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Acer Predator XB281HKbmiprz 28 Inch UHD Gaming Monitor, Black (TN...
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Customer reviews
- Acer Predator XB281HKbmiprz 28 Inch UHD Gaming Monitor, Black (TN...
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- Customer reviews
Top positive review
Amazing!
7 June 2017
Fantastic. A new level of amazing. I upgraded from a 27" 60Hz TN 1080p Panel and I have a GTX 1070. It's like a new PC.
The IPS makes a good (but not huge) difference for me.
The 60Hz -> 144Hz is a Huge difference! Amazing. Even in Overwtach where I get around 90FPS average I can feel such a difference.
The G-Sync is cool, however I have to use fullscreen mode on demanding games which kinda sucks. a few seconds delay if I want to tab out and some games can crash. It's these small things which are a pain that no one tells you about.
The 1400p Resolution is cool! But a bit annoying when things are by default a lot smaller. There are some scaling optionsin windows to make things bigger but it's a pain to configure them all and not everything works perfectly with them
The quality of the monitor is amazing. Everything feels premium and rigid. I don't like spending lots of money (especially for a monitor!) But hopefully this will last me for 10+ years. Overall I'm very happy, just a shame that Nvidia are money grabbing rats and charge so damn much for GSync.
Oh, and don't tell your friends how much this thing costs. They'll call you an idiot and take it to your wedding speech.
The IPS makes a good (but not huge) difference for me.
The 60Hz -> 144Hz is a Huge difference! Amazing. Even in Overwtach where I get around 90FPS average I can feel such a difference.
The G-Sync is cool, however I have to use fullscreen mode on demanding games which kinda sucks. a few seconds delay if I want to tab out and some games can crash. It's these small things which are a pain that no one tells you about.
The 1400p Resolution is cool! But a bit annoying when things are by default a lot smaller. There are some scaling optionsin windows to make things bigger but it's a pain to configure them all and not everything works perfectly with them
The quality of the monitor is amazing. Everything feels premium and rigid. I don't like spending lots of money (especially for a monitor!) But hopefully this will last me for 10+ years. Overall I'm very happy, just a shame that Nvidia are money grabbing rats and charge so damn much for GSync.
Oh, and don't tell your friends how much this thing costs. They'll call you an idiot and take it to your wedding speech.
58 people found this helpful
Top critical review
Screen suffers from a flicker/glitch every once in a while ...
31 August 2017
Screen suffers from a flicker/glitch every once in a while. There are 18+ pages on the Acer website regarding this issue, however Acer are not acknowledging that there is an issue? I'll be returning mine to Amazon for a refund. Defective goods.
21 people found this helpful
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Showing 1-10 of 364 reviews
7 June 2017
Fantastic. A new level of amazing. I upgraded from a 27" 60Hz TN 1080p Panel and I have a GTX 1070. It's like a new PC.
The IPS makes a good (but not huge) difference for me.
The 60Hz -> 144Hz is a Huge difference! Amazing. Even in Overwtach where I get around 90FPS average I can feel such a difference.
The G-Sync is cool, however I have to use fullscreen mode on demanding games which kinda sucks. a few seconds delay if I want to tab out and some games can crash. It's these small things which are a pain that no one tells you about.
The 1400p Resolution is cool! But a bit annoying when things are by default a lot smaller. There are some scaling optionsin windows to make things bigger but it's a pain to configure them all and not everything works perfectly with them
The quality of the monitor is amazing. Everything feels premium and rigid. I don't like spending lots of money (especially for a monitor!) But hopefully this will last me for 10+ years. Overall I'm very happy, just a shame that Nvidia are money grabbing rats and charge so damn much for GSync.
Oh, and don't tell your friends how much this thing costs. They'll call you an idiot and take it to your wedding speech.
The IPS makes a good (but not huge) difference for me.
The 60Hz -> 144Hz is a Huge difference! Amazing. Even in Overwtach where I get around 90FPS average I can feel such a difference.
The G-Sync is cool, however I have to use fullscreen mode on demanding games which kinda sucks. a few seconds delay if I want to tab out and some games can crash. It's these small things which are a pain that no one tells you about.
The 1400p Resolution is cool! But a bit annoying when things are by default a lot smaller. There are some scaling optionsin windows to make things bigger but it's a pain to configure them all and not everything works perfectly with them
The quality of the monitor is amazing. Everything feels premium and rigid. I don't like spending lots of money (especially for a monitor!) But hopefully this will last me for 10+ years. Overall I'm very happy, just a shame that Nvidia are money grabbing rats and charge so damn much for GSync.
