Pixio Px275h (subjective) review: 27" QHD DCI-P3 95hz monitor

euskalzabe

[H]ard|Gawd
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I recently got a Pixio Px275h from eBay for $260, as the venue gave me a coupon that basically offset the $30 tax I would've normally had to pay. I wanted a new monitor with 1) higher than 75hz refresh rate, 2) deep, good quality color 3) ~100-110dpi and 4) 16/9 to better work with vertical space while still providing a decently sized 21/9 custom resolution within it. A bunch of [H] users enjoyed my LG 29WK600 and my Philips 328E9FJAB subjective reviews, so here we go on this Pixio. Heads up: it's my favorite display from the past decade, but that does not mean that you will necessarily agree with me or that it will be good for your expected uses. Monitors are very personal choices on a variety of levels. Note: I forgot to offset the camera focus slightly to avoid the usual high frecuency noise; obviously the artifacts you see aren't visible in real life.

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Specifications
You can check Pixio's website for more details, but the important stuff is: IPS (so, contrast ~1000:1), 2560x1440 (108.8 ppi at 27"), %95 DCI-P3 gamut coverage, HDR10 signal support (not DisplayHDR400 certified), and 30-95 Freesync rance with LFC via HDMI or Displayport.

Design and Ergonomics
Thin bezels, flat panel. Stand is barebones, just holds the monitor, no adjustment.

Panel uniformity
It's decent, but not great. You can see a bit of light bleed on the sides, most notably on the lower left corner. However, it's not proven to be distracting even on dark scenes, specially if you use any sort of bias lighting like I do. Some of you will certainly find the lower left corner unacceptable. Personally, it doesn't bother me, I've had worse in the past and while it's not great, I don't consider it bad. Dead pixels are much more annoying to me, and there are 0 to be found in this panel, it is perfect.

Exaggerated bleed (for those of you who love this stupidity of blowing up ISO to "see" light leaks, even though it's not what it would ever look like to anyone IRL) - apparently the "all black" image I downloaded has some faint text, who knew:
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What it looks in real life:
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Brightness and Contrast
It ships setup at %80 brightness, which is way too bright. I immediately took it down to %40 and in the past few days I've settled down on %25 brighness. Due to issues with eyestrain over the past years, I've moved my desktop away from the two giant windows I used to have in front of me, and now they're to my side. I use bias lighting behind the monitor to help my eyes further. This helps contrast, which is lower than most VAs but similar to all other IPS at 100:1. I'll admit that it does not look any less contrasty than my previous VA Philips monitor, I can only definitely see the difference compared to my Samsung 4K TV and my Vizio P-series - although that one is another league, as it's a decent FALD backlight.

Calibration
Colors were pretty good out of the gate - remember, subjective opinion, if you check out HardwareUnboxed's youtube review they say the opposite. After calibration, whites look a little warmer, but I'm not doing any color critical work so I don't really mind if they're more accurate now or not. You can download my calibration profile in case that helps any other buyers (though keep in mind each monitor is a universe on its own, and my calibration may not be precise or accurate on your sample).

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SRGB spectrum:

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Viewing Angles
They're good, like any other IPS panel. I know the "lagom" text should not be visible at all, but I like Gamma 2.2 on the screen which is making it more pronounced. There may be other factors affecting that too, but I don't know enough to say which.

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Frame skipping - no such issue here (iPhone camera lifting black levels, so backlight bleed is exaggerated but you get a hint of the lower left part mentioned earlier. None of this is very visible in real life.):

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General use
If you've had a QHD 27" panel, you know the experience. Plenty of desktop space, not too small to use at %100 scale. The DPI is the same as my 40" 4K Samsung, where I loved the smoothness and clarity of the text at 4:4:4, and this Pixio is just as enjoyable. The 95hz are very noticeable even just moving things around in the desktop. I don't care that much about how many windows I can fit into the 27", because I'm getting older and my eyes prefer to read bigger text, so I end up zooming webpages to %150 or more most of the time. The respectable DPI means fonts render very cleanly when scaled up, and reading is quite comfortable on this Pixio.

Gaming
Setting up G-Sync compatible through Displayport was a breeze, no issues. Keep in mind you can do HDR on the HDMI2 port, but you can't do Freesync over HDMI with an Nvidia card, so I had to choose: (half-assed) HDR with no FALD backlight, or Freesync with LFC. The choice was easily obvious. I don't do HDR unless I have a FALD backlight, otherwise brightness is just cranked up to the max, making all blacks dark grey. So instead of more contrast, you end up with less because of it. If you don't have FALD backlight, don't even bother with HDR, it does not look good or in any way like it's supposed to. The option is still there if you want to experiment - specially with an AMD GPU where you can do everything through HDMI and don't have to be fiddling with changing cables - but I'd ignore the HDR "capabilities" of this monitor. I regularly custom-res to 21:9 at 2560x1080 in any game that supports it because I prefer that ratio, but don't want to give up 16:9's extra vertical for work. Obviously you will get black bard on the top and bottom. They melt away for me, others might be bothered by them. Something to consider. 95hz feels way smoother than 75hz, and while I understand it's a step down from 144hz, it's also considerably closer to the latter than the former if you're not playing competitively. Gaming feels more responsive, and Freesync makes screen movement more clear. Definitely a step up from any previous monitor I've had, even my past Freesync ones, because the HFR combined with LFC when framerate goes down keep the experience rock solid.

