Acer Nitro VG273bii monitor – Specs, Pros / Cons: The New Nitro is Thinner. But is It Better?

Right from the start, we’ll tell you that we’re super impressed by the slim construction of the Acer Nitro VG273. It brings the new Nitro design language and the mainstay features for gaming, all for a low and affordable price. The Acer Nitro VG273 offers a Full HD IPS panel stretched across a 27-inch frame, which is a pretty standard form factor for budget monitors.

It offers a 75Hz refresh rate, a 1ms response time, and FreeSync support, making it a sweet offer for the entry-level gamer, who can’t spend a lot of money on a flagship monitor. Today, we’ll dive deep into the color reproduction of the Acer Nitro VG273, with coverage and accuracy tests, as well as look at just how much better can we make the screen using our Display Profiles.

You can check the current price of the Acer Nitro VG273bii here: Buy from Amazon.com (#CommissionsEarned)

Contents

Specs sheet, What’s in the box?, Drivers, OSD, Design, Connectivity

Screen size	27 inch (68.58 cm)
Refresh rate	75Hz
Response time	1ms
Panel type	IPS
Backlight type	LED
Screen finish	Matte
Resolution	1920 x 1080 (FHD)
Technologies	Contrast ratio: 1000:1 (Static); 100 000 000:1 (Dynamic) Brightness: 250 cd/m² (Typical) Viewing angles: H/V° 178/178 VESA mount: 100 x 100 mm Tilt: -5 to 20° Measurements (with stand): 611 x 85 x 367 mm Power consumption (Idle): 25W Power consumption (Max): 50W Power consumption (Stand-by): 0.50W
I/O	1x HDMI 2.0 1x DisplayPort 1.4 1x Audio jack

What’s in the box? Assembly

Drivers and Software

You can find all downloadable files on the monitor’s Product Support Page. There you can get the drivers as well as the Acer Display Widget, which gives you total control through the operating system, instead of having to use the tiny buttons on the bottom.

OSD Menu

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Design and Connectivity

Compared to the older Nitro monitors, this time we have an entirely black exterior with a super thin profile. Most of the monitor components are on the bottom side, so the monitor can appear as thin as it is. The stand looks very much like the older Nitro monitor stands, with the sole difference being that now it comes in black. The port selection is flat on the back, instead of the bottom, which is a bit more uncomfortable for the port and the cable if you don’t have some space behind them, so they can bend without any extra stress. The ports themselves include two HDMI 1.4 ports, a single VGA port, and two audio jacks.

Display quality, Buy our profiles, Verdict

The Acer Nitro VG273bii brings a 27-inch Full HD screen (1920 x 1080p), which calculates to a pixel density of 81.59 PPI, a pitch of 0.3113 x 0.3113  mm, and a Retina distance of 42.14 inches or 107 cm. From this distance, the human eye can’t distinguish individual pixels.

The correlated color temperature on a white screen after a Factory Reset in sRGB mode is 6610 K (Luminance 150 cd/m2 at 20% Brightness). The average gamma value is 2.18.

Color coverage

Here’s an illustration (Fig. 1). The whole “sail-shaped” map below consists of all the colors we can see, while the black crooked line shows all the colors from real-world scenes and nature around us.

Then, we’ve drawn some of the most important and interesting color spaces, compared to the colors the panel of Acer Nitro VG273bii can show:

Standard/For Web: sRGB – widely used color space for most consumer devices, ideal for Web design and development
For Print: AdobeRGB – used in professional photo editing, graphic design, and print
For Photographers/Video Editors: DCI-P3 – used in high-end film production, post-production, and digital cinema
Premium HDR: Rec.2020 – the widest consumer ITU color standard, covering a massive 75.8% of the visible spectrum, a benchmark for premium HDR content

Acer Nitro VG273bii: the yellow dashed triangle (– – – – – –) represents the range of colors this monitor can display. In our tests, we calculated the total color coverage of the monitor at 90% of the sRGB color gamut.

 

(Fig.1) Acer Nitro VG273bii covers 90% of the Web colors (sRGB) 

This means that if the Acer Nitro VG273bii tries to show any color outside of its triangle, it will show the closest color to it that’s inside the triangle.

Color accuracy

Now let’s see how big is the difference between the real colors and the one you’ll see on the Acer Nitro VG273bii. We measure that distance in DeltaE – the bigger the number, the more different they look.

For the next illustration, we’ve chosen 24 common colors like dark and light skin, blue sky, green grass, etc.

Values below 2.0 are considered suitable for color-sensitive work. Before our calibration of the Acer Nitro VG273bii, the Average color accuracy was 6.2 dE (Fig. 2), and with our Web Design and Office Work profile, it lowered to 4.1 dE (Fig. 3). This is a rather small overall increase, however, we still manage to make the white and neutral colors much more accurate.

Comparison in the sRGB color space (primaries and D65 white point specified in ITU-R BT.709, sRGB encoding curve).

Health-Guard eliminates the harmful Pulse-Width Modulation (PWM) and reduces the negative Blue Light which affects our eyes and body. Since it’s custom-tailored for every panel, it manages to keep the colors perceptually accurate (they may seem strange at first but after a few minutes our brain will start recognizing them as accurate ones – that’s how Health-Guard differs from alternatives like f.lux).

Pro Tip: As the Health-Guard profile simulates paper and has as accurate as possible colors, it could be a great tool for prepress designers!

Left: No Profile | Drag the slider to see the difference | Right: Health-Guard Profile

BUY OUR DISPLAY PROFILES

Since our profiles are tailored for each individual display model, this article and its respective profile package are meant for the Acer Nitro VG273bii.

*Should you have problems with downloading the purchased file, try using a different browser to open the link you’ll receive via e-mail. If the download target is a .php file instead of an archive, change the file extension to .zip or contact us at [email protected].

Read more about the profiles HERE.

Here’s how to prepare thе monitor for our profiles:

1. Open the OSD menu (On-Screen Display)
2. Reset Settings: Go to Menu ➡️ Information ➡️ Reset All Settings, and click ‘Yes’.
3. Brightness: Navigate to Picture ➡️ Brightness and set it to 70% for optimal viewing.

Verdict

The Nitro VG273bii is Acer’s new budget gaming monitor offer and from a purely gaming standpoint, it’s a decent machine. The refresh rate isn’t the highest that we’ve seen at just 75Hz, however, the response times and the FreeSync Support are there, so your games will be smooth and tear-free. With our Gaming and Movies profile, you’ll also see much more of what’s going on in darker scenes and areas, as the black colors are stabilized.

We wouldn’t recommend the monitor for people who want to get into content creation, as while the color coverage is good, it can be better. The bigger issue is the color accuracy, which has a dE value higher than the needed 2.0 or below, even with our Web Design and Office Work profile. All is not lost, however, as with the profile, we still calibrated the white and neutral colors very well, so you will get an accurate image with a paper-like feel if you’re working on designing Printed Media, Newspapers, or Books.

As for the Health-Guard, it’s the one profile that you need for sure. That’s if you want to limit the Blue Light emissions and the PWM (Flickering), which can tire your eyes quicker and deteriorate your quality of sleep.

To wrap things up, the Acer Nitro VG273bii is not the ideal gaming monitor, however, it’s got enough provided that you get it on a good deal. Ultimately, you can get similar or better specs and features for around the same price. The Acer Nitro VG270Ebmiix is a perfect example: It has the same resolution, and screen size while bumping up the refresh rate to 100Hz and offering much better color accuracy.

You can check the current price of the Acer Nitro VG273bii: Buy from Amazon.com (#CommissionsEarned)