Asus VG278H

Armed with Nvidia's new 3D Vision 2 technology and a 120Hz panel, the Asus VG278H ($699 list) brings multidimensional gaming and movies to the desktop. This pricey 27-inch monitor offers outstanding 3D imagery and delivers excellent color and grayscale performance, video and gaming action, and text readability. Moreover, it has a stand with multiple ergonomic adjustments so you can position it for maximum comfort. Its issues are minor; viewing angles are less than ideal and a few USB ports would be nice. Though the VG278H is certainly more expensive than a typical 27-inch monitor, the things it gives you that you can't easily find elsewhere?including 3D Vision 2 and the associated LightBoost technologies?make it worthy of being an Editors' Choice.

Design and Features
The VG278H uses a 1,920-by-1,080-resolution TN+ panel that is protected by a matte antiglare coating, a plus on a larger screen like this one. The cabinet, black with thin (0.75-inch) piano-black bezels, sports a silver Asus logo on the lower bezel and an angle-adjustable 3D emitter on the top bezel. The flexible emitter is a nice touch as it lets you achieve the best possible 3D reception without having to move the screen. Beneath the lower-right bezel are six clearly marked function buttons and a power switch. In addition to acting as navigation buttons for the On Screen Display (OSD) menus, several of them can be used as hotkeys for toggling through picture modes, raising and lowering the speaker volume, adjusting the brightness level, and selecting an input source.

The 17.5-pound cabinet is supported by a round base and arm assembly that lets you make nearly any adjustment you'll need, whether tilt, swivel, or height. A pair of three-watt speakers provides better-than-average volume, but they are rear-firing and thus sound louder from behind than in front where the action is. At the rear of the cabinet are HDMI 1.4, dual-link DVI, and VGA video inputs, as well as two audio jacks (PC audio in and headphone out).

The OSD provides a typical array of picture settings and offers six Asus Splendid Video picture presets: Standard, Game, Scenery, Theater, NightView, and sRGB. We tested the VG278H using the Standard mode, which delivers the best all-around picture quality. Picture settings include Brightness, Contrast, Saturation, Color Temperature, Skin Tone, and SmartView, which is supposed to improve viewing angles when the screen is tilted but does not work very well. Granted, side-angle viewing is somewhat improved with this setting enabled but the picture degrades when viewed from other angles, including front and center. You're better off leaving this feature disabled. There's also an Nvidia LightBoost setting that allows you to adjust the luminance level while using the 3D glasses. More on that later.

Standard Display Performance
Robust colors, solid grayscale and text reproduction, and beautiful HD image detail all come through on the VG278H. Swatches from the DisplayMate Color Scales test were evenly saturated and maintained intensity across the scale from dark to light. The panel produced dark blacks, which helped give colors some pop. It also did a very good job of displaying the darkest shades of gray on the 64-Step Grayscale test, which accounts for the impressive shadow detail on my test photos. Light grayscale performance was not as good; there was compression at the high end of the scale that caused the lightest shades of gray to appear white. There was no noticeable tinting across the scale, however.

With its 120Hz technology and 2ms (gray-to-gray) pixel response the VG278H does a remarkable job of displaying smooth 2D video and gaming action. The PC version of Assassin's Creed II looked terrific and played flawlessly without a trace of smearing. Gamers will appreciate the rich colors and lag-free game play that this panel delivers. The Blu-ray of The Polar Express also looked awesome, with sharp image detail and a relatively noise-free picture. For those who want to mix work with play, the VG278H is ideal for viewing very small text; with the font set to 5.3 points text was well defined and very easy to read. As with most TN+ panels, off-angle viewing is limited. Color shifting occurs at around 160 degrees from the side, and the screen darkens at around 150 degrees from the top and bottom.

The VG278H uses LEDs for backlighting but it's not what you would call a power miser. It required 41 watts of power during testing, which is almost twice the power consumption of the ViewSonic VX2753mh (28 watts) and the HP 2711X (24 watts), both of which are also 27-inch LED-backlit monitors.

3D and LightBoost Performance
Because the VG278H was intended for use with Nvidia's 3D Vision technology (and has the price to prove it), we pulled out our 3D Vision 2 kit to test it with a variety of recently released games, including Battlefield 3, L.A. Noire, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and Batman: Arkham City.

Though your experience ultimately depends on the quality of 3D implementation within any given game, the VG278H turned out spectacular results across this spectrum of titles. Image quality, even during the highest-flying (and -gliding) action scenes of Batman: Arkham City, remained clear and crisp-moving, with no visible artifacts distorting the video at any point. Colors, likewise, were vivid and consistent throughout.

Particularly impressive was the VG278H's use of the new LightBoost technology. LightBoost pulses the display's LED backlight at a level twice that of normal, coordinating the changes with those of the lenses in the active-shutter 3D Vision glasses. This lets the lenses stay "open" for a longer period of time, letting in more surrounding light and counteracting the deleterious dimming effect the lenses' dark tint has traditionally imposed.

The difference between utilizing LightBoost or leaving it off when testing in a dim environment was like night and day (pun and clich? intended). When activated, LightBoost bumped up the display's brightness so much that it appeared through the glasses to be just as intense as any monitor in a brightly lit room. Colors and shadows alike remained strong and distinct, with no obvious loss of detail appearing in any of our test titles. Quite the opposite, in fact: LightBoost let us see nuances the darker lenses had previously made more difficult to detect. We never felt the need to adjust LightBoost levels during our testing, but doing so within the OSD menus is very easy if you want to fine-tune the way the display behaves in your gaming environment.

The VG278H comes with all the necessary components you need to take full advantage of 3D Vision, including the newer (and larger) glasses. If you have glasses and an emitter from the previous version of 3D Vision, that will work with both the VG278H and its LightBoost feature with no replacements or tweaking required.

Conclusion
In addition to the Nvidia 3D Vision 2 glasses and emitter, the VG278H comes with a dual-link DVI cable, a VGA cable, and an audio cable; if you want to use the HDMI port you're on your own. There's also a Resource CD containing a comprehensive user guide and Nvidia 3D Vision drivers. The monitor is covered by a three-year warranty that includes free two-way shipping and Asus' Rapid Replacement service, whereby the company will send out a replacement unit as soon as you ship the defective unit to them (in other words, you won't have to wait for Asus to receive your unit first).

You'll pay a premium price for the Asus VG278H, but this is a premium 120Hz monitor. Its off-angle viewing could be better, and a built-in USB hub would be handy. But with superb motion and color performance, good ergonomics, and the latest 3D technology, the VG278H more than has the chops necessary to earn it our Editors' Choice Award for gaming monitors.

COMPARISON TABLE
Compare the Asus VG278H with several other monitors side by side.

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