Doom

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Spyro

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Trine 4

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Destiny 2

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Hob

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Crash Bandicoot

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Movies and Video
I've been very, very pleasantly surprised playing video on this Pixio. With the Hulu and Netflix apps that actually stream at 1080p (unlike browsers which always make these sources look like dirt, unlike Youtube, who knows why) the punchy colors really pop. Nothing looks insanely oversaturated or unnatural, but certainly there's a vivid quality to the image that makes it resemble my Vizio P-Series when I'm watching TV in the living room. It's the best video experience I've had on a monitor, well, ever. It really does look amazing for video content. I never thought I'd recommend a monitor for video playback, but I definitely would advise you get this Pixio. It really is a good hybrid of gaming, work and video features.

Hulu:

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Netflix:

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Youtube:

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Conclusion
For $260, I'm more satisfied with this monitor than I've been with any other monitor since I bought my first IPS around 2010 (a Dell ST2220T). 27" feels as big as my previous 32", because the latter was wall mounted and this one now sits 3ft away from my face. QHD looks much finer on 27" than 32", where the DPI was a much lower 91.8. I've given up on HDR displays until MicroLed or something similar goes mainstream (~$500, so I'm guessing 2025 at the earliest). With my previous LG, Philips and Samsung displays, I've always compromised something. With this Pixio, I feel like while I'm compromising on that perfect contrast I'd like from OLED, everything else checks the box: smooth HFR panel (gaming), excellent DCI-P3 colors (video reproduction), fine DPI that makes reading easier (work). A win in all of my 3 categories. I always say I won't buy another monitor until per-pixel contrast is available to the masses, then within a year I buy something else, so I won't say this Pixio will hold me until MicroLed/whatever. I will say, though, this monitor has surprised me more than anything else in the past decade, and it has the highest chance of any of my last 5 monitors at lasting me for quite a long time.

Again, apologies for the artifacts in the pictures, but it's late, I'm tired, and don't really feel like re-shooting the whole thing.
 
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Sir How about eye strain??As I am a student and I have to wade through multiple pdfs....and my eyes get fatigued ...

So far over the past two weeks, I have not had any eye strain issues with this monitor. I definitely had to lower the brightness as factory settings were way too bright for regular reading on white background. At %25 though, it's perfectly comfortable. I also make sure the rest of my room is well lit to minimize eye strain issues.
 
Sir, which monitor do you suggest for long hours of studying and reading on it,without any eye strain?

There’s not a specific monitor I’d recommend. I’d however recommend not going below 100ppi. So, if you’re getting a monitor of 27”, go no lower than 1440p, or 22” at 1080p.
 
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I don’t recall where I read this, but it’s 8bit + dithering. Unless you’re doing critical color work though, this should not bother you. It looks great.
I am. But more to the point I think in 2020 every monitor should be 10-bit. I think it's crazy that we're trying to push HDR as an example but not bothering with 10-bit. It's just going to be a while apparently until I can find a monitor that is actually a good all-rounder.

120Hz, 10-bit, 4k, HDR 1000 (but more specifically either FALD with enough LED's or Micro LED to actually have the contrast ratios necessary), as well as monitors capable of also delivering the color volume. There are monitors that meet part of this checklist, but not all. And I'm sure whomever does for the foreseeable future will charge an absurd premium. Maybe in another 15 years I'll be able to find what I'm looking for.

In the mean time I'm willing to settle on a partial list, but I'm not satisfied with where we are yet with that. Ironically I hope that next gen consoles push monitor manufacturers forward, because they'll be pushing 4k 120Hz VRR and HDR over HDMI 2.1. So maybe that will do something in the market place. I doubt it though.
 
I was interested in this as a photography monitor for the wife, but she's blind as a bat -- 1440p at 27" is a no-go.

Granted I already have a 27" 1440p Acer Predator IPS that meets most of the basic specs and calibrates well... she's currently using an ancient HP ZR30W, 30" at 1600P, which still calibrates to full SRGB today and supports 10bit (real or not, I don't know). She runs it with 200% scaling ;)
 

Every statement on your post was spot on, bravo.
I agree, every monitor should be 10bit already, most $300 TVs are, there's no reason monitor manufacturers keep giving us old crap - but they do.

