Acer raises the bar for high frame-rate gamers, extending its 25-inch Predator XB252 up to 27 inches and bringing with it a maximum refresh of 240Hz. At $680 (approximately £620, AU$1,050) It's not the cheapest G-Sync monitor around, but at the moment it's one of the few to refresh that fast. And for a TN panel, it's pretty good.(Don't confuse this with the as-yet-unavailable XB272-HDR, which has a completely different panel.)

The trade-off, though, is resolution, which is also the same as the smaller panel. That means you can drive a truck between the pixels -- OK, not really, but it does mean that for doing things other than playing games it's not very sharp. For games, you can use G-Sync DSR to increase the perceived resolution.

Price (MSRP)	$680, approximately £620, AU$1,050
Panel type	TN
Backlight type	WLED
Size (diagonal)	27
PWM backlight dimming	n/a
Resolution	HD (1,920 x 1,080)
Aspect ratio	16:9
Pixel pitch (mm)	0.31
Maximum gamut	100 percent sRGB
Rotates vertically	Yes
Bit depth	8
Typical brightness (nits)	400
Selectable/custom picture modes	Yes/No
Sync standard	G-Sync
Maximum vertical refresh rate (at HD or higher resolution)	240Hz
Gray/gray response time (milliseconds)	1
Black/white response time (milliseconds)	n/a
Release date	April 2017

The XB272's layout is pretty typical, with onscreen display controls on the back right. The buttons are a little flat and hard to feel, but they're supplemented by a joystick that makes it much easier to navigate the menus than typical up- and down-arrow buttons. You can map two of the buttons directly to menu options, a nice perk.

It has a reasonably broad set of options. Among the various presets there are three gaming-specific ones that change the brightness, refresh rate and white point settings. There's also a selection of three optional target overlays, adaptive contrast, and a decent set of display options for color and brightness.