Sceptre 27-inch LCD Gaming Monitor- Review & Price

Sceptre 27-inch LCD Gaming Monitor- Review & Price

Short Version: Everyone wants a big monitor. They’re great for browsing, writing, editing pictures, video, playing games – pretty much everything that you do on your PC. Sceptre is known as a lower end brand, but does their 27-inch “gaming” monitor perform to a gamer’s expectations? Yes, but not without some problems.

Features:

• 27-inch screen (1920×1280)
• DVI, VGA, and HDMI inputs
• 2 ms response time and 60,000:1 contrast ratio
• $399 MSRP

Pros:

• Really big screen
• Good viewing angle range
• Crisp display

Cons:

• Base is somewhat limited in movement range
• Large monitor requires lots of desk space
• Color management can be an issue

Full Review:

Sceptre has a reputation as being a bit of an also-ran, bargain product. But if you’re looking for a larger monitor for playing games or surfing the web, I’d recommend their 27-inch monitor with absolutely no reservations. My problem is that I expect a bit more from my displays, such as color accuracy and the means to adjust it. That’s not to say that there’s anything desperately wrong with the monitor, it just feels like it could be better.

The on screen controls are as you would expect, and easy to navigate, however I would have liked to see better control over the color. There are several pre-set color choices, labeled “Movie”, “Gaming”, and “Text”, but all they really do is change the color temperature. Of course, the majority of your color adjustment will take place in your operating system, so this isn’t a major issue. Be aware that if you want to use this monitor for anything that requires color accuracy (like working with digital photos) you will need to calibrate this monitor.

For gaming, the Sceptre x270W works great. The large size and high resolution makes it perfect for this, and the 2ms response time means there’s no smearing when you’re playing an FPS. The screen is bright and crisp, and it’s excellent for watching movies as well.

I also found that the base is supportive, but limited in its range of motion. This isn’t a huge issue, but it was slightly annoying when I was setting up the monitor initially. If you move or adjust your monitor a lot, it might be more of an issue.

Conclusion:

Overall, I like the Sceptre x270W monitor; it’s large, easy to read, you can generally pick them up fairly cheap, and they aren’t bad looking on your desk. The DVI, HDMI, and VGA inputs make it work with pretty much everything, I could definitely see myself plugging my Xbox into the Sceptre if I was limited on space. The $300 street price doesn’t hurt either, that’s pretty reasonable compared to other monitors of the same size.