Oh, and don't tell your friends how much this thing costs. They'll call you an idiot and take it to your wedding speech.
16 January 2018
i recently bought this to partner my main gaming rig. I also own the XB270HU which is the predecessor of this monitor and now partners my second rig. Both have the same model of IPS style panel and the colours are excellent. This model can overclock to 165Hz whereas the 270 is limited to the panel's native 144Hz but I don't see the point of overclocking by such a small uplift so didn't bother.
Aesthetically I think the 271 is better looking than the 270 which looks a bit cheap. The 271 uses nice matt plastic for the fairly slim bezels and has a solid metal stand with dark red accents. The OSD is reasonably user friendly and all I did was make sure Gsync was enabled and turned the brightness down to 25. Out of the box the colours looked fine to me.
However my unit is the second one I received - the first was returned due to backlight bleed. Quality control really seems a problem with 27 inch panels. Over the years I've returned most major brands - Acer, Asus, AOC, Viewsonic for backlight bleed, stuck or bright pixels or both. There does not seem to be proper checks on units leaving the factories The only monitor I've not had to return was a Dell Ultrasharp. I also know the difference between bleed and IPS glow so it is definitely a quality issue.
I definitely recommend this monitor - the picture quality is excellent and Gsync really smooths out gaming performance. However be prepared to return units if you find bleed. My advice would be to turn the brightness down to something sensible like 25-30 and view a plain black picture with the screen head on about six feet away in a dark room. If you see yellowing around the edges you've got bleed.I find I can't help but look for these bright patches when gaming and it ruins the experience for me.
If you are prepared to deal with the panel lottery this is a great gaming monitor.
Hope this helps.
Aesthetically I think the 271 is better looking than the 270 which looks a bit cheap. The 271 uses nice matt plastic for the fairly slim bezels and has a solid metal stand with dark red accents. The OSD is reasonably user friendly and all I did was make sure Gsync was enabled and turned the brightness down to 25. Out of the box the colours looked fine to me.
However my unit is the second one I received - the first was returned due to backlight bleed. Quality control really seems a problem with 27 inch panels. Over the years I've returned most major brands - Acer, Asus, AOC, Viewsonic for backlight bleed, stuck or bright pixels or both. There does not seem to be proper checks on units leaving the factories The only monitor I've not had to return was a Dell Ultrasharp. I also know the difference between bleed and IPS glow so it is definitely a quality issue.
I definitely recommend this monitor - the picture quality is excellent and Gsync really smooths out gaming performance. However be prepared to return units if you find bleed. My advice would be to turn the brightness down to something sensible like 25-30 and view a plain black picture with the screen head on about six feet away in a dark room. If you see yellowing around the edges you've got bleed.I find I can't help but look for these bright patches when gaming and it ruins the experience for me.
If you are prepared to deal with the panel lottery this is a great gaming monitor.
Hope this helps.
31 August 2017
Screen suffers from a flicker/glitch every once in a while. There are 18+ pages on the Acer website regarding this issue, however Acer are not acknowledging that there is an issue? I'll be returning mine to Amazon for a refund. Defective goods.
29 April 2018
*(PREVIOUS REVIEW) I bought a used Acer predator 27inch monitor from Amazon warehouse deals. It came quickly and when expected. When I opened the package it looked pretty much brand new from the outside. That's when everything went down hill. When setting it up and plugging it in I found that it violently just flashed the image on and off on the screen with no reason why. I altered settings on my pc and the monitor it self. I finally found a way to stop it by putting it down from 144hz refresh rate to 85hz which by that point it stopping blinking on and off. This is unacceptable as one of the reasons I bought the monitor was the high refresh rate for gaming and if it's cut down by just above half then it's not following it specifications on the box. From this I had to send it back and get a refund. I have ordered another and will review differently dependant on my second try at getting a monitor that works.(PREVIOUS REVIEW)*
Update: Bought a new monitor which has worked literally 'plug in and play'. A very different story to the last faulty one which left me with hours of fiddling options to get it to work for it to inevitable not work to its full potential. The resolution on games is stunning and pretty much hard to tell next to 4k. The high refresh rate 144hz or 165hz overclock and G-sync is great for smooth gameplay. The colours to me look great and needed minor tweaks to get them right. The adjustable stand is a great feature. The overall build of this monitor screams quality. Would of given this 5 if it wasn't for all the problems I had at the start which is more an Amazon issue rather than the product itself.
