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Acer HN274H review

Our Rating :
Price when reviewed : £442
inc VAT

Reasonably good image quality and easy-to-use Nvidia 3D Vision technology, but it’s expensive

3D monitors use either active or passive glasses, and the active camp is currently dominated by Nvidia’s 3D Vision technology. Acer’s new HN274H comes with a pair of Nvidia’s official shutter glasses and has a transmitter built into the monitor itself, so you don’t need to plug in an extra USB box. It has a 27in screen with a Full HD resolution and LED backlighting, as well as VGA, DVI and HDMI inputs, and a 120Hz refresh rate.

Acer HN274H

The HN274H uses glossy black plastic for most of its design, and as soon as you’ve peeled off the protective plastic wrap it inevitably attracts dust. It isn’t ugly, but you certainly wouldn’t want it as the centrepiece of your living room’s entertainment system. Given its three HDMI inputs, Acer seems to want exactly that. The two extra ports are mounted on the side too, and while this allows for easy access it also means cables will stick out.

Setting up 3D for games was fairly straightforward. Nvidia lists supported games on its site, and the choice is quite varied. Games are graded according to how well they support the standard, but even fully supported games had problems during our tests. In Aion, for example, we found that certain objects in the game didn’t appear on the same plane as other objects, causing a painful double-image each time we tried to look at them.

One of the major problems is how to handle the crosshair, because most crosshairs appear at the level of the monitor’s screen rather than the place it should appear in the game. To overcome this, you can set a 3D cursor in the 3D Vision options (available via the Nvidia Control Panel) and turn off the in-game cursor. In games such as Aion, however, there’s no way to turn off the in-game cursor, which moves independently of the direction you’re facing, so we found it hard to select objects.

Happily, watching a Blu-ray film was simplicity itself. You’re prompted to don your 3D glasses and it works. We found the 3D Vision effect more convincing than passive glasses because of its smoother frame rates, but there’s still some evidence of ghosting.

Acer HN274H ports

General image quality is good, but the HN274H is only a TN panel so the image appeared washed-out compared to the rich IPS panels we’ve seen recently. The backlight was a bit uneven and had a slightly cold cast, even though the colour temperature is set to Warm by default. The menu is pretty bare, considering the HN274H’s price, and you only get brightness and contrast controls, as well as a choice of Warm, Cool or User colour temperatures.

Even the preset image modes are limited, having a choice of Standard, Graphics, Movie, User and Eco. Thankfully, the colour accuracy is reasonably good and contrast is quite impressive for a TN panel. In the night-time airport scene in Casino Royale, we could just about see the seams in the black leather boots worn by Bond’s adversary. Viewing angles are also quite forgiving.

Our main problem with the HN274H is its price, which reflects the inclusion of Nvidia’s shutter specs. The space-age Samsung S27A950D has a brighter, more vibrant screen, its 3D glasses work with both AMD and Nvidia graphics cards, and it’s also a bit cheaper.

Basic Specifications

Rating***

Physical

Viewable size27 in
Native resolution1,920×1,080
Contrast ratio1,000:1 (100,000,000:1 dynamic)
Brightness300cd/m²
Horizontal viewing angle170°
Vertical viewing angle160°
Response time2ms
Response time typeblack-to-black
Screen depth47mm
Base (WxD)269x192mm
Screen elevation102mm

Features

Portrait modeno
Wall mount optionyes
Height adjustableno
Internal speakersyes (2x 2W)
Detachable cablesyes
USB hubnone
Integrated power supplyyes
Kensington lock lugyes
Display extras3x HDMI, 120Hz
VGA inputyes
DVI inputyes
S-video inputno
Component inputno
Composite inputno
HDCP supportyes
Audio inputs3.5mm line in

Environmental

Power consumption standby1W
Power consumption on35W

Buying Information

Price£442
Supplierhttp://www.amazon.co.uk
Detailswww.acer.co.uk
Warrantytwo years RTB

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