Style and Features
The Acer XFA240 is simply designed. You won’t find the typical gamer style found on displays twice its expense– the name of the game seems minimizing the bonus that add little to your video gaming experience and instead bringing gaming-grade, high refresh rate performance to the masses. As such, there’s no RGB or stylized etching; what you’ll see in the images is from different backlights, not the display itself.
What you get rather is a straightforward screen that’s easy to set up and get gaming with. The stand has a red ring around the base as the only splash of color, and attaches to the arm with a single thumb screw. From there, the monitor clicks into place on the mounting plate and you’re all set to link cable televisions. I like how simple and quick it is. The stand is likewise quite great, offering nearly 6 inches of height modification, plentiful tilt to utilize the screen while standing, and even the ability to pivot it 90- degrees for portrait orientation. The only disadvantage is that it doesn’t turn, though the base isn’t too heavy to by hand turn when the requirement develops. The display screen is likewise VESA compatible for aftermarket mounts.
The bezels are fairly thick compared to lots of video gaming monitors at about a half-inch per side. This is approximately double what you’ll discover on more costly “frameless” displays, however for the rate, it’s tough to be too critical. It does tend to make the 24- inches feel a bit more cramped than I would like, nevertheless. This design likewise permitted Acer to keep the controls right on the face of the monitor, which is incomparably much better than needing to grope blindly along the back.
Originating from a larger screen, I found the size of the XFA240 to be “just enough” for an excellent gameplay experience. The size enabled me to make out information clearly when the brightness or calibration wasn’t obstructing– and it sometimes did, even after an excellent 20 minutes calibrating it.
Out of the box, the colors were extremely rinsed– the blacks for instance were closer to dark gray. TN panels are known for having even worse colors and blacks than either VA or IPS displays but even compared versus other TNs I have actually examined, this out-of-box image was among the worst I’ve come across. The OSD features six-color color and saturation adjustments (CMYRGB), so I was able to enhance the image but never completely got it to where I mored than happy. Despite the fact that it can 350- nits of brightness, tuning the colors and blacks forces you to turn that down. It’s a Catch-22– do you want a brilliant screen with bad colors and blacks or a dimmer screen with an enhanced picture?
The brightness also feels somewhat unequal. In the picture above, taken in the lobby of The Blackout Club, you can clearly see how dark locations can appear to swallow details. This seems to be related to viewing angle due to the fact that when I looked at this exact same scene from a downward angle, I might make out some of what was previously missing out on. This was likewise real on the Black Level test in Lagom’s LCD Check Pages, where the blacks in the darkest 3 boxes appeared crushed till I looked downward at the screen. As an outcome, I discovered myself fidgeting with the height of the display more than any other screen I have actually utilized.
That isn’t to say gaming on the screen was bad. At 1080 p, my RTX 2080 had the ability to stay locked at 144 FPS in a lot of video games. If you’ve never ever utilized a high refresh rate monitor previously, you remain in for a treat. Not only is whatever smoother but your inputs feel almost immediate, which is also supported by the display’s 1 ms reaction time. This is the greatest advantage of a TN panel and why they’re so popular in esports.
Real to what I experienced, the Response Time and Ghosting tests in Lagom’s test suite offered a few of the best results I’ve seen. In the Reaction Time test, the flickering boxes had nearly invisible color moving and the Ghosting Test revealed no ghosts whatsoever. In shifts from light to dark and vice versa, the XFA240 is exceptional.
The display screen also supports AMD FreeSync and works with Nvidia G-Sync in between 48 and 144 FPS. It worked well with G-Sync and my RTX card, the sole exception being Pinnacle Legends, which ended up being really hitchy with G-Sync allowed. The display likewise supports Low Framerate Compensation, so if your framerate drops outside of the FreeSync range, the screen will immediately increase its refresh rate to offer a smoother gaming experience.
Other gaming features include a Black Level adjustment, an AimPoint on-screen reticle, and FlickerFree technology to fend off eye strain. The very first feature is virtually helpful if you also discover it hard to see into dark locations. The only thing I wish is that it had a keyboard faster way or controller to rapidly make changes on the fly. The reticle is likewise an advantage for shooters that don’t use one, providing you a one-up on accuracy when hip-firing.
The screen has integrated speakers, as well as input/output jacks for routing PC audio to your headset. The speakers are just 2-watts each and do not have both bass and volume. They’re good for seeing the occasional YouTube video but with a regular box fan running in my room, I had difficulty hearing in-game details, so you’ll want to discover a much better choice long-term.
Finally, for connection we have a single HDMI, DisplayPort, and DVI-D connection. The DVI-D port is going the method of the Dodo on lots of display screens however it’s fitting to find it on a more budget oriented alternative like this. Both HDMI and DisplayPort are capable of carrying audio to route to the headphone jack, however if you’re using DVI-D, you’ll likewise require to link the included auxiliary cable to your motherboard.
Efficiency
I played a handful of games on the XFA240 over my week of testing and it performed very well. Complete HD is a simpler resolution than ever to run, so keeping video games in triple-digit frame rates is a choice even for gamers on hardware that’s a couple years old. With my RTX 2080, it remained essentially pegged in the majority of video games I tried.
Video gaming at this refresh rate in a shooter is perfect. In PUBG, that smoothness much better allowed me to efficiently track enemies and pull off shots with no perceptible lag. I showed up the Black Level a touch, which let me keep the monitor at a comfortable eye level however likewise rinsed the colors a bit more, which isn’t good when you’re trying to select far away enemies. Once again, that Catch-22
In Pinnacle and Overwatch, the XFA240 carried out remarkably well. The smoothness was easily on par with my more-than-twice-as-expensive 144 Hz screen from Pixio. Utilizing the on-screen reticle provided a definite advantage in Overwatch but I quickly turned this off due to the fact that it felt unfair. I was also able to play both games for a couple hours each without ever feeling eye stress.
The Blackout Club provided me a more difficult time. There are simply too many deep darks and the brightness concerns made the game feel more claustrophobic than it should; like I couldn’t see whatever I was suggested to. I tried changing the screen to a lower position which assisted, but it was honestly frustrating to need to have fun with my monitor lower than where I desired it to be. I opted for turning up the Black Level modification but exactly since a lot of the game is dark, whatever again looked rinsed. It was unsatisfying.
Purchasing Guide
The Acer XFA240 gaming monitor is offered on Amazon with an MSRP of $199
Decision
The Acer XFA240 Gaming Monitor effectively brings high refresh rate gameplay to the masses with its budget-friendly rate point, however I’m dissatisfied by how many compromises are required to get there. For competitive players on a spending plan, it does the job, but it might be worth saving up a bit more to go one action greater.
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