Acer Nitro XV282K (KVbmiipruzx) HDMI 2.1 Monitor Review

Acer has been pushing the boundaries of monitor technology for years now, providing the marketplace with some of the best gaming monitors we’ve seen in recent times. Recently, Acer has released a slew of new gaming panels that are arguably some of the most exciting 2021 has to offer. Today, we’ll be reviewing one of the latest premium Nitro gaming monitors, the Acer Nitro XV282K KVbmiipruzx – a high-end 4K UHD IPS gaming monitor that not only offers stunning image quality and color accuracy but also boasts a high 144Hz refresh rate and rapid 1ms GTG response time.

We’ll be putting the Nitro XV282K through a number of different testing scenarios to see how it stacks up in build quality, color accuracy, gaming performance, and overall value for money – comparing to similarly priced alternatives as and when we can.

So, with plenty to get through, let’s waste no further time and dive straight into it!

Acer Nitro XV282K: Specifications

What's In The Box

Like other Nitro monitors, the XV282K comes in a fairly uncharacteristic box that only offers limited marketing material around the exterior. Inside, users will find the monitor unassembled from the stand. Construction of the stand is required before users can use the monitor, with a simple clip-on mechanism attaching the stand to the rear of the monitor. No tools are required for the construction of the Nitro XV282K.

The monitor comes well protected inside the box, packaged in two robust layers of styrofoam padding which ensure no damage occurs during transit.

Inside the Acer Nitro XV282K box, you will find the following items:

• Acer Nitro XV282K Monitor
• DisplayPort Cable
• HDMI cable
• Power cable and power pack
• Thunderbolt Cable
• USB Passthrough
• Quick Start Guide
• Warranty

Design

With specifications out the way, let’s take a closer look at the build quality, design, and mechanical features this monitor comes equipped with.

Design

The Acer Nitro XV282K definitely sports a more premium styling than some of the other monitors within this particular lineup. The large 27-inch screen offers a near borderless design that is accentuated by a thin, dual-stage bezel. The bottom bezel is the largest of the four, sporting Acer’s logo in subtle fashion on the lower left-hand corner. On the other corner, users will find an ‘Agile-splendor’ IPS logo alongside a deltaE color accuracy sticker.

The base of the stand is circular by design and doesn’t offer quite as much stability as ‘V’ shaped alternatives. That being said, it gives the Nitro XV282K a subtle design aesthetic that isn’t nearly as gamey as Acer’s predator lineup. In the centre of the bottom bezel, users will find the auto-brightness sensor – just adding to the premium feel of the monitor’s aesthetic.

Moving to the rear of the monitor, we find a cylindrical stand that offers plenty of adjustment and versatility. The base of the stand provides a small hook for cable management, finished in an off-red coloring. The rear of the stand houses a two-tone aesthetic that is characterized by the brushed aluminum finish at the top. Acer’s logo can be seen in the top right-hand corner of the panel, with four buttons and a joystick found underneath – used for the OSD navigation. On the other side, users will find a couple of USB ports, allowing easy access for peripherals or charging devices.

Build Quality

Whilst the Nitro name normally lends itself to budget-tailored monitors, the same can not be said for the XV282K. This monitor will retail for roughly $899, meaning build quality should be to the highest level.

Upon first impressions, this is definitely a nicely built monitor. That being said, I’m still not happy with the quality of the bottom bezel – it just feels completely flimsy and is forever tempting me to rip it off. Apart from that though, this monitor is pretty solid.

The panel itself, apart from what was mentioned above, feels extremely well-built – with all fittings being nicely constructed. During robustness testing, I didn’t experience any creaking or flexing of the rear of the monitor. The stand feels extremely resilient and holds the monitor in place firmly. I didn’t experience any wobble during gaming sessions, even when actively trying to make it wobble – which was impressive in itself.

Overall, the Nitro XV282K scored very highly in the build quality department. It’s just a shame about that bottom bezel.

Panel Coating

Like most modern panels, the Acer Nitro XV282K comes with an anti-glare panel coating that has a matte finish (in 3H hardness). The coating does a fantastic job of mitigating both natural and man-made light sources but can pick up plenty of fingerprints during usage.

That being said, due to the immersive nature of the panel, fingerprints weren’t detrimental to the viewing experience.

Bezels

The XV282K comes with thin bezels that measure in at 7/8mm top and sides by 21mm at the base. As we mentioned earlier, the bottom bezel feels far from robust – so just be aware if you are planning on purchasing this panel.

The dual-stage bezels do give a borderless feel to the panel which, in almost every scenario, leads to greater levels of immersion.

Stand

Acer has equipped the Nitro XV282K with a very versatile stand, offering height, tilt, swivel, and pivot adjustments. Users can choose to use the monitor in both landscape and portrait mode, depending on their preference. Moving the monitor into a landscape position is extremely easy to do – unlike other monitors that often catch on the base of the stand.

The circular base doesn’t offer the best stability I’ve ever seen, but it’s far from the worst either. With its metal construction, the stand on this monitor is very decent, allowing easy adjustment for your required viewing position.

