HP 27-inch QHD Gaming with Tilt/Height Adjustment with AMD FreeSync Premium Technology (X27q, 2021 model)

10/10!!!

Purchased the monitor at a great discount due to being a 2021 model. Very happy with purchase. Now the true test is beginning ... how long will it function like new?

I usually buy monitors from Dell, but this monitor was a hundred dollars cheaper than the Dell equivalent (S2721DGF, which, apparently, has the same panel), with the only apparent downside being the lack of a USB hub, so I bought two. Both screens arrived in perfect working condition, with no visible backlight bleeding (surprisingly), and no dead pixels. Ive been using the monitors for almost a week, and so far, I havent experienced any issues that sometimes occur with cheaper monitors, like some patterns or colors triggering waves on the screen. The only complaint I have with this monitor is the placement of the buttons. They are simply infuriating to use, because they are at the back of the monitor and navigating the monitors menus involves constantly keeping attention to which button you have your fingers on. Also, a minor nitpick: in my experience, Dell monitors come with a sturdy briefcase-like box made out of thick cardboard, while these HP monitors come in a cheap box made out of thin cardboard. This, of course, is a very minor issue, but I am not sure I will be able to use the original boxes from HP to transport the monitors because one of the packages arrived with a tear starting from one of the handle cutouts.

I bought this during the treasure truck deal and it’s an amazing monitor for the price. Gsync works great, colors are vibrant, and it gets 165hz no problem with the supplied cable. Hdr is a bit weak and I would not purchase this monitor if you’re expecting a great hdr experience but that’s very hard to get at this price point. I would also highly recommend you download the icc profile from techless youtube as the color accuracy is a bit off right out the box when compared to my other monitor. After icc profile and slight manual adjustment it’s extremely accurate and colors are fantastic. Watch techless video on YouTube and he’ll walk you through the color adjustment and provide the icc profile link. Ips glow was minimal on my panel which was surprising and using that icc profile also helped with the blacks looking more black than gray. Button location is a bit awkward so it’s best to set this monitor up before mounting it to a specific location. Also it force downloads some hp omen program when first installing the monitor I would recommend you uninstall it after final set up. Response time is decent but you are completely unable to use it after level 2 the overshoot is extremely noticeable and looks terrible level 2 was the sweet spot for me, 3 is “doable” but I would only recommend it for fast paced games you really don’t care about graphics at all. Lastly be aware that hp began shipping these with BOE panels (BIMM111), I was lucky to get the Lg (LIMM111 or LIMM 101) I have heard of qc issues with the boe panels so make sure to test your monitor thoroughly before the return period. You can find this part number on the box or by holding power and menu buttons on the monitor while starting up. Again great monitor and would highly recommend it at the $170 price point if it fits your needs. Don’t expect good hdr you will be disappointed.

Ive received six of these so far – a mix of the LIM111 (1x), LIM101 (1x), and BIM111 (4x) revisions. Both LIM revisions appear identical in all aspects that I can see, while the BIM revisions have some serious quality differences. See attached photos for a comparison (LIM on left and BIM on right). The stock color difference is not as extreme as it looks, thats just distortion on camera due to the anti-glare coating, its only roughly half as bad. LIM111/LIM101 (LG): • No flickering • Good anti-glare coating and no visible graininess • Beautiful and vibrant color • Strong and accurate whites/grays • Great viewing angles • Moderate IPS glow BIM111 (BOE): • Flickers a lot (more on that below) • Excessive anti-glare coating that causes visible graininess on the screen • Weaker color vibrancy • Weaker whites/grays • Poor viewing angles • Minimal IPS glow For those who have a mix of BIM and LIM revisions, I recommend trying out custom RGB on both – (245, 255, 255) on LIM and (255, 255, 255) on BIM. Theres still a noticeable difference, you cant get them to match without drastically hurting color accuracy on LIM, but its a decent improvement. Do not install an ICC profile on the BIM revisions unless its specifically tuned for it. 3 of the 4 BOE panels that I received flicker, including replacements from different warehouses. The flickering is like a momentary 20-30% drop in brightness, and it happens in batches of 2-3 times over the course of several seconds, generally reoccurring every 5-30 minutes. I couldnt find any settings that helped, including reducing the refresh rate and disabling adaptive sync, nor swapping the cables with a LIM panel that didnt flicker. It seems like theres possibly a flicker lottery going on here too...

