ASUS VE278Q 27 inch LED Widescreen Full HD 1080p with HDMI Display Port 2ms Response Time Picture in Picture

For me when purchasing electronic items I take forever in deciding which to buy. There's just so much choice and just as you think you've made your selection you read an unfavourable review.

After weeks of deliberation I decided to go for the 27" Asus VE278 monitor mainly because of all the favourable reviews not from England but from the U.S and I'm so glad I made the purchase.

I'm a PC gamer and it's enhanced my gameplay more than I can say, Battlefield Bad Company 2 looks tremendous as does Civilisation V and Crysis 2 is awesome.

I'd fully recommend this monitor to anyone who's looking to upgrade.

There are a couple of very minor setbacks that I've come across so far. I'm not sure how the PIP works. Can you play a game and view a mini screen at the same time? I'm not so sure and when I put the leads into the HDMI socket from my graphics card to the monitor, the only sound I could hear was from the monitor, not my main speakers. I'm sure this can be sorted but at the moment I'm just using the DVI connection and that looks fine to me.

Now I'm sure there's bigger, better, brighter things out there or coming out soon, but for me, right now this is the monitor I want.

One last thing, having had the monitor and seen how good it is I can't believe that I'm the first and as yet only review here on Amazon UK. What has everyone else been buying I wonder?

The Monitor itself did not come with a UK power lead so I had to buy a plug for this. However, the monitor itself is fantastic! Crisp, clear and with beautiful colour rendition I am glad I purchased it. It has a Matt finish which is perfect for viewing at different angles and stopping glare. I purchased this as an addition to my Laptop and coupled with a wireless keyboard it means I can sit back on my sofa and still surf the net / work.

If there is one thing I can definitely say and that's I could never return to small monitor use again! By small, I mean anything less than a 24". I just love the aspect ratio of this monitor size and I sit about a metre from the screen. It is not overwhelming at all and I would say just perfect for my needs. The size of the viewable screen is enough to display 2 full size A4 sheets of paper when viewed as pdf's or Word documents, with room to spare for a further half sheet. There is a little more viewable room, top and bottom of those A4's too. Before I bought into the 27", I had tried my 32" Sony LCD tv, as a means to judge what a bigger display might be like to work with and found a 32" made me feel sea-sick after a while! However, I worked with a 24" monitor, with a friend recently and was sure that a 27" wouldnt be too overwhelming. It is a relief that it is perfectly ok. My desk surface is about 2m wide x 1.2m deep and so this is my base area for placing the monitor.

The ASUS VE278Q I'm reviewing here is a very good monitor. I had read a very good technical review of it before taking the plunge and I am further not disappointed at this price point too.

The colour reproduction is quite accurate. I compared known 'real world' colours against the screen and they appeared identical. The monitor has a 'sRGB' function and this is my favourite setting as everything appears faithfully reproduced with this setting activated.

I like the bright immmediacy of the LED backlight, as it adds a solidity to any displayed image. There appears pretty good eveness of light, with no edge bleed or missing pixels on mine (something I was dreading).

It is interesting to see that only a couple or so of we UK users have reviewed this monitor, whereas if one navigates to the USA version of Amazon (.com), you will see lots more of our American cousins writing in with their feedback.

Sadly mine though has an irritating glitch. If the PC I am using on it goes to 'sleep' and stops the feed to the screen, the Asus monitor will not come out of stand-by once the PC comes out of sleep mode. The only way to bring it back on (the monitor that is), is to pull the mains out and back in again and push the power on button again, until the power light comes up blue. Else it just sticks in stand-by orange with no response from the monitor at all. Not really a problem that is intolerable, more of an irritation on occasion. I am going to mail Asus about it as I reckon it's a design fault, as opposed to a faulty unit per se. The speakers which are built into the case are mediocre but at the same time handy to have. I also dislike the aesthetics of the stand it is mounted on but this is trivial to mention. However, the case the monitor surrounds the display in is Piano-black gloss and looks quite stylish, so I am more than happy with the way the overall monitor looks.

Despite the niggles in places, I would still recommend this unit as a good display for a very attractive price.

M.