Update: Bought a new monitor which has worked literally 'plug in and play'. A very different story to the last faulty one which left me with hours of fiddling options to get it to work for it to inevitable not work to its full potential. The resolution on games is stunning and pretty much hard to tell next to 4k. The high refresh rate 144hz or 165hz overclock and G-sync is great for smooth gameplay. The colours to me look great and needed minor tweaks to get them right. The adjustable stand is a great feature. The overall build of this monitor screams quality. Would of given this 5 if it wasn't for all the problems I had at the start which is more an Amazon issue rather than the product itself.
7 June 2018
If you want an IPS 144Hz screen in the uk, you've got very few alternatives and most of panels are manufactured by AU Optronics. Apparently they have quality control issues, so I was a bit concerned readling all the reviews mentioning backlight and dead pixels, ended up choosing this monitor since it's manufactured with a newer version of the panel (2.6 as opposes to 2.3 for Asus PG279Q, for instance).
It ended up okay, no dead pixels. There is a bit of backlight, but you won't notice this until you turn off all your lights and the display is literally completely black (attached photos, it actually looks way more black in reality since my camera is not suited well for night mode).
Otherwise, the monitor looks slick, height and rotation are easily adjustable, the stand is still. Make sure to update your video drivers if you wanna get higher refresh rates.
It ended up okay, no dead pixels. There is a bit of backlight, but you won't notice this until you turn off all your lights and the display is literally completely black (attached photos, it actually looks way more black in reality since my camera is not suited well for night mode).
Otherwise, the monitor looks slick, height and rotation are easily adjustable, the stand is still. Make sure to update your video drivers if you wanna get higher refresh rates.
It would be 1 star but everything other than the QC of the panel is amazing. I have played the lottery on two other ...
14 July 2018Sending back my fouth of this monitor due to backlight bleed and IPS glow of various intensity. That is why it's at 2 stars. It would be 1 star but everything other than the QC of the panel is amazing. I have played the lottery on two other monitors 6 times so I have done this dance 10 times so far. That is how good these monitors are, if I could only get one I can be happy with.
The screen is beautiful. I would not even bother upgrading in the next 10 or so years until it fell apart from old age. I'm upgrading from a 1080p 120hz Samsung that has AHVA level colours but it's dying and 27" 1440p 144hz (165 OC) is perfection. I bought the 1080p/120hz 7 years ago second hand so I am buying for the long term. Anything not near perfect will not suffice, especially at these prices.
The ergonomics are fantastic. It's a good push with two fingers to get it to move so it's solid on desk but still easy to manipulate.
The updated UI from the earlier versions of this monitor are an improvement and make it easier to navigate.
For those of you suffering from glow or bleed, make sure you have the monitor higher than you normally would and tilt the bottom edge slighlty upwards. Play around with it to see if a certain height and/or angle will eliminate any bleed or glow. Unfortunately for me, on this panel, it just enhances the glow at the top.
I will say that the glow on the panels made this year is much less than before. I'm uncertain if I want to keep trying this monitor or try the AOC version as it supposedly has slightly better pixel accuracy like the Viewsonic.
In the game of monitors you either win or you lose.
The screen is beautiful. I would not even bother upgrading in the next 10 or so years until it fell apart from old age. I'm upgrading from a 1080p 120hz Samsung that has AHVA level colours but it's dying and 27" 1440p 144hz (165 OC) is perfection. I bought the 1080p/120hz 7 years ago second hand so I am buying for the long term. Anything not near perfect will not suffice, especially at these prices.
The ergonomics are fantastic. It's a good push with two fingers to get it to move so it's solid on desk but still easy to manipulate.
The updated UI from the earlier versions of this monitor are an improvement and make it easier to navigate.
For those of you suffering from glow or bleed, make sure you have the monitor higher than you normally would and tilt the bottom edge slighlty upwards. Play around with it to see if a certain height and/or angle will eliminate any bleed or glow. Unfortunately for me, on this panel, it just enhances the glow at the top.
I will say that the glow on the panels made this year is much less than before. I'm uncertain if I want to keep trying this monitor or try the AOC version as it supposedly has slightly better pixel accuracy like the Viewsonic.
In the game of monitors you either win or you lose.
13 August 2018
So i think this is the best monitor that has 144hz 2k (1440p) G-sync AND IPS all of these are quite hard to find on a single monitor especially at the price its giving, Its amazing, Im super happy i picked this monitor as i did overclock it to 165Hz with no problem, works like a charm. 0 dead pixels.
+It fits my theme (red+black)
+144Hz (Overclockable to 165Hz)
+G-Sync
+1440p (2k)
+27 Inch display
+IPS
- It may not fit your theme
- The logo may be a bit Intrusive (Very bold)
- The bottom half of the monitor can get quite hot
Although all the negatives are not that "Bad" It doesn't bother me, but it may to you.
