Asus TUF VG28UQL1A review: a 28-inch Ultra HD gaming monitor tailored for the Xbox Series and PS5 – Les Numériques

The design of the Asus TUF VG28UQL1A monitor is not original. The matte black plastic is of good quality and does not retain fingerprints.

The stand allows the monitor to be rotated ± 15 ° left or right. It’s not much, but allows you to widen the viewing angles a bit.

This Asus monitor has a height adjustment of 12 cm and the tilt between -5 ° and + 20 °. The stand also allows switching to portrait mode.

The Y-foot frees up space on the desk, which is not the case with the non-integrated power supply and that must be stored under the desk.

The rear of the chassis is made entirely of good quality grainy black plastic. The connection is oriented downwards. The screen is also compatible with VESA 100 x 100 mm mounts once the stand has been removed.

The base of the foot has a removable cover which offers to group all the cables at the back of said foot, but not to hide them completely.

The connection consists of two HDMI 1.4 inputs, two HDMI 2.1 inputs, a DisplayPort input, a headphone output and two USB 3.0 ports. This model also includes two 2W speakers far from exceptional, but which help for system sounds and for viewing short videos. Please note, the Asus TUF VG28UQL1A does not have USB ports on its edge.

The Asus monitor combines the best of both worlds, namely a joystick to easily access and change settings, as well as buttons for quick access to image modes and GamePlus features (center zoom, superimposed crosshair, timer, etc. FPS counter, alignment test pattern). The menus are clear and the settings numerous.

On our 140 x 60 cm desk, the Asus TUF VG28UQL1A and its 28-inch panel take up little space. The limited foot depth of 8.5 inches and its sleek design allows for enough room for the keyboard and mouse. The latest versions of Windows and macOS operating systems perfectly manage Ultra HD definition and allow efficient scaling to 150% or even 200% (Full HD equivalent). The text elements are large enough to be readable and the image is crisp.

On the other hand, the native resolution of 3840 x 2160 px on a 28-inch panel, or 157 pixels per inch (dpi), is almost unusable without scaling. Note that photo editing software like Photoshop manages it perfectly in the interface, but displays the photos with the native definition of the panel, which allows to benefit from a very high level of detail and appreciable for lovers of retouching. . In games, the contribution of Ultra HD on a 28-inch panel is not necessarily obvious, and for the moment, the choice of a Quad HD monitor, especially on this diagonal, seems more judicious to us. , in particular to reach 144 fps.

By lowering the brightness to 37 to obtain white at 150 cd / m², the Asus TUF VG28UQL1A consumes around 30 W, i.e. a relative consumption of 94 W / m², in line with the average of the monitors tested (100 W / m²) . At minimum brightness (60 cd / m²), it consumes 23 W. At maximum (289 cd / m²), consumption increases to 39 W. These values ​​are measured at 60 Hz. By changing to 144 Hz, the monitor consumes between 3 to 5 W additional.

Right out of the box, the image quality of the monitor is already very good. The temperature curve is perfectly stable, but the average measured at 5860 K is a little far from the reference value of the video standard (6500 K). The gray levels, on the other hand, are perfect: the gamma curve, perfectly stable over the entire spectrum and the average, is set on the reference value (2.2). Finally, with an average delta E measured at just 2.3, the colors can be considered faithful. Only three colors (red, blue and cyan) exceed the value of 3, the threshold above which the human eye begins to perceive a difference between the colors requested and those displayed. Once the brightness is lowered to 37 and the color temperature is set to “warm”, the temperature rises slightly to 6100 K, closer to the reference value, and the delta E drops slightly to 2.1. The calibration probe makes it possible to obtain a color temperature even closer to the reference value (6710 K) and perfect colors with a delta E of 1.4 and no color exceeding a delta E of 3. You can download the color profile by following this link.

The native contrast of 1050: 1 is a little behind those measured on theAsus TUF Gaming VG27AQ and theAOC 27G2U, in both cases greater than 1200: 1. This contrast is average for an IPS panel, without being bad. In any case, this device remains far from the contrast observed on the best VA monitors on the market, such as the Philips Momentum 436M6 where the MSI Optix MAG271CR which benefit from a rate greater than 4000: 1. Darker scenes and solid blacks look greyish, especially in a dark room, but that’s okay during the day.

The average white homogeneity deviation is 6% on the 28 inch panel. There is thus no variation in brightness perceptible to the eye. We did not find any light leaks in the corners or any clouding (cloud effect) on our test model. IPS technology also offers very good viewing angles with very little variation in the angles.

The VG28UQL1A does not use Pulse Width Modulation (PWM) to adjust the brightness; it is therefore devoid of flickering and does not cause headaches to those who are sensitive to this phenomenon. Asus has also integrated a Low Blue Light mode to reduce the emission of blue light.

This monitor manages FreeSync and G-Sync between 48 and 144 Hz and therefore works best when the graphics card sends between 48 and 144 fps. The supported range is therefore very wide and covers all uses. We will still recommend a high performance graphics card, such as theAMD Radeon RX 6800 XT or the Nvidia GeForce RTX 3080, in order to take advantage of the native Ultra HD definition and a high number of images. In all cases, the fluidity is there and the image does not suffer from tearing problem (tearing) or jerks (micro-stuttering).

This screen offers the possibility of activating the black image insertion system via backlight scanning (ELMB, for Extreme Low Motion Blur) while activating the dynamic refresh technologies FreeSync or G-Sync. This system makes it possible to take advantage of the absence of tearing and micro-jerks, while benefiting from a perfect sharpness of moving objects. In addition, the system does not flicker even below 80 Hz.

We measured the afterglow time at 6 ms with the overdrive (OD Variable in French in the OSD) set to level 3. This value makes it possible to limit the ghosting (ghosting effect) while avoiding that of reverse ghosting which appears with higher settings (levels 4 and 5). This is an excellent afterglow time, especially for an Ultra HD IPS panel. This monitor does better than the Asus TUF VG27AQ which, with its 8 ms, is considered the most responsive IPS Quad HD monitor on the market. However, we find more responsive, like the VA models Samsung Odyssey G7 27 Where 49G9 with an afterglow time of only 4.5 ms, but not yet in Ultra HD. Finally, we measured the display delay (input lag) at 13.5 ms (at 60 Hz). There is therefore no lag between the mouse action and its repercussion on the screen.