Since QD-OLED monitors arrived on the scene, they’ve maintained a few key advantages over their WOLED competitors, including the wider availability of glossy panels. Despite continued pleas over the years to ditch matte screen coatings, manufacturers have largely stayed the course. That is, until now, as Asus debuts the first (hopefully of many) glossy WOLED gaming monitor.
While matte coatings are useful for mitigating reflections in bright environments they bring down the quality of even the best gaming monitors. Perceived colour saturation, contrast, and sharpness all suffer with a matte finish, and aren’t widely used on other devices with OLED panels, such as televisions or smartphones. As such, ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDMG has been a long time coming and Asus thankfully isn’t keeping us waiting long at all.
Announced by Asus via is pressroom, ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDMG offers a range of features fit for a high-end gaming monitor outside of the glossy finish of its WOLED panel. The company claims that the display is 20% brighter than its previous WOLED flagship, ROG OLED PG27AQDM. Looking at the fine print, this is with a full window white image in SDR. Sadly, Asus doesn’t state the peak brightness or HDR just yet. More pertinently for gamers, though, XG27AQDMG supports ROG Anti-Flicker technology. This feature combats variable refresh rate flickering that afflicts OLED monitors when AMD FreeSync / Nvidia G-Sync are active
As you may have sussed from its name, XG27AQDMG is a 27in gaming monitor. While it boasts a native resolution of 2,560 x 1,440, typical of this size, it falls behind alternatives when it comes to refresh rate, topping out at just 240Hz. This shortfall does sting less once you consider its $699 price tag, with UK and EU pricing expected to follow from Asus as the monitor’s release date draws closer.
So, when you can buy XG27AQDMG? Asus says that the monitor will be available from May 30, 2024. If you can’t wait that long, though, give our Philips 27B1U7903 review a read for a Mini LED alternative.
