Gadgetory

welcome back to hardware unbox today we're looking at the MSI optics MGP 27 CQ gaming monitor the first msi monitor we've had hands on timeless they are a relatively new player in the monitor space having entered the market right the end of 2016 but it kind of makes sense to them considering major competitors like a soos of had monitors available for ages the MGP 27 CQ is MSI's newest gaming monitor having launched at CES 2018 it's a 27-inch 1440p curved VA LCD with a 144 hertz maximum refresh rate and free sync in other words very appealing specifications for gamers there's also a cheaper variant of otherwise the same monitor the MGP 27c and that swaps out the 1440p resolution for just 1080p oh and if you happen to live in Australia or New Zealand we're giving away one of these monitors thanks to MSI and PC case gear more details at the end so back to the review while the spec sheet doesn't bring anything new to the table we've seen 1440p 144 hertz monitors before there is one rather unique edition here the RGB LED light bar along the bottom edge now when I first saw this model I thought the LED light bar is a really stupid idea I mean who needs a distracting RGB strip shining at you while your game has MSI taken this whole RGB craze too far and in some respects that is true if you leave the light strip set to its default rainbow mode it's super annoying even just sending it to a solar color is a bad ideas the light shined towards you rather than down towards your desk like with other monitors that have LED lighting however static colors and flashing lights don't seem to be the point of the light strip instead it's designed with SteelSeries game sense in mind with the utility installed your computer SteelSeries games hence can modify the light strip based on the game you're playing and various stats within for example with the csgo integration enabled the light bar can show various stats like health and kills money and more it's actually pretty handy - is it can give you a basic color-coded indicator at a glance or just in your peripheral vision without needing to check the HUD or other stats in-game and like with a lot of RGB utilities the game integrations are highly customizable unfortunately not many games are supported right now with the biggest games on the list being csgo dota 2 and minecraft but hopefully the ecosystem will grow as I can see it being more than just a gimmick if you don't play those games though or you don't want to use the LED strip just disable it anyway enough about RGB strips or monitors let's take a look at the rest of the design the design is fairly standard using elements we've seen on other msi products the stand base is made from a solid metal with a premium coated finish however the rest of the build is mostly plastic of various textures and finishes the mishmash of designs on the rear looks a little unusual particularly the cyber style RG based sections but luckily this is an area that most people won't see in a lot of cases personally I tend to prefer more minimalistic monitor designs that don't bother with game elements however the MGP 27 CQ doesn't take a gamer style to the same extreme as with ASUS ROG products and from the front it looks just like a standard monitor with pleasingly little visual flair aside from that RGB strip of course I did notice one small manufacturing issue with the strip along the bottom edge of the display it's not quite attached perfectly to the screen leaving a small gap visible from a top-down angle not a huge deal but on similar curve - I haven't noticed such an issue speaking of the curve we're looking at an 1800 R curve with this monitor so standard these days for curve displays I do prefer flat panels for 16:9 monitors as the curve doesn't do anything to really enhance the viewing experience at this sort of size I like with ultra wires where the curve does help to keep the edges more in your field of view that said the curve is subtle enough that it's not a big deal as a solo viewer assuming you're viewing it from dead center the MGP 27 CQ packs a bunch of standard features for modern monitors the stand provides height tilt and swivel adjustment there a two port USB 3.0 hub on the left side plus a couple of convenient 3.5 mm audio jack pastors for inputs you get DisplayPort and two HDMI 2.0 ports and it supports a visa mounting thankfully I don't need to go on another rant about on the screen display controls as MSI has included a directional toggle on the back and there's a software TV as well that can control the OSD via the USB port you won't find anything particularly unusual innovative in the OSD but MSI are ticking all the boxes a low blue light feature low motion blur toggles picture-in-picture and screen assistant cheap features like crosshairs moving on to performance the MP g27 CQ has a resolution of 2560 by 1440 and a maximum refresh rate of 144 Hertz so we're getting a great combination of resolution and refresh rate in a previous video last year I said these sorts of monitors are the best for gaming for that very reason unless you specifically want an ultra one that's still the case today this particular monitor supports free thick and avoid the refresh window is technically 48 to 144 Hertz thanks to low framerate compensation freesync works across the entire refresh range from 0 to 144 Hertz NVIDIA GPU owners naturally won't be able to use adaptive sync with this monitor but provided you're running at relatively high frame rates there shouldn't be too much of an issue and can save you a bunch of money compared to buying a g-sync monitor with the same specs the panel itself is a VA LCD with MSI claiming one millisecond response times I find that figure a little hard to believe going on what I've seen from other VA panels but from some quick visual testing ghosting and