Viewsonic XG2700-4K Review – 27 Inch 4K Monitor9 min read

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Review of Viewsonic XG2700-4K

Monitors used to be one of the least noticed peripherals in a gaming setup. Usually, people just get a regular 1080p display even if they have a quad GPU rig sitting beside it. There was even a time when IPS models were considered to be the cream of the crop. It just wasn’t as important as it is today. But due to the quick rise in popularity of gaming as an aspect of daily life, and the succeeding proliferation of E-Sports, the gaming monitor market was born. High-performance display products have become as important as having a high-end GPU. This revolution gave birth to a flurry of products offering fast refresh rates, bigger resolutions, and larger sizes. Speaking of resolution one profitable segment is 4K Gaming Monitors. This category is widely considered as the top-end. Enabling the gaming experience here requires a lot of spending, so manufacturers are racing to provide outstanding products worthy of the cash flow in this segment. Viewsonic, a least known brand in the gaming arena, provides the Viewsonic XG2700-4K to represent their slice of the pie. Sporting the stunning detail capabilities of a UHD IPS panel, Freesync and a plethora of gamer-centric features, this product certainly deserves a second look. Let us see if this monitor is at par with the market’s current 4k offerings.

Viewsonic XG2700-4K Specifications

• Screen Size: 27 Inches
• Resolution: 4K UHD (3840 x 2160)
• Aspect Ratio: 16:9
• Panel Technology: In Plane Switching (IPS)
• Refresh Rate: 60hz
• Response Time: 5ms
• Contrast Ratio: 1000:1 (Static)
• Brightness: 300 cd/m²
• Built-in Speakers: No
• Stand: Height -Yes (+5.12 Inches)
• Stand: Tilt – Yes (-5°/+15°)
• Stand: Swivel – Yes (175°)
• Stand: Pivot – Yes (-90°/+90°)
• VESA Compatibility: Yes (100 x 100)
• Connectivity: HDMI 2.0 x 1, HDMI MHL x2, DisplayPort x 1, Mini DisplayPort x 1, USB 3.0 x 5, 3.5mm Audio Jack
• Dimension with Stand(WxHxD): 25.3″ x 21.9″ x 9.1″
• Dimension without Stand(WxHxD): 25.3″ x 15.0″ x 2.2″
• Weight with Stand: 18.52lbs
• Weight without Stand: 11.9lbs

Design and Features of Viewsonic XG2700-4K

The XG2700-4k features a matte dark gray cabinet with acceptable bezels bordering the gorgeous 4k IPS panel. We say acceptable since it isn’t as thin as we would like it to be, so the image pops out even more since this product is quite small at 27 inches for a 4k product. If not for the color scheme, the face would look strikingly similar to a regular LCD TV. That opinion, however, does not describe this product as ugly, since the industrial look appeals to many as well. The screen is finished with a 3H Anti-glare hard coating, with a minimal grainy appearance which does not present an issue for the viewing experience. The touch-sensitive OSD buttons are located in the bottom right side of the border, giving a cleaner and streamlined look.

Since this product is a Freesync certified model, Viewsonic was able to include a vast multitude of input options for convenience. They have included two HDMI MHL slots, an HDMI 2.0 slot, both a regular and mini DisplayPort and five USB 3.0 slots for peripherals. This design has good sense since this product fits a general purpose usage instead of a dedicated PC gaming speed demon. The plethora of signal inputs would allow for an all-in-one display not only for the PC but consoles, and Blu-ray players further adding versatility to a pricey product. Two of the USB ports can be found on the side of the cabinet, conveniently located for additional peripherals. Aside from the two, all ports are facing downward to reduce the total thickness and allow for a clean streamlined cable management. There is also a built-in quad PiP (Picture in Picture) mode to make use of the several inputs included. This feature allows up to three additional images on the main screen from separate sources and usually applies to productivity applications.

The stand for the XG2700-K adopts a standard, almost square like base with red highlights to try and accentuate a gamer pedigree. Attaching the base to the neck seems to be fiddly at best since a special tool is required to lock everything into place. The neck does not feature a cable tidy hole like most products, but there is a protruding ring at the rear to hold wires in place. There is also a pull-out headset hanger, to keep your cans in place, so they don’t flop around your desktop space. The whole mechanism also allows for a decent range of ergonomics, so finding a perfect position for the display is a breeze even if the IPS panel already offers excellent viewing angles. Movements are smooth but stiff enough to hold in place. The mount also detaches via four screws at the mount, to reveal VESA holes for aftermarket options. Separating the two requirements minimal tool assistance and effort, which adds a little inconvenience when compared to newer quick release removal from competitors.

