Asus ROG Swift PG27AQDM review

This 27-inch (26.5-inch precise) has a WOLED panel with 2560x1440p resolution and 240Hz refresh rate. It supports HDR10 thanks to its 450nits max brightness and 1,000nits peak brightness (in 3% of the display) for HDR content. Games like  God of War Ragnarok  and  Ghost of Tsushima  look gorgeous. Everything on this monitor looks pitch-perfect from glimmering waters to dark caves. The 135% sRGB colourspace is so well calibrated out of the box that you don’t need to tinker with the monitor’s colour settings. Skin tones in movies and games pop with life. HDR brightness is impressive. The matte finish keeps glare away, and while I prefer glossy for my PC, the colours here didn’t look subdued.

The ROG Swift has a thick heatsink that lets Asus push the brightness higher than the competition, and the Uniform Brightness setting keeps things uniform before the automatic brightness limiter (ABL) can fiddle with the brightness. However, the Asus doesn’t have the same control over blacks as the  Alienware AW2723DF .   The monitor favours a slightly saturated look, so darker scenes have more contrast hence, the blacks are slightly crushed in the process. You can bring the details out from the settings on SDR mode, but you can’t adjust the setting for it in HDR. However, for pitch-dark scenes, this monitor will give you the best blacks because it's an OLED monitor of course. You might have to turn on the anti-flicker setting because there was a ton of flickering while playing God of War Ragnarok with Frame Generation on Nvidia GPUs.

You get support for G-Sync, VRR and AMD FreeSync Premium here but this monitor doesn't have HDMI 2.1, which is a bummer at this price. You'll only get up to 120Hz on HDMI. DisplayPort is the way to go for the full 240Hz refresh rate, so it's more geared towards PC gaming. That said, the picture quality is crispy, no matter which game you play and where you play. The response times of OLED monitors are usually instantaneous and the ROG Swift is no different. It’s sharp, smooth and bright!

Now, if you're thinking about using the Asus Swift for office work, there's a catch. The RWBG sub-pixel layout can cause some annoying fringing around text and high-contrast backgrounds. This is mainly a Windows issue, but it's still something to keep in mind.

The Pixel Cleaning kicks in at regular intervals to make sure the OLED burn-in problem is well avoided, however, it prompts a bit too much and might get distracting during an intense multiplayer game.

Asus has aced the design and unboxing experience of this monitor. It has cables and accessories neatly put in a pouch, and the included stand has height adjustment, pivot, tilt and swivel adjustments along with a screw on top for a camera or ring light. The stand can also project light on the desk with swappable ROG logos. The bezels are super thin and the rear of this monitor looks like a piece of art at times. It’s not chunky or boring like most monitors. The whole design aesthetic screams premium and has the typical ROG design language with sharp edges and angular shapes.

The Asus ROG Swift PG27AQDM is a seriously awesome OLED gaming monitor. The display is amazing, the colours are spot-on, and the HDR performance is impressive. It looks sleek and you can customize the RGB lighting, which is a cool touch. But, it doesn't have HDMI 2.1, which is a bummer, and there are some minor text issues in Windows. Overall though, if you're a gamer looking for the best visuals possible, this monitor is a fantastic choice.