The Lenovo Q27q-10 offers a high-quality IPS panel with a QHD resolution and a unique design that makes it a great centerpiece for your room or office. The design sacrificed a few creature comforts, but we don’t mind as long as the screen offers superb image quality. The Lenovo Q27q-10 is also quite affordable for a premium display, so let’s check out if it punches above its price range to make it a must buy.
Lenovo Q27q-10 Specifications
- Screen Size: 27 Inches
- Resolution: 2560 x 1440 QHD
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Panel Technology: In-Plane Switching (IPS)
- Refresh Rate: 75Hz
- Response Time: 4ms
- Contrast Ratio: 1000:1 (Static)
- Brightness: 300 cd/m²
- Stand: Height – No
- Stand: Tilt – Yes
- Stand: Swivel – No
- Stand: Pivot – No
- VESA Compatibility: Yes 100 x 100
- Connectivity: DisplayPort 1.2 x 1, HDMI 1.4 x 1, 3.5mm Jack x 1
- Dimensions with Stand (WxHxD): 24.18” x 18.78” x 7.07”
- Weight 11.66 lbs
Design and Features
The Lenovo Q27q-10 sports an ultra-slim design that turns your PC into a high-end workstation from a sophisticated studio or office. The chassis has a matte black finish while the stand is made of metal with a subdued, yet smooth shade. The display is bezel-free on three sides, but panel borders will show up once you turn it on.
The Lenovo Q27q-10 doesn’t take up a lot of space since its upright is mounted towards the rear of the base. It only needs 7.07 inches of depth plus its slightly slanted yet flat surface is an ideal throne for your laptop or peripherals. The monitor doesn’t weigh a lot at 11.66 pounds, and you can further shave off some the majority of its heft if you remove the stand.
The Lenovo Q27q-10 also offers great build quality like most of the brand’s products which are used in businesses all over the world. The plastics used on the chassis feel durable and solid despite its overall thinness. The stand has a slight wobble due to its joints and the low center of gravity, but we didn’t find it to be considerably disturbing.
What we dislike about the Lenovo Q27q-10’s design is its use of OSD buttons on the right side of the bottom bezel. The functions are labeled, but it’s easy to miss-press the wrong key in the dark. Users who often calibrate their screens will slightly struggle with it, but at some point, they will be able to memorize the keys’ purposes.
The Lenovo Q27q-10’s most attractive is its unique stand which is composed of a slanted base with a bent metal tube as the upright. The chassis is perched on the latter to create a unique look, but it limits the ergonomics to tilt adjustments. Thankfully, you can replace it with a VESA mount easily, but doing so diminishes its aesthetic value and the practicality of its cost.
The I/O layout is limited to DisplayPort 1.2 and HDMI 1.4, along with a 3.5mm audio jack for audio passthrough. We would have loved to see USB ports on this model since it is ideal for business use and productivity, and those will come in handy for the user. There is a USB-C equipped version in the market name the Q27h-10, and we’re trying to secure a review unit of it as well.
The Lenovo Q27q-10 has a pair of 3-watt speakers even if its chassis is already quite thin. The drivers can get decently loud, but they lose clarity at the upper mid to high volume levels. These aren’t ideal for entertainment purposes or gaming, but they work great for tasks such as conference calls or even background music.
Display and Performance
The Lenovo Q27q-10 sports a 27-inch IPS panel with a 2560 x 1440 resolution, a 75Hz refresh rate, and a 4ms response time. The backlight is decent at 300 cd/m2, while the contrast ratio sits at 1000:1 like most IPS panels. This variant doesn’t advertise any special features such as HDR since its focus is on reliability and consistent performance for regular 8 to 5 applications.
QHD fits perfectly in 27-inch screens since it presents a superb balance between sharpness and visibility. The screen looks great for games and images since it is detailed with cleaner lines and sharper edges, but you won’t need to use scaling in order to make tiny letters legible. You also get a 60% increase in workspace compared to 1080p variants which can help increase your productivity.
The Lenovo Q27q-10 fails to impress with its color quality starting with its 92% sRGB coverage which is lower than today’s standards. The default color accuracy sits at DeltaE 3.83 which is too high even for regular use. The color temperature is only slightly warmer than the 6500K standard, but some color errors are already noticeable at this setting.
Calibrating the monitor with a few tweaks to the settings can help lower the DeltaE to around 1.42 while a colorimeter can get an even better 0.51 average. The Lenovo Q27q-10 does have excellent potential with a bit of effort, but unfortunately, the low color coverage becomes your main limitation.
The Lenovo Q27q-10’s backlight reaches a decent 297 cd/m2 at maximum, while its contrast ratio sits at 1040:1 at 40% brightness settings. You can’t expect deep blacks from this model especially when it is used in a dark room. However, only VA types are better in this regard, so that result is still within acceptable limits.
The Lenovo Q27q-10 test unit didn’t show any major signs of backlight leaks, but it showed some clouding issues when viewing an all-black image. Colored media like games and movies aren’t affected, but some very dark scenes will show the variance. Of course, this varies between every unit due to tolerances, so there are better ones out there.
The Lenovo Q27q-10 isn’t very good at handling motion and transition, so it isn’t ideal for fast-paced titles like Modern Warfare. The OSD’s overdrive setting did little to help since anything above its Normal level adds noticeable overshoot. The extra 15Hz adds a hint of smoothness to images while dropping it down to 60Hz worsens the blurring on the display.
The Lenovo Q27q-10 is a FreeSync monitor, but it also worked with G-Sync Compatible Mode during testing. It’s always great to have this kind of duality if you upgrade GPUs often so you don’t miss out on adaptive sync capabilities. Input lag sits at 10ms, so there is no need to worry about delays while enjoying your casual games.
Thoughts on the Lenovo Q27q-10
The Lenovo Q27q-10 is a very attractive IPS monitor with a unique aesthetic that can make workstations less of an eyesore. It limits some of the typical creature comforts of the monitor, but you do get a nice centerpiece on your desk. We like that its slim and lightweight, but important aspects such as ergonomics or extras such as USB ports matter to consumers now more than ever.
The most disappointing characteristic of the Lenovo Q27q-10 is its image quality which suffers in some key points. The dismal color accuracy can be corrected, but you are still limited by the low sRGB coverage it can provide. The limited motion handling is understandable since it was not designed for gaming, but at least it’s inexpensive and decent once calibrated.
Pros:
- Attractive Minimalist Design
- Slim and Lightweight
- Affordable
- G-Sync and FreeSync Compatible
- Great Post Calibration Results
Cons:
- Limited sRGB coverage and Poor Default Accuracy
- Tilt Only Stand
- Mediocre Black Luminance and Uniformity
-About the Author:
Paolo is a gaming veteran since the golden days of Doom and Warcraft and has been building gaming systems for family, friends, and colleagues since his junior high years. High-performance monitors are one of his fixations and he believes that it’s every citizen’s right to enjoy one. He has gone through several pieces of hardware in pursuit of every bit of performance gain, much to the dismay of his wallet. He now works with Monitornerds to scrutinize the latest gear to create reviews that accentuate the seldom explained aspects of a PC monitor.