Noise Cancelling Monitor? How Even?! - Aorus AD27QD Review
Linus Tech Tips
·Linus Tech Tips
·2019-05-06
·
1,635 words · ~8 min read
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since Gigabyte launched their gamer-focused aorus sub-brand back in
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2014 the company has expanded the product line from laptops and
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peripherals to motherboards and video cards and now finally to
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what is apparently the world's first
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tactical monitor whatever that means the
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product page is actually a fascinating specimen the the bezels are
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portrayed as unrealistically thin there's a couple of i think somewhat
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misleading statements and then there's this what is active noise canceling in a
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monitor are you kidding me
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well as it turns out they're not and we're going to find out exactly what
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i'm gonna be upfront with you the active noise canceling feature is the reason
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that this monitor made it to our studio it just it just raised
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so many questions for me when it hit my inbox so we're gonna start with what's
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up with that the monitor has three microphones on the front that actually
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listen to the ambient noise in your room so then my first thought was
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maybe it would use them to try to add
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anc to whatever headphones you happened to be
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wearing if they were plugged into the audio pass-through port
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but no it's actually kind of the opposite the anc isn't there to help you
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hear content better it's meant to help others hear you better
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so what you do is you plug your microphone into the monitor's three and
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a half millimeter jack uh no dice if you use a usb mic by the way oops and then
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you use aorus sidekick software to specify what kind of mic setup you have
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and how much noise cancelling you want to apply
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so then does it work actually yes the monitor was able to cut
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out our office's hvac noise and it actually sounds pretty good with my
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hyperx cloud 2s but other mics i tried had a significant
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trade-off to voice quality regardless of whether we set it to very low
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or very high so whether you'll end up using this
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feature probably depends on your mic and your room but i'm guessing a lot of
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people especially the ones that watched our budget mic roundup a little while
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back are going to end up leaving it off that doesn't mean this review is over
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though because as it turns out the noise cancelling is only one of several gamer
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focus features that are actually pretty cool
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mostly like the sidekick software itself which provided you have the monitor
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connected via usb gives you access to all the options that you'd normally find
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in the on-screen display except way less cumbersome so yes the monitor still has
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the joystick nipple which still is a lot easier than discreet buttons on the back
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with no labels but if you're watching this channel i probably don't have to
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explain to you guys why a keyboard and mouse is just plain better than anything
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else and there's also added functionality like being able to bind
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just about any setting to a hotkey it's
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super cool and something that i hope gains mainstream adoption
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even if there is a slight input delay this is also where you find the rest of
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the gaming features like another one that's done right the onscreen reticle
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now you might think that using one of these
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counts as cheating and you'd be correct but hey at least if
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it's built into your monitor you can get away with it and what sets the ad27 qd
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apart is that unlike other monitors with this feature the stock crosshairs are
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visible without being distracting or blocking your view plus if you're not
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happy with it you can actually draw your own completely custom one and go ahead
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and put that on there so it could even just be a tiny little dot if that's what
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you're into next we've got a couple of more maybe
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features so there's screen overlays for vital stats that you can customize the
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displays refresh rate and timers and counters that you can bind to hotkeys
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and then use for things like tracking an opponent's attack cooldown
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in a moba or reminding you to scout in an rts or counting your headshots in an
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FPS or i mean a million other ad hoc things a gamer could do but that i
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suspect few would do maybe i'm wrong hit
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me up in the comments and then there's the aim stabilizer which appears to be
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yours name for motion blur reduction now the marketing
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claims that it removes in-game motion
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blur like from weapon recoil
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to help you see better but in practice it appears to be simply
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the same backlight strobing that's been present on gaming monitors for years now
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and like those features it effectively reduces smearing but it also reduces
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maximum brightness introduces some strobing crosstalk and it can't be on at
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the same time as freesync then finally there's some features that are just
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bad like super resolution which is just
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gross sharpening and black equalizer
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which claims to increase visibility in dark areas without overexposing the
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bright areas but appears to be the usual
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crank the gamma approach to this function one that we wouldn't recommend
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let's get back to freesync though because all these tactical gaming
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features aside this is actually just straight up a solid monitor in its own
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right it's 2560 by 1440 144 hertz and
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it's got a freesync range of 48 to 144
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hertz with low frame rate compensation which you can actually see at work right
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here so the frame rate is below the freesync range which means that our low
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frame rate compensation inserts duplicate frames and the panel refreshes
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at double the FPS this does improve the
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perceived smoothness oh and by the way yes that is the NVIDIA pendulum test
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thank you for asking because even though this monitor is not at the time of
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writing on NVIDIA's new white list of free sync monitors that are g-sync
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certified a quick update of our NVIDIA 10 series graphics card drivers to
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version 417.17 does allow us to turn it on and it
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appears to be working pretty well another pleasant surprise is actually
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the color accuracy now this monitor isn't designed for
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professionals that do color critical work it's still an 8-bit panel plus frc
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nor is it a top-of-the-line HDR monitor with full array local dimming but
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it does have vasa display HDR 400 certification so it is technically an
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HDR monitor even if the peak brightness is just 400 nits and perhaps more
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importantly it has excellent coverage of the dci p3 color space with
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wow like really wow color accuracy
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that's just about as close as the human eye can discern so that is a total bonus
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for something that's being built as a gaming monitor
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as for the industrial design it's got a sharp kind of aggressive look with a
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matte black anodized finish the stand assembles with just one screw and is
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very robust articulating on all four axes and we even saved the best for last
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it's got RGB panels on the back so that you can configure individually
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i mean so what if the user can't see them and most people put their monitor
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against a wall they're gonna know they're there
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in conclusion then for six hundred dollars aorus's first foray into
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monitors delivers performance commensurate with other offerings in
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this price range and with a handful of extras for gamers that push me into yes
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territory we recommend this monitor
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even if the product page did lie about the thinness of the bezels
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but we are not endorsing that behavior it's gross
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we're gonna have that linked below so thanks for watching guys if this
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video sucked you know what to do but if it was awesome get subscribed hit that
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like button or check out the link to where to buy the stuff we featured in the video description also down there is
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