The office photo editing area primarily serves photography needs, using a dual-monitor setup with a laptop. Due to the laptop's graphics card limitations, it can only handle one 4K screen and one 1080P screen; even dual 4K performance is unsatisfactory. However, since it's a gaming laptop, the 1080P 165Hz screen is only used occasionally for gaming.
What I'm particularly interested in is this MiniLED panel monitor, currently considered one of the best in the monitor market. Its high color gamut, local dimming backlight, and high refresh rate perfectly meet my needs for both gaming and design.
HKC PG271Q Monitor User Review
Below is the user review. As a monitor suitable for all scenarios, this review will assess it from the perspectives of gaming, multimedia, and design needs.
Appearance/Design
The HKC PG271Q monitor has several commendable design features.
The overall shape is very stylish, evident even in the packaging, especially the stand, which resembles a robotic arm, giving it a futuristic feel.
Packing includes: stand, support arm, monitor body, power adapter, DP cable, instruction manual, etc.
The screen test report included in the box showcases its professional color performance, displaying 99.9% sRGB, 99.9% AdobeRGB, and 95.7% DCI-P3 color gamut parameters—highly professional color performance.
Interface configuration includes: DC power connector, 3.5mm AUDIO audio jack, 2 x HDMI 2.0 connectors, and a DP 1.4 connector.
The AUDIO connector supports audio output; audio signals from HDMI/DP input can be output to desktop speakers or other devices via an AUX audio cable.
The HDMI connector is a 2.0 standard, more than sufficient for a 2K resolution screen. HDMI supports 4K/60Hz, 2K/120Hz, and 1080P/144Hz, 240Hz modes, perfectly adequate for esports. The DP 1.4 connector also supports almost all current output specifications, making it a high-end configuration.
The three-port configuration is quite appealing. The HDMI port allows me to connect to my PS5/Switch, and the DP port connects to my computer, which is more than enough for everyday use. However, the lack of automatic speakers is a bit of a disappointment.
The stand design is excellent, combining the features of a standard stand with a professional support arm.
The snap-on quick-installation design makes assembly and disassembly very convenient and quick, resulting in a pleasing, integrated look.
The base installation is equally convenient.
The support arm is linked to the front panel, ensuring the screen remains vertical when adjusting its height.
The adjustment dial on the connection point has a special term on tripods: a bowl design. It supports stepless rotation and tilting, offering maximum freedom of adjustment. In actual use, the adjustment experience is indeed excellent, with good stability and high compatibility.
There's also an ambient light design on the back. The crescent-shaped design adds a sporty feel and supports RGB lighting effects, but it doesn't support synchronization with other lighting devices, which is a bit of a letdown.
However, compared to adding extra lights on the back, the built-in light strip is still a superior design choice.
The cool gray color scheme closely resembles the metallic color of aluminum alloy, giving it a more metallic feel and a more premium look than ordinary monitors.
The entire unit, especially the back, truly lives up to the "future" tagline, exuding a high-tech feel.
Several noteworthy features include: a MiniLED panel, 99.9% sRGB, 99.9% AdobeRGB, and 95.7% DCI-P3 color gamut, 1000 nits peak brightness, 165Hz refresh rate, and local dimming backlighting.
These are all advantages brought by the MiniLED panel.
Mini LED: Miniaturized LED backlighting technology
Traditional LCDs suffer from insufficient black levels, and LCD screens often exhibit uneven backlighting and light leakage to varying degrees.
To address this situation, backlighting technologies such as edge-lit local dimming and direct-lit full-array backlighting (checkerboard backlighting) have emerged. MiniLED backlighting can be seen as a complete version of direct-lit full-array backlighting, so Mini LED should actually be called an LCD screen using Mini LED backlighting. Mini LED technology allows LED chips to be made extremely small, resulting in more precise light control.
Mini LED backlighting can also directly use RGB three-color LED modules to achieve higher color gamut coverage, significantly improving the panel's color gamut performance, and greatly increasing the number of backlight zones in monitor products.
Compared to traditional panels, MiniLED's advantages are high brightness, high contrast, high color accuracy, and long lifespan. Of course, there is also the even more powerful MicroLED, which is essentially a higher-end version of MiniLED backlighting.
MicroLED is currently more expensive, so MiniLED panels offer better value for money and have seen explosive growth this year.
Screen Quality Evaluation
MiniLED generally has very high quality. For professional photography/video/design needs, let's first look at the screen quality.
Connected to an RTX 3060 graphics card, resolution 2560×1440, refresh rate 165Hz, 10-bit bit depth enabled.
165Hz Refresh Rate
The refresh rate was tested using UFOtest, and it accurately recorded 165fps.
The 165Hz refresh rate is primarily designed for esports gaming. In esports, especially FPS games, fast-paced scene transitions are common. The refresh rate significantly impacts our perception. The human eye's limit for refresh rate recognition is around 300Hz. Compared to a standard 60Hz screen, 165Hz offers a substantial improvement.
For example, comparing 60Hz and 120Hz game screenshots reveals noticeable differences in localized areas. For games, a higher refresh rate results in less ghosting, faster display of details, and no trailing, tearing, or stuttering.
In video processing, we already encounter 120FPS content daily. 120fps is standard for camera/camcorder recording, and a monitor with equivalent specifications is needed for post-processing to display the true effects.
High refresh rates are meaningful for gaming, audio-visual entertainment, and video creation. 165Hz is also a parameter that is slightly higher than the mainstream requirements. High refresh rates are no longer a meaningless pursuit.