Acer - XF251Q 24.5" LED FHD FreeSync Monitor (DVI, HDMI, VGA) - Black

I have had a chance to play around with the Acer XF251Q 24.5" monitor for a few days now, and I have enjoyed what I have seen. I am driving the monitor with a AMD Vega 64 Powercolor Red Devil GPU that is hooked up with the supplied HDMI cable. Since I am using an AMD graphics card I was able to test the full range of feature. NVidia owners can still benefit from the adaptive sync, but not to the level of Freesync/G-sync. First, I need to point out a few discrepancies in the listing for this monitor. The images shown for the listing have a picture that shows (2) USB 3.0 ports on the side - these are not present. I believe it is an image of one of the other monitors in the XF series from Acer. Best Buy is not the only site using this image, so I would assume its an honest mixup. There is also a little snippet in the listing about the monitor having a 144HZ refresh rate, but the Features section only lists 75Hz. This monitor is for sure 75Hz. This may get cleared up in the future, but at the time of this review, that is what I saw. *Onto the good - Construction and build quality are very nice. The stand is one of the nicest I have come across in an affordable monitor. It's very sturdy, and does not wobble a bit (others have noted that this makes it feel heavy - TBH the weight is necessary). The stand allows the monitor to adjust height, viewing angle, rotation (±45° from center), and easily switch from portrait to landscape. This has been a boon for me because I game and work in landscape, but my wife needs portrait for her work. The monitor has a sleek, understated design. It doesn't have eye-catching curvy looks, or a design that screams GAMER!!! What it does have are very nice clean lines that allows this monitor to look comfortable in a gaming or workstation setup. The 'frameless' design also helps set it apart. The bezel edge is just over 2mm thick (checked with caliper), which is pretty slim. There is still a black border around the image on the screen (just under 5mm, so >7mm from bezel edge to the image), This is right on par with many frameless monitors I have looked at (my other monitors have 1.5mm bezels, but still the same >7mm to the image). This black border is present whether due to the physical construction of the panel, or the LED backlight bleeding, or what I really can't remember. Most gaming monitors carry a large bezel (9-12mm), which isn't so great if you are planning a multi-monitor setup. I only use slim bezel monitors for this very reason (I am now up to 4 monitors for that whole wrap around feeling). The panel itself provides a great picture. At 24.5", 1080p is still a more than adequate resolution to game at. Most graphics cards struggle with 4K 60 @high settings, let alone ultra - so for now 1080 is still very worth it. I had plenty of time to play around with the various settings for the picture quality. I didn't have to adjust much, other than the brightness. This panel is actually pretty bright, and I feel like the 250 nit rating undersells it. I have had no trouble viewing with the lights on, or with natural light shining in at my back. The anti-glare matte finish also helps here. I was happy to see the blue light reduction feature on the monitor. I know this is something that has been implemented in Windows 10, but its still nice to see it incorporated. The panel also has several preset modes you can jump around through to adjust the color settings. You can also customize those presets to make it easy to tailor your changing display needs. I will be honest about the fact that I am lazy with settings, and I will likely just do a 'set it and forget' preset going forward. In games, with Freesync enabled, the image quality was excellent. I had no frame tearing, or framerate issues. Games I tested were Dirt Rally 2, Far Cry 5, and Shadow of War. The 1ms (gray to gray) response time was fantastic, and really did away with the motion blur/ghosting when I would spin around or do anything really fast paced. This is a big feature for TN panels, and I have to say it is making me regret my 5ms IPS gaming panels I bought last year. The viewing angle on the monitor is pretty standard for TN (170° horz, 160° vert), and you can't really get much more than that unless you jump to VA or IPS. I set the Acer up in the same position as my IPS panels (33° off center panel), and the angle of the monitor didn't seem to affect the image at all. It still looked nice and bright - again causing me regret for my IPS's. Another nice feature is the audio pass through over HDMI to the 3.5mm headset jack. This knocked down a little cable clutter for me, and freed up a speaker jack in the back of my computer. This passthrough appears to be for playback only - no microphone support. *Now the not so good - There's really not a whole lot of bad to say about this monitor, just minor pain points. I really wish they would have changed one of the HDMI ports to Displayport. Every mid to high end graphics card has one or more these days, so I wish that could be different. The menu buttons on bottom of the frame have no designation, so you rely on the OSD to figure out what each button does. Also, OSD only displays if you have a connected source that isn't flickering (I had this issue when I was fiddling with settings on my graphics card and the monitor at the same time). The speakers - they exist, and I guess can be useful in a pinch. I tried them out, and they were as I expected them to be. I would rather cut them out to save some cost, and weight. The headset hook does not like to stay attached - it really needs another mounting point near the bottom of the hook to hold it in place. I used a velcro strap to hold it to the stand frame, and that appears to be working nicely. My last issue is the inability to disable the power button LED. It's bright blue, so gaming at night is affected. I don't like having to put tape or post it notes over LED's when I should just be able to disable them. *Conclusion - This is a very good entry level gaming monitor, and it comes in at a pretty solid price bracket. It really shines with its quick response time, Freesync support, and quality construction. I would recommend this monitor for sure. I may even pick up a few more of these to replace my 1 year old IPS's.