blur aren't major issues at 144 Hertz especially with the response time or overdrive setting set to the fast preset aside from that MSI are quite accurate with their specifications they claimed 400 nits of peak brightness and with the default calibration I achieved 400 point 8 nits so pretty spot-on there they also claimed a contrast ratio of 3000 to 1 and across a range of brightnesses I measured a contrast ratio between 29 18 9 to 1 and 28 60 to 1 so again quite close and that's of the benefits of VA technology the high contrast ratio and relatively deep blacks unfortunately as with most curved displays uniformity isn't great the curve does cause some backlight variance between the center and edges with a maximum deviance Delta in a 4.7 when viewing a white image this is the main downside to curved panels and why I tend to prefer basic flat displays instead and I've yet to see a curved monitor that really nails the uniformity color performance is a little strange with the MGP 27 CQ for some reason MSI has targeted the NTSC eco space boasting about 100% NTSC coverage and 115 percent srgb coverage however this wasn't the right choice to make NTSC is an outdated standard with pretty much every operating system using srgb as the default standard instead yeah you do get a hundred and fifteen percent coverage of srgb but without proper color management in the OS or a profile for the monitor this leads to over saturation when viewing srgb content if MSI wanted to support a wider color space they should have looked at Monde standards like DCI p3 and this monitor gets close to full coverage in that space at 89% alternatively they could have included a toggle to switch between an NTSC profile and an sRGB mode that caps performance to 100% srgb for better accuracy as the monitor targets NTSC it's no surprise that colors aren't accurate in the default mode working in a CCC average of 7 5 6 7 K which is a bit too blue and a grayscale Delta e of 3.91 and sub 2.2 gamma in both the saturation and color checker tests the average Delta a figure also sits around that 3.5 to 3.6 mark which isn't as accurate as I'd like you can pull back the white point to a somewhat accurate level through messing with the on-screen settings but it doesn't improve things significantly as the gamut still exceeds srgb and there are some funky grayscale results too to get the best out of this model it really needs to be fully calibrated using my trusty eye one display Pro and spectracal scowl man five software I was able to get the mpg 27 CQ in check which is expected as you know the panel itself is actually a pretty decent quality when calibrated I achieved a grayscale delta T of 0.3 which is of course very good and basically dead accurate on with a CC T average of just under 60 500k saturation and color checker results also now sit under a delta a average of 1.0 so the monitor is performing strongly when it's fully calibrated of course the problem with any software profile calibration is some applications choose to ignore it so at times you will be stuck with default color performance the MGP 27 CQ isn't awful by any stretch though in fact for gamers and others that you know don't really care all that much about accurate colors the high contrast and slight over saturation will be perfectly fine but if you did want to also use this monitor for content creation I would suggest fully calibrating it like with any product pricing is a big deal and tends to dictate whether I recommend something or not the msi optics MP g27 CQ hasn't launched in the United States just yet but I hear it's coming very soon and MSI tells me it will cost around $500 here in Australia it's on sale now for $7.99 dollar a dues having a quick look through other monitors on PC case key with equivalent specifications there aren't many notable options cheaper than the MP g27 CQ this monitor from AOC and this other one from Acer are cheaper but both use TN panels so you're not going to get the same color quality the closest I could find is the seuss mg 27 9q which is an IPS monitor with similar specs for about $40 less that said I'd recommend spending that little bit extra to get this MSI monitor for its VA panel with superior contrast and the RGB LED light by that you might find useful with supported games and in the states the mg 27 9q cost five hundred forty five dollars so it likely be a bit more expensive than the msi option i would keep an eye on the acer xz2 7 one you as a potentially cheaper option but aside from the usual biotech monitors I think the MP g27 CQ will be competitively priced when it launches over and when you factor in the pricing I'm reasonably impressed with the MSI model we've been looking at today this new 1440p 144 hertz curved VA panel is bringing higher quality high refresh displays to cheaper price points and that's what I love to see MSI's Mona bring some unique features to the table that could be surprisingly useful to some people though I do wish the calibration was a little tighter out of the box and now for the good news for those of you in Australia or New Zealand we've partnered with MSI and PC case care to give away an MPEG 27 C 2 to one lucky viewer unfortunately we can't make this giveaway global but we do like to support and native Aussies exclusively from time to time anyway if you're interested in this giveaway head to the gleam link in the description below and there are plenty of ways to enter as always entries closed on April 20th at 5 p.m. Australian Eastern Standard Time and the winner as always will be selected randomly and we'll let you guys know when that has occurred that's it for this review big thanks to MSI and PC case gear for running this giveaway with us be sure to LIKE the video if you like monitor content and subscribers there's more coming up soon I'll catch you in the next one