Overall i think this is one the best monitors on the market and if your looking for all the specs, I would heavily advise you pick this one, You wont be dissapointed.
+It fits my theme (red+black)
+144Hz (Overclockable to 165Hz)
+G-Sync
+1440p (2k)
+27 Inch display
+IPS
- It may not fit your theme
- The logo may be a bit Intrusive (Very bold)
- The bottom half of the monitor can get quite hot
Although all the negatives are not that "Bad" It doesn't bother me, but it may to you.
Overall i think this is one the best monitors on the market and if your looking for all the specs, I would heavily advise you pick this one, You wont be dissapointed.
2 January 2019
If you want advise from a tech enthusiast and partly gamer, avoid this screen like the plague. Despite its “good” reviews, I seriously didn’t like it.
Aside from the fact I returned it due to flickering with no fault of acer just purely bad luck, I was able to get a perfect panel with no backlight bleed issues at all, and great picture quality.
Let’s start off with the build. Horrible. The only way I could deal with the monitor was by wall mounting it to get rid of the tacky, kiddy red and black stand. The thing looks like a fisher price toy. This of course has no effect on the performance nor the quality of picture, but it was an annoyance for me.
Next the price. I got this for around £450 on Black Friday sales and I felt it wasn’t worth the cost, so go figure. £640 I believe it is as I write this, or thereabouts. £640 for IPS, granted, 144hz, granted, and QHD. That criteria is a rare match with the cheapest thing coming close is a TN panel from Dell, the U2417DG/U2716DG. The colours on that thing are remarkable for a TN panel, and as well as being gsync, 144Hz and a lot less cost, I would always recommend this panel, alongside perhaps a £130 or so IPS 1080p panel. Dell have remarkable return policy, warranty and reliability, just avoid Alienware.
Planned obsolescence. I don’t speak from experience on this one but I have read countless horror stories on the internet of people reporting their XB271HU breaking within days or weeks after the end of warranty. This I believe is a couple of years, perhaps even one. While this may just be rare, I cannot help think this is a purposeful design flaw to make consumers purchase the next latest monitor in the lineup after a while. This shouldn’t happen. Monitors should last 3-6 years before an upgrade is needed at the rate technology moves on- and will probably go for about 9-10 years before dying.
Overall, avoid. You will be impressed by the immersive 1440p resolution, the great 144 refresh rate and the nice picture, but it’s not worth going for this item. I don’t want to sound bigoted, but with justification and experience, please consider my opinion.
Friendly note, while 144Hz rocks, I am very sad to find 60Hz on my phone and laptop now looking very choppy. Once you move to 144Hz you can’t go back!
Aside from the fact I returned it due to flickering with no fault of acer just purely bad luck, I was able to get a perfect panel with no backlight bleed issues at all, and great picture quality.
Let’s start off with the build. Horrible. The only way I could deal with the monitor was by wall mounting it to get rid of the tacky, kiddy red and black stand. The thing looks like a fisher price toy. This of course has no effect on the performance nor the quality of picture, but it was an annoyance for me.
Next the price. I got this for around £450 on Black Friday sales and I felt it wasn’t worth the cost, so go figure. £640 I believe it is as I write this, or thereabouts. £640 for IPS, granted, 144hz, granted, and QHD. That criteria is a rare match with the cheapest thing coming close is a TN panel from Dell, the U2417DG/U2716DG. The colours on that thing are remarkable for a TN panel, and as well as being gsync, 144Hz and a lot less cost, I would always recommend this panel, alongside perhaps a £130 or so IPS 1080p panel. Dell have remarkable return policy, warranty and reliability, just avoid Alienware.
Planned obsolescence. I don’t speak from experience on this one but I have read countless horror stories on the internet of people reporting their XB271HU breaking within days or weeks after the end of warranty. This I believe is a couple of years, perhaps even one. While this may just be rare, I cannot help think this is a purposeful design flaw to make consumers purchase the next latest monitor in the lineup after a while. This shouldn’t happen. Monitors should last 3-6 years before an upgrade is needed at the rate technology moves on- and will probably go for about 9-10 years before dying.
Overall, avoid. You will be impressed by the immersive 1440p resolution, the great 144 refresh rate and the nice picture, but it’s not worth going for this item. I don’t want to sound bigoted, but with justification and experience, please consider my opinion.
Friendly note, while 144Hz rocks, I am very sad to find 60Hz on my phone and laptop now looking very choppy. Once you move to 144Hz you can’t go back!
