ASUS ROG Swift PG278Q G-SYNC Monitor Review

sRGB Data and Bench Tests

Before calibration, the ASUS ROG monitor displays a blue tint to the grayscale but it keeps the overall grayscale errors below the visible error level of 3.0 dE2000. The gamma tracks low, at closer to 2.0 than 2.2, which will give the image a bit more of a washed-out look than the proper gamma will. The larger errors exist in the color gamut, where there is an oversaturation to reds, yellows, oranges, and especially blues. Blue has both a tint and saturation issues, and the errors there grow steadily as the saturation ramps from 0% to 100%. Unfortunately, since the ASUS ROG has no internal LUT, like most displays, these color errors probably cannot be fixed.

For calibration, we use SpectraCal CalMAN 5.3.5 with our own custom workflow. We target 200 cd/m2 of light output with a gamma of 2.2 and the sRGB color gamut, which corresponds to a general real-world use case. The meters used are an i1Pro2 provided by X-Rite and a SpectraCal C6. All measurements use APL 50% patterns except for uniformity testing, which uses full field.

Post-calibration the gamma and RGB balance are almost perfect. The average grayscale dE2000 falls to below 0.6 which is invisible to the naked eye. The only issue is the contrast ratio, but I believe that is a bad reading at 0% since it is coming out much higher than our black reading at maximum backlight earlier. The contrast ratio should be closer to 850:1 based on the amount of fixing needed for the RGB balance. The 80 cd/m2 measurements will back this up, so this number is just a bad read.

Colors are better, because the luminance values have improved, but the overall errors are still high due to over-saturation of certain colors. Blue continues to be the worst, followed by yellow, with all skin tones on the color checker showing errors close to 3.0. On photos of people they look a bit sunburnt, as the saturation of reds and oranges is too high, compared to a proper display. It isn’t awful, but it isn’t a monitor I would use for photo editing either. Since ASUS positions the ROG for gamers I don’t think this is a big deal as the numbers are close enough. The pre-calibration numbers are really more important here, and those indicate a bit more of this red push than after calibration.

Changing our targets to 80 cd/m2 and the sRGB gamma curve, we see similar results on another calibration. The contrast ratio here is 859:1, indicating there was a bad read earlier on the 200 cd/m2 data. The RGB balance is again perfect though the gamma curve not as much. sRGB is harder to get right, and it is dimmer providing less room for adjustment, so this isn’t surprising.

Colors show the exact same issues as with 200 cd/m2 since adjusting the backlight level doesn’t affect the saturation of the colors. People look like they have gotten a bit too much sun compared to what they should look like. For gaming, where the colors are just imaginary to begin with, I don’t think this is a big problem but it just means it can’t serve double-duty as a display for editing photos or other things. Movies will also look a bit off on it, but no worse than a regular TV will before a calibration.