Display and Performance

The XG2700-4K has a 27 inch 4K IPS panel, which can be easily derived from the model number itself. The display is capable of UHD operation at a 60hz refresh rate, 5ms GTG response time with excellent color reproduction performance thanks to its 10-bit interface capable of displaying 1.07 billion colors. The screen also has a pixel density of 163PPI, so image details are crisp and sharp, but some other smaller items may require scaling particularly in this limited size. The factory calibration from Viewsonic offers precise color performance out of the box. Right off the bat, movies and games appeared rich and vibrant without over saturation and misrepresentation. 1000:1 contrast ratio is also within reach since this model is capable of less than 200 units of deviation from the advertise number assuring high-quality grayscale performance. The 10-bit color lookup interface also allows for 100% coverage of the sRGB color space and 72% of the Adobe RGB standard, further strengthening the color-critical performance of this model. Since this model biases towards a mixed casual use rather than a particular gaming or professional grade, this plus point is more than welcome as a healthy addition to the overall capabilities included.

The XG2700-4K is also capable of around 340 nits of brightness which is eye-popping in practice. Lowering this setting to a more suitable level not only enhances comfort but it also further improves on the contrast capabilities without degrading or dulling the other colors. The evaluation unit also showed minimal backlight leaks and deviation from the center, but Viewsonic includes a Black Stabilizer feature which further rectifies the already negligible leaks into near nothingness. Blacks and grays also further improve with this setting in play, so we recommend to keep it on at all times. If you want to calibrate the screen further, try starting from default point with this feature turned on. But please do take note, as these results may vary from panel to panel. There are some reports that this feature worsens the overall contrast despite improving the colors in some points, so as always personal testing and tweaking are essential.

Viewsonic also advertises this model as a Low Input Lag product on their website, and the XG2700-4k is properly equipped to deal with this aspect. Out of the box, lag measured at approximately 25ms but turning the Input Lag setting in the OSD cured this downside to around 11 seconds at the advanced level. That is quite excellent for a 4k IPS monitor. This product is also limited to 60hz in refresh rate, a number which pales in comparison to the 144hz rates on other gaming monitors. Although most gaming rigs are already hard-pressed to produce high frame rates at UHD, the 60hz seems ideal for a wider mainstream coverage of users who are only looking to game casually.  This fact makes this monitor suitable to story based titles such as Fallout 4 or Tomb Raider instead of competitive titles such as Overwatch which highly benefit from faster framerates more than details. But on a basic usage standpoint, UHD at 27 inches may seem a bit small so some scaling in Windows may be in line. Texts and some icons may appear a bit small at a glance, so potential buyers should be aware of this fact.

On the contrary, it’s quite difficult to reach a constant 60 frames on beautifully rendered games with lush environments and stunning effects. Frame drops will still be persistent at this rate, so Viewsonic has enabled Freesync capabilities in the XG2700-4K. This situation is where this certification applies to the most, more than it does in E-sports monitors since games will mostly have the highest settings possible when playing at home. Enabling Freesync further intensifies the already outstanding graphics coming out of the display in tests, with no visible tearing or blurring in fast scenes. Ghosting and artifacts are not as familiar as they are on faster TN panels, so enjoyment of the benefits of 4K, the IPS panel and the accompanying features in this product are pleasing to the eye.

Aside from the already amazing out of the box performance, The OSD gives access to a plethora of tweaking options such as brightness and contrast if you want to further enhance the viewing pleasure. There are also presets available such as Standard, Mono, Movie, The Web, Text, and Game. Accessing the Game preset gives way to genre specific settings, one each for FPS, MOBA, and RTS. This aspect is where Viewsonic drops the ball since most of these gaming options mostly only change the brightness but do nothing concerning the improvement of the colors or contrast of the picture. This, however, is a commonly expected outcome when it comes to presets, so we recommend users to either use the monitor in its factory calibrated state or apply custom preferences through the numerous settings provided in the OSD. Aside from these inclusions, XG2700-4K also carries a Low blue filter mode for eye safety, and the product employs a Flicker-free backlighting feature which does not use Pulse Width Modulation for control.

Conclusion

The Viewsonic XG2700-4k is worthy of consideration if you are in the market for a 4K monitor with versatility in mind. It offers an award-worthy out of the box performance, and plenty of options for optimization in its slightly confusing, but feature packed OSD. The 4K IPS panel delivers what is expected from it, offering crisp details and outstanding color and contrast performance for most uses not limited to gaming. The plethora of input options and the quad PIP features makes a versatile all in one display for users looking to streamline multiple systems into one beautiful display. The addition of Freesync technology also allows a perfect synergy with the high resolution since most gaming setups will find it difficult to keep the frame rates at a constant rate. Although considerably affordable compared to its main competitors, the $600 price tag may seem a bit too steep. But if you veer away from the average looks, the minor flaws, and the limited 27″ size considering this is a 4k monitor, buying this product still wouldn’t entail any regret one you start enjoying the benefits its features and their high points provide.

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