Short Story: Pros: -Stand is amazing. Tilt, height, and rotation adjustment. -Anti Reflective coating is most I have ever seen. I am getting no reflections at all. I have windows on my right side and it does not bother my viewing -NO PWM back light so you won't see any flickering (can stare at monitor all day with no or very little eye fatigue) -Refresh rate is awesome (game play is smooth and you don't drop frames when zooming or spinning fast) -Power built into monitor so no power brick needed -Vesa mount ready with screws attached for those who like to mount their monitors -Almost zero bezel around monitor -Actual buttons to adjust monitor settings in front Cons: -Out of Box calibration is off (easily fixed in settings) -I am gonna con the speakers only because most in the gaming community have speakers or headphones already (speakers are passable if you don't have any) -NO RGB (okay wasn't advertised) -A USB C port or USB 3 port would have been nice (again not advertised) -2 HDMI and 1 VGA but no thunderbolt or display port (again not advertised) Long Story: I have been using a 1440P monitor (27") and a 1080P (27") monitor side by side. Both monitors are native 60Hz monitors. The Acer XF251Q can do 75Hz and on the box indicates the LED lighting is good up to 250 nits (however I turned brightness down to setting 30 because it was too bright). Out of the box I did not like the monitor. The picture was over-saturated and to sharp. I went into settings and changed to standard settings. This made the picture and colors look much better and realistic. I played Gears of War 4, Battlefield 4, & Ghost Recon Wildlands to name a few games. It didn't look better than my 1440P monitor or my 1080P 60Hz monitors. I figured my graphics card or windows 10 would set refresh rate to 75Hz for me. Turns out Windows had the refresh rate at 60Hz. Had to update settings in Windows 10 to 75Hz so I could see the 75Hz in game play. 60Hz to 75Hz is better than seeing 1080P vs 1440P or 4K gaming for the first time. Zooming in and out with scope or aim was butter smooth. No screen tearing or jutters. I did have to turn down some settings in video quality from Ultra to High in order to maintain the 75 FPS in game. I have a GTX 1070 so depending on what video card you have YMMV. Unfortunately NVIDIA uses GSync and not FreeSync so if you have an AMD video card you might get more out of this monitor. Had it not been for the out of box calibration (OOB), I would have given this 5 stars. I think most people don't like having to tweak settings. The OOB experience you see limitations in the monitor viewing angles, sharpness, and saturation. It does not look good and might scare people away from a great monitor. Watching youtube and reading text on websites had no complaints. The monitor also has settings that adds a aiming site that becomes fixed to the monitor. Maybe good for gaming noobs but I didn't use it. This monitor is marketed towards gamers but can be used for general computing as well. It is a TN panel and looks as good as one of my IPS panels. I think ACER 250 NIT back light rating was to low. It was way brighter than my 300 nit monitor. Make sure to go into advanced monitor settings and update refresh rate.