I agree, 120hz, 10bit, 4K, HDR100 displays + HDMI 2.1 for adaptive refresh will be the perfect display for a good decade, once anyone actually releases them without charging an arm, leg and kidney. I bet you this is precisely why this is not released, because manufacturers know that once you get such a display, you're good to go for 10 years without purchasing anything else.

I also agree that meanwhile you have to settle with a partial compromise. It's why I've bought 4 displays in the past 4 years, and I've been disappointed with each and every one of them in one way or another. This Pixio is the first time the balance has tilted towards the positive, and I can see myself keeping it for 3-4 years until (I hope) I can at least get a miniLED display.

As usual, this will take forever, and it'll be way overpriced until it becomes economically stupid to keep releasing crap 1080p 60hz panels because most of the industry has moved on to a higher level of quality. Until then, we (im)patiently wait and make do with what we can.
 
She runs it with 200% scaling ;)

If her sight is that bad, then yeah a 32" with scaling makes more sense. Even if she did the same on a 27" it won't be as big even if it's similarly defined. Maybe a 32" QHD would also do while still being cheap? With this Pixio I've also found that the higher Hz is easier on my eyes the reduced blurring on anything moving on screen - including scrolling text - is more comfortable. So maybe a 32" QHD 144hz panel would work well for her too, those aren't too bad at about $300 and there's several models. Worth considering maybe.
 
So maybe a 32" QHD 144hz panel would work well for her too, those aren't too bad at about $300 and there's several models. Worth considering maybe.
Well, she's doing photo editing, so... color support is needed and everything (I believe) in that price range is VA. I have an LG 'gaming' VA on my desk of those dimensions and while reviews claim that it can be calibrated, its color response is so very wacky that my Spyder4 can't make sense of it.
 
So how is the eye train on this IPS? Many times IPS screens seem fine at first, but after a week or so, the eyes become strained.
The reverse tends to be the case with VA, where there is some adaptation period, but once adapted the VA screen tends to be more comfortable on the vision system.

Curious to know if this IPS is still working out for you, and how well.
 
So how is the eye train on this IPS? Many times IPS screens seem fine at first, but after a week or so, the eyes become strained.
The reverse tends to be the case with VA, where there is some adaptation period, but once adapted the VA screen tends to be more comfortable on the vision system.

Curious to know if this IPS is still working out for you, and how well.

So far it’s going fine. Keep in mind I calibrated the monitor and set it to %25 brightness. Still no issues with text, games, or multimedia. My eyes are becoming crap no matter what display I use though, so I use bus lighting behind the Pixio (led strip), and I have a tall lamp on behind me too. The more light around the sceeen, the better I do.
 
Sir could you please share pictures of your settings

Just default settings, %25 brightness. I don't touch anything else. You might find your preference to be completely different to mine though.
 
my eyes get fatigued for long time if I on it...

That happens to most people. No settings will help you with that. The only solution when your eyes fatigue is to stop using the computer for a while. Go for a walk, get some natural light.
 
That happens to most people. No settings will help you with that. The only solution when your eyes fatigue is to stop using the computer for a while. Go for a walk, get some natural light.
Two additional suggestions:
  • Wear 'computer' glasses that are designed to reject blue light
  • Use a bias light behind the computer, something with a bit warmer color temperature (i.e., not 'white white')
 
A VA monitor can help by allowing you to crank down the brightness significantly more without destroying the picture quality because of the superior native contrast ratio.

I used to think that too, but then I realized my eyes strain less on this Pixio than on my previous Philips VA, so... I'm not so sure about that anymore. The contrast on this Pixio feels better than the Philips did, despite the latter technically having more contrast.
 
I used to think that too, but then I realized my eyes strain less on this Pixio than on my previous Philips VA, so... I'm not so sure about that anymore. The contrast on this Pixio feels better than the Philips did, despite the latter technically having more contrast.

Well, that's interesting. I'm using a VA now. My IPS looks better on the desktop, but the VA is more correct to my visual system. I can use it longer with more comfort and fewer issues. This is not a universal recommendation for VA, just that everyone should try out their IPS next to a VA, and see which works better for them personally.
 
everyone should try out their IPS next to a VA, and see which works better for them personally.

Fully agree. The main discovery here is that my eyes are garbage and inconsistent on what they like, so I’ve turned to good hydration and antihistaminics to stop them from itching.
 
I own a Pixio PX275h since several years.
This monitor is the best that I got for now:
Good image quality
Saturated color
Sufficient brightness even for California natural light
Higher refresh rate for gaming

It is convenient for occasional gaming as well as for office work.
In my office I have a HP VA panel that makes more fatigue to my eyes.

Here are the only weak points to me:
Difficulty to calibrate it properly because of a cumbersome OSD menu.
No adjustable stand.
HDR setting is of no use.

Once the calibration done using the OSD menu and the graphic card (Radeon) adjustments the result is perfect for my usage.
Under W10 I had to tweak the true type police to make text more readable.
It is the HDMI input that is connected.

I am very satisfied with this monitor.
 
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