Accer G276HLDbd (it's awful)

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Racer_J

Gawd
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Jan 17, 2012
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I picked up an Accer G276HLDbd today (locally) despite it not having a "proper" review anywhere and I really wish I hadn't. I swear Accer took all the worst aspects of each panel type and combined them in this monitor. It's a A-MVA panel, yet it has a different gamma at the top and bottom like a TN panel would, has the sparkle on whites/colours that an IPS does (not Ultrasharp levels of sparkle), and has the absolute worst gamma shift from a viewing cone that I have ever seen. The viewing cone doesn't even change the gamma to the proper level that it should when you move it. You can't really tell on whites but here at [H]ard|Forum, any given shade of grey looks like it has a completely different tint at the top and bottom even with the "viewing cone" over that area. In addition to that the car and text in PixPerAn are just an absolute blur fest and, there is no way to adjust or disable overdrive/RTC via the menu or service menu. The blue gamma/contrast/brightness is also incredibly screwed up. It's so far past a gamma level of 3 on the Lagom gamma test page that I can't even tell where it is. Everything else is around 2.4 to 2.3 out of the box. I'm not even sure if a calibrator could handle a discrepancy that large.

It is PWM free though given that no object being waved in front of it strobes with the backlight set to 0. That's really a moot point given how poorly it does at everything else though. Actually, it may have some very, very mild PWM on the lower brightness settings.

The manual also states you have to turn the monitor on before the PC and that procedure is beyond archaic. It then goes on to say:

Power-ON the monitor first, then power-ON the computer. This sequence is very important.
Click to expand...

Why? Why in the year 2013 is this even needed much less a "very important" step? BTW, doing that step caused the monitor to spit out an "Input Not Supported" message on the screen. That's right, it thought the 1920x1080 @ 60Hz native resolution wasn't supported. I had to actually hook the DVI cable up to my Dell U2311HM and then hot-swap it over to the Accer G276HLDbd to get a signal back on it.


The most irritating thing of all though is that you are not allowed to change the brightness or the contrast on any picture mode other than user. Doing so will immediately kick the monitor to the "user" setting. The panel is also incredibly "flimsy" and adjusting the tilt on it clearly applies excessive pressure to the panel are near the hinge as everything in that area "changes" as if you were physically pressing on the backlight or screen.


I don't even know how it was possible to combine so many terrible qualities into a single product and, I have no idea how this is getting good reviews at Newegg. Granted, this could just be the dud of duds but there is no way in hell I would even consider an exchange . . .
 
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That does sound truly terrible.

As for New Egg reviews, I basically take them with a grain of salt. I think a lot of people who previously used terrible TNs sort of inflate monitor reviews in general. I noticed that occurring with the Dell 2412 (on this site too) ... even overlooking the grainy coating, I wasn't overly impressed by it. But user reviews on many sites/retailers act like it's the best monitor in the world. I think that happens with a lot of models, people who aren't used to nice displays will assume anything better than their 10 year old 17" TN or current junky laptop display, is fantastic.
 
Yea, I usually take any online reviews with a grain of salt (including TFT Central and PRAD) as everyone has very different expectations even if they are looking at the same criteria.

I put up a solid colour 1920x1080 jpeg I did of the dark grey here at [H]ard|Forum and there were just so many defects everywhere. There was clouding, leakage (not backlight bleed) and, there were even areas that looked like banding in the form of horizontal bars where the grey was the wrong shade and gamma. It also had a hefty dose of DSE (dirty screen effect) as well. The panel in general was just absolutely atrocious and, the matte AG coating sparkle didn't help the situation at all.

I should have known that the price difference was too large for it be similar to the Accer S275HL (which is IPS) but, I really expected a much better experience than what I got. I have never deemed something return worthy so fast in my life.
 
Many Acer monitors does fairly high PWM frequency. Like 540hz.

Weird panel, though. Previous version AMVA was very slow. But decent properties otherwise. This seems both slow and suck image-wise.
 
It was just bad all around CrabJuice. The Dell S2440L trounced it even running at 1920x1080 @ 60Hz. The blur on the car and text in PixPerAn was so bad on the Accer G276HLDbd that it looked like the black outlines were smearing in both directions. I couldn't force myself to look at the chase test in PixPerAn. I'm not sure what panel is in use as I didn't want to tear it open and, the service menu only stated it was an AUO.
 
I was thinking of picking one up to test in Jan, glad I didn't. Both the G276 and S275HL sell for around 300$ here.

In 2011 PRAD reviewed an AOC MVA and Asus ML249H which had the same gamma shift issues:

http://www.prad.de/new/monitore/test/2011/test-aoc-e2795vh-teil8.html

Acer used to make some great gaming TN's like the F22, P243W which they offered both a matte and glossy verion of, Acer G24 (dat orange bezel) and the Acer G245H (I tested 2, both had no bleeding and better color presets than most of the displays I've used), they have definitely gone down hill. They only seem to make 5ms matte TN's these days.

The Acer B2723 A-MVA panel seemed like a good choice for movies but it was only released in some European and Asian markets:

http://www.prad.de/new/monitore/test/2011/test-acer-b273hloymidh.html

There is a 4ms Samsung S27A650D with semi glossy coating (S27A650DEZ), might want to check it out.
 
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NCX, the price tag and the 28ms of input lag kill the Samsung S27A850D. It will be very hard to use anything with more than 5ms of input lag after trying the Dell S2440L given how the 10.5ms of input lag feels on the Dell U2311Hm now with something like Street Fighter II Turbo Hyperfighting (SNES).


For the sake of clarity, the Accer G276HLDbd didn't go "photo negative" when you lowered your viewing angle below the bottom bezel. Typical head movement/slouching though was very reminiscent of a TN panel though to some extent but again, there were numerous flaws on the panel even with the brightness set to 0 so it's hard to know what the actual cause was. I haven't had a chance to return it yet so I'll try to get a picture taken later with the 1920x1080 solid grey (34/34/34) pattern up so that everyone can see what I'm talking about. The quoted 178°/178° viewing angles are laughable though and completely false based on my experience. It honestly looks like they used a time machine to go back and buy stock of some antiquated A-MVA panels.
 
TFT Central rated the input lag on the Samsung S27A850D as 28ms via the SMS program vs the total signal lag of 19.3 ms at PRAD using an oscilloscope.


The Samsung S27A650D is available here in the US but, it looks to be around $400 - $450 here. I swear Canada gets preferential price treatment on displays given the current CAD>USD exchange rate is 1:1. It looks like a special order from Wal*Mart would be the most economical and hassle free for a return down here. I may look into it and the Samsung S24A650D. I had initially waived off the Samsung S24A650D as it had PWM but, the PWM on the Dell S2440L didn't really bother me so it may be worth looking into. I just went through PRAD's review of the Samsung S24A650D as well as a thread about it here on [H]ard|Forum. I have reservations about the "viewing cone" and viewing angles on both the Samsung S24A650D and the Samsung S27A650D. Samsung also has a bad habit of using the same model number even when it's been refreshed to a faster panel with the ending designation being the only real identifier and retailers fail to provide that information which leads to an 8ms 4ms lottery in this case. You could obviously circumvent that by looking at the labels at a local B&M store but no one carries either of them locally. I would be far less hesitant to try them if the panel refresh lottery wasn't going to be in play as there is no telling how much of what is sitting in a distribution center.


It's most likely time to stop trying to actively purchase something and just fall back to observing while waiting to see what's available later in the year given I have the fairly high criteria of wnating something that can do it all with minimal drawbacks.
 
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