Acer SA222Qbi monitor – Specs, Pros / Cons: A Big Surprise to All of Us

Turns out cheap monitors can be really damn great at handling Creator work if the Acer SA222Qbi is to be considered any evidence. In terms of specs, it doesn’t offer anything special, with a simple 21.5-inch Full HD VA panel, a 1ms response time, and AMD FreeSync support. One thing that we’d have to give props is to the mix of resolution and screen size, as the Acer SA222Qbi offers a pretty high pixel density, so the image that you’re getting is rather detailed and sharp.

However, the most important results come from our lab, where the monitor shines, with great color coverage and accuracy (Slight spoilers, the monitor becomes 3 times more accurate when using our Display Profiles).

You can check the current price of the Acer SA222Qbi here: Buy from Amazon.co.uk (#CommissionsEarned)

Contents

Specs sheet, Assembly, OSD, Drivers, Design, Connectivity

What’s in the box? Assembly

OSD Menu

Drivers and Software

You can find the drivers and the user manuals for the Acer SA222Qbi on the monitor’s official Support Page. You can also download the Acer Display Widget, which gives you OSD-level control through the OS.

Design and Connectivity

The design of the Acer SA222Qbi is nothing spectacular, however, it gets the job done. One thing we have to acknowledge is just how thin the monitor is. The lower portion of the monitor houses all the components and electronics, being just 42mm thin. This means that the top 2/3 of the screen is even thinner. There are Acer logos on the front and the back, while the bottom bezel is thinner than you’d expect, despite housing all the buttons. The port selection offers an HDMI 1.4 port, a VGA port, as well as two audio jacks.

Display quality, Buy our profiles, Verdict

The Acer SA222Qbi brings a 21.5-inch Full HD screen (1920 x 1080), which calculates to a pixel density of 102.46 PPI, a pitch of 0.2479 x 0.2479 mm, and a Retina distance of 33.55 inches or 85.21 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 6380 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 SA222Qbi 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 SA222Qbi: 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 93% of the sRGB color gamut.

(Fig.1) Acer SA222Qbi covers 93% of the Web colors (sRGB) 

This means that if the Acer SA222Qbi 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 ones you’ll see on the Acer SA222Qbi. 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 SA222Qbi, the Average color accuracy was 3.9 dE (Fig. 2), and with our Web Design and Office Work profile, it lowered to 1.3 dE (Fig. 3), which is a 300% increase in accuracy. With a dE of 1.3, you can essentially handle any type of Color-related workflow.

(Fig. 2) Acer SA222Qbi in its factory condition

(Fig. 3) Acer SA222Qbi with our display profiles

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

Left: No Profile | Drag the slider to see the difference | Right: Design & Gaming Profile

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

Gaming and Movies

We also have a third Gaming and Movies profile, which regulates the black colors, making dark areas in games and movies appear more visible, thus giving you a better viewing experience. Shooting at your opponent first can be a make-or-break moment, so make sure you’re best prepared with our profile.

Left: No Profile | Drag the slider to see the difference | Right: Design & Gaming 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 SA222Qbi.

*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 Image ➡️ Brightness and set it to 70% for optimal viewing.

In addition to receiving efficient and health-friendly profiles, by buying LaptopMedia's products you also support the development of our labs, where we test devices in order to produce the most objective reviews possible.

Office Work

Office Work should be used mostly by users who spend most of the time looking at pieces of text, tables or just surfing. This profile aims to deliver better distinctness and clarity by keeping a flat gamma curve (2.20), native color temperature and perceptually accurate colors.

• $9.90 BUY NOW

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Design and Gaming

This profile is aimed at designers who work with colors professionally, and for games and movies as well. Design and Gaming takes display panels to their limits, making them as accurate as possible in the sRGB IEC61966-2-1 standard for Web and HDTV, at white point D65.

• $9.90 BUY NOW

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Health-Guard

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. Health-Guard simulates paper so the pressure on the eyes is greatly reduced.

• $9.90 BUY NOW

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Get all 3 profiles with 33% discount

• $19.90 BUY NOW

Buy Now Checkout Added to cart

Verdict

The Acer SA222Qbi is a standard office monitor on paper, however, with its result and a more imaginative translation of its specs, it can become a lot more. First of all, with a Full HD resolution and just a 21.5-inch screen, you get a detailed and vibrant image, the latter of which is also possible thanks to the 93% sRGB coverage.

The bigger surprise is the color accuracy improvement that we managed to squeeze out of the Acer SA222Qbi, as with our Web Design and Office Work profile, we get a 3X increase in color accuracy (the dE value that we use to measure accuracy drops from 3.9 to 1.3, which is a good thing, since lower is better). You can tackle any professional color-related workload with it.

But that’s not all, since the monitor brings some gaming flair with it. There’s a 75Hz refresh rate, a 1ms response time, and FreeSync support, so you can do a fair bit of gaming on it, as the FreeSync range works from 48 to 75Hz.

This means that as long as your game’s FPS falls within this range, FreeSync will match the refresh rate, essentially eliminating screen-tearing. For an extra helping hand, our Gaming and Movies profile can stabilize the black colors, thus making dark scenes in movies and games a lot more visible.

Lastly, the Health-Guard profile might be the most important one of the bunch, thanks to its ability to get rid of Blue Light and PWM (Flickering), both of which affect your eyes in a negative way.

You can check the current price of the Acer SA222Qbi: Buy from Amazon.co.uk (#CommissionsEarned)

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