GCN Lab Review: Acer B273HU LCD monitor
The Acer B273HU, a 27-inch LCD with a surprisingly low price, did well enough at every task to make it a good value for anyone who wants to upgrade to a huge screen without breaking the bank.
Pros: Amazing value for a 27-inch LCD, great display of dark images, perfect single-pixel display, best color registration for video in review
Cons: Text display is merely adequate, reds are slightly orange
Image Quality: B+
Features: B
Value: A+
Price: $409
The Acer B273HU is a 27-inch panel with a surprisingly low list price of $409. Although it was not the best in every test, it didn’t do badly at any task, making it a perfect value for anyone who wants to upgrade to a huge screen without breaking the bank. We kept going back to the low price throughout the testing and were constantly amazed.
Brightness levels were consistent throughout, with 325 lumens in the center of the screen and 305 in the corner, too small a difference for the naked eye to notice.
In this GCN Lab review:
LCD monitors go big, with mostly good results
ViewSonic VG2427wm LCD monitor
Eizo FlexScan EcoView EV2411W LCD monitor
Acer B273HU LCD monitor
NEC MultiSync EA241WM LCD monitor
Dell UltraSharp 2709W LCD monitor
HP LP2475w LCD monitor
The B273HU had the best color registration in the review, which, coupled with a speedy 5 millisecond response time, means the LCD is a great platform for displaying video. And it also had the most uniform black screen in the review, which helps image quality throughout most of our testing and especially with video display. Also, there were no noticeable backlight problems, which is impressive for such a large panel. The B273HU is solidly built and looks great at its native 2,048 x 1,152 resolution or when stepping down to lower widescreen modes.
Color accuracy was also very good, with blues and greens matching their real world nondigital counterparts almost perfectly. The only noteworthy flaw in terms of color accuracy was that reds came off with a little too much orange mixed in, though other colors didn’t seem to suffer from this problem, even those comprised of a mix of red and some other color.
Text display was adequate but not great. Text is readable at 10 points in size, but it does not have the same crisp look as some of the other LCDs in this review. Still, if you work with mostly 12-point type, things will look great.
Some very light images were washed out against a white background, though this was not unexpected because of the LCD’s emphasis on the darker spectrum of colors.
The B273HU has a fair amount of ports, including one of the new HDMI inputs that are good for video display. There are also DVI and VGA inputs. The monitor comes with two 1.5-watt speakers, though we think that a display such as this one probably deserves a bigger sound system.
Did we mention the price enough times? For $409, the B273HU is easily the best value in the roundup. And we were extremely surprised to find such good quality, especially for video, behind that small price. The B273HU comes through in terms of bang for the buck, which, given the state of the economy, might be your primary concern.
Acer America, 800-848-2237, www.acer.com/us