ASUS TUF Gaming VG27AQL1A Monitor Review

The ASUS VG27AQL1A is well-built, with a sleek and modern design. It looks different than its predecessor, the ASUS TUF VG27AQ, as it has a new stand and thin bezels on three sides. Even though it has a gamer-oriented style, it should fit well into any office setup.

The ASUS VG27AQL1A has a good build quality. The entire monitor is made of solid plastic and there aren't any obvious issues. The stand supports the monitor well and there's no wobble.

The ergonomics are fantastic, so you won't have any trouble placing it in an ideal viewing position. However, it's a bit of a downgrade from the ASUS TUF VG27AQ because the swivel range isn't as wide.

The back of the monitor has some etched designs, giving it a gamer-friendly aesthetic. Cable management is serviced through the stand. Sadly, there's no quick-release button to easily take off the stand.

The V-shaped stand is different than the square-based stand found on previous ASUS monitors. It has a wide footprint, but you can easily place things in front, like a keyboard or mouse. It supports the monitor well and there's no wobble.

There are four buttons and a joystick on the back to navigate the on-screen menu.

• Power brick and cable
• USB-A to USB-B cable
• DisplayPort cable
• HDMI cable
• User manual

The ASUS VG27AQL1A has a low contrast ratio, which is expected from an IPS panel, and the local dimming only slightly improves it. Blacks appear closer to gray when viewed in dark rooms. If you prefer something similar with a VA panel and better contrast, then check out the ASUS TUF Gaming VG27WQ1B.

This monitor has a terrible edge-lit local dimming feature. There are four dimming zones that only slightly improve contrast. Zone transitions are slow and visible, and the local dimming doesn't improve the picture quality in HDR. The setting to control it is called Dynamic Dimming and it can't be used with the Black Frame Insertion feature. It automatically turns on in HDR.

The SDR peak brightness is good. It gets bright enough to combat glare, and it's very similar to the ASUS TUF VG27AQ, except small areas aren't as bright. Sadly, its minimum brightness is bright, which isn't ideal if you like to work in a dark room and you're sensitive to bright lights.

These measurements are from after calibration in the 'Racing' Picture Mode. If you want a slightly brighter image, we reached 339 cd/m² before calibration.

The ASUS VG27AQL1A has decent peak brightness in HDR. It's a nice improvement over the ASUS VG27AQ, and it meets its DisplayHDR 400 standards. It makes some highlights stand out the way the content creator intended. The EOTF doesn't follow the target PQ curve well, as most scenes are too brightened until there's a sharp roll-off at its peak brightness, resulting in a loss of fine details in bright scenes. The results are with the 'HDR Gaming' Picture Mode.

Like most IPS panels, the ASUS TUF Gaming VG27AQL1A has a great horizontal viewing angle. The image remains accurate when viewing from the side.

The vertical viewing angle is okay. The image remains fairly accurate if you mount it above eye level, but you may notice a loss in color or brightness.

The ASUS VG27AQL1A has excellent gray uniformity. There's almost no dirty screen effect in the center and even though the edges are slightly darker, it's not too distracting.

The ASUS VG27AQL1A has disappointing black uniformity. There's significant clouding throughout, and backlight bleed near the top and bottom right corners. The uniformity is worse with local dimming enabled because there's more blooming around the center cross as large zones are turned on.

The ASUS VG27AQL1A has mediocre out-of-the-box accuracy. It has an sRGB mode but it doesn't clamp colors to the sRGB color space, so they're over-saturated, which isn't ideal for photo editing. Most colors are slightly inaccurate, but the white balance and color temperature are both good. The gamma follows the target sRGB curve well, but some dark scenes are too dark. The sRGB mode locks most picture settings, and even changing the Picture Mode to 'Racing' doesn't improve the accuracy.

The accuracy is outstanding after calibration. All white balance and color inaccuracies are corrected, and the colors aren't over-saturated anymore. The color temperature is extremely close to the 6500K target, and gamma is similar to before calibration, but some dark scenes are a bit too bright now.

The ASUS VG27AQL1A has an outstanding color gamut. It has perfect coverage of the sRGB color space used in most web content, and good coverage of the Adobe RGB color space used in photo editing.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG27AQL1A displays an excellent, wide color gamut for HDR content. It has excellent coverage of the commonly-used DCI-P3 color space, but its coverage of the wider Rec. 2020 is a bit limited.

The ASUS VG27AQL1A has an excellent HDR color volume. It displays a wide range of colors due to its wide color gamut; however, it can't display dark colors well because it has a low contrast ratio.

The ASUS VG27AQL1A has decent text clarity. It can be improved by enabling ClearType (top photo). This helps the appearance of the diagonal and curved lines as seen on the letters R, N, G, and S.

The ASUS TUF VG27AQL1A has good reflection handling. It shouldn't be a problem in a moderately-lit environment, but if you place it opposite a window with direct sunlight, the reflections may become too distracting.

The ASUS TUF VG27AQL1A has incredible gradient handling. You shouldn't notice any banding, and it's an improvement over the ASUS TUF VG27AQ because it accepts a 10-bit signal, as opposed to an 8-bit signal on the older model.

The ASUS VG27AQL1A has a high native refresh rate that you can overclock to 170Hz over a DisplayPort connection. Due to the bandwidth limitations of DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 2.0, the refresh rate is lower with 10-bit signals.

This monitor has a backlight strobing feature, commonly known as black frame insertion (BFI). Unlike most monitors, the BFI features works with VRR enabled, but it performs differently with VRR enabled. Without VRR, it only works between 120Hz to 170Hz, and with VRR enabled, it works from 80Hz to 170Hz, but it turns off if it goes below 80Hz and doesn't turn back on until the frame rate reaches 120Hz again. It's better to disable it if the frame rate of your game regularly drops below 80 fps, or if it fluctuates around 80 fps, as the BFI feature will turn off, and you won't get any of its benefits so motion will look the same whether it's on or off. Also, if you leave the BFI feature enabled and it keeps going on and off, the brightness of the screen will constantly fluctuate, which is distracting

The ASUS TUF VG27AQL1A has a flicker-free backlight, which helps reduce eye strain.

The ASUS VG27AQL1A has an extremely low input lag for a responsive feel. Unlike the ASUS VG279QM, the input lag at 60Hz is also really low.

The ASUS VG27AQL1A has a great size, allowing you to open multiple windows side-by-side. The high resolution helps deliver clear and crisp images.

The ASUS VG27AQL1A supports most signals from the PS5. Even though it's a 1440p monitor it still accepts 4k signals and downscales them, resulting in a sharper image than with a 1440p resolution.

The monitor supports most signals from the Xbox Series X. Even though it's a 1440p monitor it still accepts 4k signals and downscales them, resulting in a sharper image than with a 1440p resolution.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG27AQL1A has a limited selection of USB ports, as it only has 3 USB ports, two of which support 3.0 speeds, and the other is a service port. This means that you can connect your mouse and keyboard directly to the monitor, as long as you have the USB-B upstream cable connected to your PC.

The ASUS VG27AQL1A works well with recent Mac computers, but there are issues with VRR. There's a lot of flickering, especially in low-frame-rate games, and changing the refresh rate to match the VRR refresh rate causes the screen to go black. It's best to not use the VRR feature with a Mac, as it works well without it. HDR works well and there aren't problems waking up from sleep, except some windows get sent back to the Mac display.

The ASUS TUF Gaming VG27AQL1A has a few additional features, which are listed below:

• Timer: Adds a timer on your screen.
• Crosshair: Overlays a virtual crosshair for FPS games.
• Displays: Adds a grid to help align a secondary monitor.