LG 27UD88-W vs ASUS ROG Swift PG279Q

The screen can be very bright, at 320 nits, above the industry average of 240 nits. This means it can be used with no problems in well lit rooms. The screen is coated with a matte finish, preventing errant glare and reflections.

The bezel is barely visible, except for the bottom part of the screen, resulting in an elegant look and an illusion that the screen is bigger than it actually is.

The settings of the monitor are adjusted using a joystick at the bottom of the monitor. It's easy to reach, precise and all the controls are displayed on the screen. The OSD menu is clear and understandable.

The LG 27UD88 offers a wide choice of connectivity options. It includes two HDMI 2.0 ports, one Display port 1.2 and USB-C port that can be used as a video input port as well. There are also two USB 3.0 ports for external hardware or media devices.

It is made from plastic, but feels robust and solid. The back is white and the foot has a silver metallic finish. The stand has a large footprint, but should fit on most of the tables and still feel stable. Overall it looks premium more expensive than it actually is.

Height and tilt adjustment can be made on this screen, although the height adjustment interval is rather small. Pivot is also available, so it can be used in portrait mode, when needed.

The monitor has outstanding sharpness, brightness, color accuracy and an almost perfect sRGB color coverage. It comes factory pre-calibrated that will satisfy most users, but there are also plenty of calibration options if needed. The viewing angles are excellent at nearly 180 degrees, meaning pictures will look good even from extreme angles, without any noticeable color distortion.

This screen suits multi monitor setups particularly well, since it has almost no visible bezels.

Users will be able to find the best preset for their specific use of the monitor as it comes with 14 different ones. These include an sRGB preset, a preset for eased reading, for color blindness, multiple broadcasting standards and gaming presets. There are also several picture-by-picture presets, but only for two inputs at once. You can make your own presets as well and switching between them is quick and easy using the joystick at the bottom of the screen.

Laptop users with USB type-C connector can transmit video signals directly to the monitor. When connected, you can also use the monitor as a USB port for data transfer as well as charge your laptop if it supports type-C charging. All of this can be done simultaneously through just one wire.

The screen can produce 1.07 billion colours and covers 99% of the sRGB color spectrum. This means great performance in nearly every situation, from gaming to professional photo/video color correcting and post-processing. Color accuracy is one the best among its competitors, and is on par with more expensive monitors. This monitor comes factory calibrated for accurate color accuracy, but can be further adjusted with LG’s True Color Pro calibration software.

Even the most experienced gamers will like this monitor as27UD88 has one of the lowest input lags currently available for 4K display, measuring only at 9,8ms, making it ideal for virtually lag free gaming. The pixel response time measures at 5ms that is not the best result, but still is really good and should not cause any noticeable problems for majority of the users.

It's fairly simple to set up the perfect gaming station with the ASUS PG279Q as it supports all the key ergonomic adjustments.

The ASUS PG279Q is an excellent option for a multi-monitor gaming setup because of its thin side bezels that are only 0.3” wide.

The monitor comes with a bunch of gaming-specific features that might improve your in-game performance.The crosshair is arguably the most useful feature; it creates a static crosshair on display, you can edit its size and position. The crosshair is a handy feature as it allows you to no-scope your enemies in multiple games. Then, the monitor also has an inbuilt timer which will help you to keep the track on your gaming sessions and not miss the important events in real life. Finally, the monitor offers an integrated FPS counter.

This monitor features the QHD resolution, which is arguably the best currently available resolution for gaming because it offers a good balance between the in-game field of view, aspect ratio, and the overall performance.

Compared to the regular FHD monitor, the QHD one offers a larger in-game field of view as it has merely more pixels to display the image. In some games, this will give you a massive advantage as the competitors who use the regular FHD panels will see less than you.

Just like the FHD monitors, the QHD ones also support the 16:9 aspect ratio which means that you will be able to run almost every existing computer game without having to deal with the annoying black bars on the sides of the screen.

Performance-wise, the QHD resolution doesn’t put that much pressure on your graphics card, compared to the UHD, which requires you to run more than twice the pixels of the QHD.

The ASUS PG279Q doesn’t take its toll on your eyes, as this flicker-free monitor has an integrated low blue light filter. Monitor flickering and the high-intensity blue light emitted by the backlight LEDs are among the leading causes of eye fatigue.

You can overclock the native refresh rate of this monitor from 144 Hz to a whopping 165 Hz. It will reduce the overall display lag and improve motion handling.

The overclocking procedure is straightforward and is carried out in the OSD’s menu. It poses no threats to your hardware.

The ASUS ensures the high quality of each PG279Q by factory-testing each unit individually.

You can use the monitor’s integrated USB hub to interconnect or charge different USB devices.

G-Sync ensures that the ASUS PG279Q doesn’t suffer from screen tearing and stutter as it allows the monitor to synchronize its refresh rate with the framerate of your Nvidia graphics card.

The ASUS PG279Q supports G-Sync in an impressive range of 30-165 Hz.

The monitor displays clear motion, free of artificial motion blur or ghosting effects because the ASUS PG279Q features some of the finest motion handling capabilities.

The ghosting effect is eliminated by the panel’s past full pixel response time of 4 ms, which allows each pixel of the ASUS PG279Q to change their color within only four milliseconds, which prevents rapidly moving objects from trails on the screen.

Moreover, the panel doesn’t have problems related to motion blur, as the Nvidia's ultra-low-motion-blur feature deals with the artificial motion blur effect efficiently.

Additionally, the overall motion looks smooth and fluid because of the monitor’s native refresh rate of 144 Hz, which ensures that the panel refreshes every seven milliseconds.

Motion handling is critical in competitive gaming, where the trails of ghosting or motion blur can affect your performance and not let you land that perfect long-range shot.

Regarding the picture quality, the ASUS PG279Q is one of the best gaming monitors money can buy, as it’s premium-quality AHVA panel offers native contrast ratio, peak brightness, gamma response and color accuracy, that only a handful of other gaming monitors can match.

It displays beautiful, well-balanced image, with deep blacks, accurate and vivid colors, and realistic intermediate tones. The dark scenes look truly rich and intense thanks to the monitor’s native contrast ratio of 1131:1, which manages to push the monitor’s blacks to a fantastic level of only 0.06 nits - only the best panels on the market can match such performance. Colors pop and look vibrant because the PG279Q can get up to 350 nits bright. Furthermore, the color representation is flawless, as the monitor’s average color error dE of 1.6 ensures that the color inaccuracies are so small that the human eye can’t spot them. Finally, the mid-tones look life-like as the monitor’s gamma is only 5% off from the ideal value.

Only a couple of gaming monitors can match the responsiveness of the ASUS PG279Q because of its amazingly low input lag of only 3.25 ms. Because of that, the monitor offers lag-free and connected gaming experience.

The input lag is an essential parameter for a gaming monitor because it tells how much time a monitor needs to process a frame generated by a computer. Overly long input lag makes you feel delayed in the fast-paced games.

The ASUS ROG SWIFT PG279Q is one of the best gaming monitors ever made. It has an exceptional balance of picture quality, motion handling, and responsiveness, that is spiced up by a generous amount of premium features.