're like me, all right? Yeah.
Okay, stop looking. Go go to the
description. That's where I'm going.
That's where I'm going right now. Uh
we're going to have both of them linked
in the video description below so you
can take a look for yourself and make
your own decision. Thanks again, ASUS,
for sponsoring this video. I'm Plouffe.
These are two displays.
>> [music]
>> So now I own two displays, I guess.
Although I don't I don't own these. One
for each hand.
>> They're the companies.
They're not mine.
Mine are at home.