tl;dr -This 1080p display is a very bright, sharp, clear monitor that takes over your full viewing area. Out of the box colors are a little over saturated, but can be adjusted. The included stand is sturdy and fully adjustable. Zero frame is nice! Off axes viewing loses some of the brightness, and there’s a distinct color shift. White documents begin to shift to red. Because of it’s size, you’ll need to position yourself close to the center axis. With a dual monitor set up, this may require some adjustment in the angles of the monitors towards a “V” instead of a flat line. Even then, the edges may be slightly washed out if you’re too close. Speaking of dual monitors, the zero frame shines in this set up with < 1 cm between images. While some have shifted to 4K screens, there’s still something to be said for the ultra wide set up offered by dual monitors. It has a built VESA connector for monitor stands / wall mounting. Colors are little saturated out of the box and will require some calibration. I didn’t use anything fancier than the built in Windows tools. You can also tweak values using the on screen controls and front buttons if you prefer that route. There are several modes which can be accessed from the front buttons. Each will give you a slightly different look. The best color accuracy is in the ‘Graphics’ mode. It has 3 “Gaming” modes which give a nice over saturated look for shooter type games. They also provide the option to place a gun sight in the middle of the screen, when it detects a game. It’s an interesting but can be a little distracting. Unique among monitors of this type is the rotating support. This monitor lives in portrait mode as happily as landscape. Those who play in the evening, but develop during the day will appreciate the quick rotation. The stand is very sturdy with a solid connection to the monitor. No tipping without a lot of help! Speaking of the stand, Acer thought of users when building out the stand. There’s integrated cable management coming through the support to make routing easy. It’s also height adjustable for the taller among us. This monitor assumes you have a recent machine, as there are few connection options. There’s 2 HDMI connectors and a VGA. There’s no DVI or DisplayPort connector. All ports face down which allows for relatively flush mounting. The power cord is a standard pentagon shaped plug which makes it power strip friendly. Acer did include a speaker in the unit, connected via HDMI. I’d only use that if I had no other choice. Per a nearby label, I was provided a free unit in exchange for an unbiased review of the product.

The quality of the picture has been very good. The set up was pretty easy, it was pretty much plug and play. I don't use it for gaming, I use it more for streaming video. The viewing angle is nice, the color and image doesn't distort if you are not directly in front of the screen. The most visible upgrade from my old monitor is the color black. The color black on this screen is deep and dark, it doesn't give off that pixilated gray(ish) look when the color black is being displayed during a movie or game. The next plus is the size and the borderless design, it is very streamlined and weighs very little. The only downside I have encountered when installing, was the vesa compliant mounting option. The rear of the monitor has an indented/recessed screw bracket. The problem is attaching the wall mount plate on most vesa mounts to the back of the monitor. Due to the recessed screw bracket it doesn't allow for flush placement of the wall mount and you have to get longer screws and pretty much rig it to fit. it's a minor hassle but not a deal breaker.

This is a strong monitor. It is larger for desktop computer use and midsize to larger for a desktop gaming monitor. It is not curved and has a matte finish. The colors are very vivid, deep and accurate. The monitor is very easy to assemble and configure. The stand’s base it larger than most other monitor bases I’ve used and should be considered when making sure you have the room on your desk/stand for it. The stand allows you to raise and lower the monitor’s height and tilts up and down to find the best viewing angle. The monitor has many preset picture settings that allows you to find settings that appeal to your liking. The monitor also allows you to customize your setting as well. The only real issue I have with this monitor is the stand itself, because it is rather large. The stand doesn’t detract from the overall quality of the picture and the performance.

I needed a monitor with 2 HDMI ports since I play on both Xbox and PC. A Best Buy employee recommended this one to me and it was a decent price so I bought it. It’s SOOOO much better than my old Acer monitor. The 2 HDMI ports are a must. It also has a swivel stand and you can adjust the height of your monitor. The quality is crystal clear and it’s a perfect size. The only thing I wish were different is the stand. It’s a bit large on my desk but it’s not that big of a deal. Highly suggest for gaming and regular work.

It's important to have the right expectations when purchasing electronics. You can have the awesome performance of a TN panel or the amazing viewing angles of an IPS panel, but you cannot have both! For the price I consider this monitor one of the best entry level gaming monitors on the market. This is a TN panel, while the viewing angles leave something to be desired they are tolerable and are quickly forgotten. What you give up in terms of viewing angles you gain in faster reaction times and higher refresh rates. The stand that comes included rivals those that come with monitors triple the price of this one. This monitor also support Freesync over HDMI for both Radeon graphics cards and the Xbox One, One S and One X consoles for tear free gaming at any price-point! While this monitor does include speakers they aren't very loud, but they are serviceable and very welcome at this price point. There is also a headphone hangar that goes on the back of the monitor which is a nice added touch.The monitor brings a 3 year warranty, which is well above the industry standard. TLDR: Great entry level gaming monitor, feel free to ask me any questions about this monitor. Pros: Tasteful design High quality stand (portrait and landscape positions) Freesync for PC/Xbox One/ Xbox One S/ Xbox One X Acceptable horizontal viewing angles for a TN Panel 1ms response time 75hz refresh rate 250 nits brightness Includes speakers Great calibration options in the user interface Anti-glare coating is perfect Vesa capable 3 year warranty Cons: Low vertical viewing angles Can only enter monitor options with an active input device

I am very happy with this monitor. I think the speaker quality is fine for what I am using it for—light gaming—and the screen is a great size! The colors are also excellent. The monitor can be raised and lowered easily and it tilts and can be turned side to side as well.