Amazon gave me a huge hassle not letting me replace the broken monitor they sent. BOE Panel. Theyd only allow a return. Finally able to order a replacement after my account suddenly changed the return options. This one is a working LG panel. So far a massive improvement and working well. If you want to take the gamble, it may be worth it, but it was over 2 weeks of headache.

This is a very new 165Hz gaming monitor and as such there unfortunately isnt many reviews for it out there so I decided Id write a few words regarding my experience with it thus far. I have been using the HP X27q for a few days now and so far I absolutely love it. The screen is absolutely beautiful and in my personal opinion it feels like 27 seems to be a pretty good sweet spot for the QHD (2560 x 1440) resolution that this monitor provides. The Height Adjustment mechanism is very smooth as well. It was very easy to setup and it came with a DisplayPort cable in the box which was a nice bonus. For my use case I mostly use the monitor connected via DisplayPort to my desktop computer with an AMD graphics card. However, I did temporarily connect it to my gaming laptop which uses Nvidia and while the monitor uses AMD FreeSync Premium and isnt listed as G-Sync compatible I manually enabled G-Sync within the Nvidia software on my laptop and it seemed to work just fine in my limited testing. (I should note that the G-Sync option will only appear when the monitor is connected via the DisplayPort.) I also tested my laptop connected to the monitor’s HDMI port using a premium Cable Matters HDMI cable and was getting a 144Hz refresh rate at the maximum resolution in the few games that I tested. The only very minor annoyance that I have is that you have to reach your hand around the back of the right side of the monitor to access the controls.

You arent going to get a better monitor without spending double. There are cheaper monitors on the market, but they tend to have really dim light and poor color quality. This monitor is very bright, smooth, and has amazing color quality. It has some small backlight bleed, but it isnt much and of course you arent going to get rid of it with out spending at least double. Dont buy something cheaper, wait a while and get this one!

Dunno if I got lucky or what, but I got an LG panel and its basically perfect. Zero ghosting (I think that recent review complaining about ghosting has their settings wrong - setting Response Time to level 4 will introduce overshoot, I recommend setting it to level 2. Or theyre using variable refresh rate, which I havent bothered using yet), good colors + brightness, no dead pixels, and minimal backlight bleed. Only annoyances Ive had with it is: It installs Omen Gaming Hub on your PC automatically, completely unasked for (I uninstalled it and it never came back). Red colors are a smidge over-saturated and its difficult to reign it in with the settings. Though it may just be my old secondary Dell monitor, which looks a bit gray and washed out, in comparison. Otherwise, 100% recommended for anyone looking for a high refresh rate 1440p IPS panel monitor around $200, that doesnt have the awful VA panel black smearing that cheaper high refresh rate usually have (havent seen a single other monitor like this around $200 that isnt a VA panel). You also usually dont see fully height-adjustable stands at this price point, either. So I was a bit skeptical buying it for only $200. Wasnt expecting much considering the brand and the price, but Im pleasantly surprised. Update: I tried out Freesync, and it actually works better than the dedicated Gsync module in my old monitor. There is some very slight overshoot ghosting, but you really have to look for it to notice it.

I bought this on sale with pretty high hopes, due to the largely very positive reviews. Im mostly satisfied with it for the price I paid. -Colors are vibrant and overall pretty good, despite not using the nano-ips backlight like some other monitors that contain the same LG panel within. -I like the looks of it; simple, somewhat classy/elegant and understated (not a flamboyant gaming monitor look. -No dead pixels -Performs well when playing games Two things preventing me from giving it 5 stars: -Some bothersome IPS glow, much more prominent on one side than the other. Backlight bleed from edges was quite minimal and perfectly acceptable, but the glow on black screens is very bothersome during loading screens or very dark scenes. I dont game on PC much and never watch movies on the computer, so I decided not to return. -The blue light reduction coating is something I dont like. Yes, you can apply ICC profiles (which I did) and tune the color a bit from there, but I felt like I could only get it a tad too warm, and a tad too cool, and couldnt achieve truly neutral whites I wanted. Its close enough for me I guess, so again, I didnt return. It sounds like I just got a less than stellar draw in the panel lottery, so I wouldnt let that dissuade you. Its an okay monitor for the price, but I think Ill definitely try something else when Im ready for a second 27 to replace my ancient 22 for a dual setup.