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If you're serious about your games, and like to win as much as possible, every frame counts. But even if you have the fastest graphics card currently available, your monitor might not actually be able to display all the frames that are being delivered to it. This is where a top-end gaming monitor like the Acer Predator XB252Q comes in. It's specifically designed to get the best out of high frame-rate gaming.
The two key features are a top 240Hz refresh, and G-Sync. The latter ties you to NVIDIA graphics cards, but means that, as your GPU supplies varied frame rates to the monitor, it will adjust its refresh to match, avoiding tearing or ghosting as much as possible.
Otherwise, this is a fairly standard gaming screen. It has a 24.5in diagonal and 1,920 x 1,080 native resolution. Like most gaming screens, it uses Twisted Nematic Film (TN) technology, which means it may not have the colour fidelity of IPS or VA, but the response time is much better at 1ms, which is arguably more important for gaming anyway.
This is quite a bright panel on paper, promising 400 Nit, although contrast is the usual 1,000:1 we have come to expect from TN panels, which is another area where this technology falls behind IPS and (particularly) VA. There's a USB hub built in too.
So the Acer Predator XB252Q ticks all the right boxes on paper for an ultimate gaming screen, although at over £600 this is very much a pricey option for a 24in Full HD display. So let's find out if it's worth the premium.
Specification:
Screen size: 24.5-inch, 16:9 aspect
Native resolution: 1,920 x 1,080
Refresh rate: 240Hz
Panel type: TN
Contrast ratio: 1000:1
Brightness: 400cd/m2
Response time: 1ms grey-to-grey
Display inputs: HDMI, DisplayPort
USB hub: Yes
Tilt: Yes
Raise: Yes
Swivel: Yes
Other: Headphone jack, G-sync, built-in speakers.
Retail Price: £627.59 (inc. VAT)
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