Below are the exact specifications of the stand:

• Forward Tilt – 5 degrees
• Backward Tilt – 25 degrees
• Left Swivel – 180 degrees
• Right Swivel – 180 degrees
• Pivot – 90 degrees
• Height – 120mm

As we mentioned earlier, the stand offers a small cable management system at the base in the shape of a small red hook. Whilst this does help with cable management, it isn’t nearly as effective as other brand’s solutions.

Inputs

Inputs can be found at the rear of the monitor and cables are inserted in a vertical fashion, as you’d expect. One of the most exciting features of this monitor is the HDMI 2.1 facility it offers – allowing users to get 120Hz from both PS5 and XBOX consoles in 4K resolution.

This monitor has a tonne of inputs to utilize, including 2 x HDMI 2.1, 1 x DisplayPort 1.4, 1 x Thunderbolt, and a complete USB hub. For most users, this is more than enough versatility.

OSD

The OSD (on-screen display) for the Acer Nitro XV282K is extremely easy to use and self intuitive. To navigate the various menus, Acer has equipped the XV282K with a 5-way joystick and 4 additional buttons on the rear of the panel.

Inside the OSD, users can adjust all the usual suspects, including color, picture, and gaming settings. We’ll be going over the best OSD settings later on in the article.

The design of the OSD feels a little old school but is in no way ugly. Once you’ve found the settings that best suit your needs, simply save them to one of the profiles available.

Color Accuracy & Picture Quality

Great colors and excellent picture quality are two of the main factors that help create immersion while your gaming. Despite the importance of good color, monitor manufacturers don’t always calibrate the color to what is deemed accurate within specific color spectrums – sRGB/Rec.709 for example.

We like to test each monitor for color reproduction to see how they would perform in color-accurate 0scenarios.

Here are the results for the Acer Nitro XV282K.

Like always, we started by testing the monitor right out the box. For users who don’t like to tamper with color settings in the OSD, this is a pretty important factor. The factory settings for this monitor are as follows; 100 candelas of brightness, warm color temperature, and ‘low blue light’ set to Standard. Max brightness was also disabled and ‘mode’ was set to standard.

Out the box, colors were OK but nothing spectacular. White point sat at 6268K alongside a decent 0.10 black depth. Contrast ratio was above the marketed 1000:1 (1096:1), with gamma reading 2.09. Average deltaE saw a 1.95 score, with brightness sitting at 100 candelas – acceptable for long daytime viewing.

Running the sRGB preset did offer better results, especially in the average deltaE department. That said, white balance and black depth were almost identical as out the box settings. Contrast ratio took a slight dip and measured in at 978:1. Color accuracy was good, resulting in a 1.03 average – acceptable (albeit not the best) for people that need color accurate work. Gamma measured 2.14.

I had a look through some of the various presets available, but few were worth testing for color accuracy. The following presets are available; Action, Racing, Sports, User, Standard, ECO, Graphics, and HDR. This is fairly standard for Acer monitors, with many offering the exact same pallet to choose from.

That said, I ran the Racing preset through the colorimeter out of curiosity. As expected, it wasn’t nearly as accurate as the other settings we tested. White point was 6291K and black depth was 0.25 (the worst we recorded). Contrast ratio also took a large dip, sitting at 747:1. Average DeltaE was the most disappointing result, averaging out at 3.35.

I finished by testing the User preset. It offers good white point and OK black depth. Contrast ratio was decent and gamma read 2.09. Average DeltaE was 2.37, making this preset poor from a color accuracy standpoint.

After testing the various presets, I wasted no time and decided to calibrate the panel, recording color gamut, panel uniformity, and overall color accuracy.

We chose the ‘User’ color setting and altered the RGB to 47/39/50.

Here are the results:

After calibrating the monitor using a colorimeter, the Acer Nitro XV282K showcased much more accurate colors – as you’d expect. After calibration, a perfect white balance of 6491K was recorded, alongside a 0.22 black depth. Strangely, after calibration, the XV282K only offered a 537:1 contrat ratio – almost half the marketed 1000:1. More impressive, however, was the average deltaE – which now resulted in a 0.29 average. A maximum deltaE of 1.41 was also recorded, with gamma reading 2.19.

Ultimately, whilst this isn’t the most accurate panel we’ve ever tested, it’s still not bad for a monitor geared towards gamers – and not professional editors.

Panel Uniformity

Panel uniformity is a test we run to check how uniform the luminance and color is across the entirety of the screen. During this test, the center square is used as the reference space. Every other square is then tested to see how far it differentiates from the reference.

In an ideal world, we want every square to be green, meaning it hasn’t broken the differential threshold – something we can set at the start of the test.

Note: results will differ from panel to panel.

Taking a closer look at panel uniformity, the XV282K actually performed quite well. As far as color and luminance uniformity go, the majority of the panel we received scored a ‘pass’ score – lower than the deviation percentage we set at the start of the test.

This is going to be a great monitor for viewing content that has large blocks of color – a football or tennis match, for example.

Viewing Angles

Like other monitors making use of IPS panels, the Acer Nitro XV282K offered up very good viewing angles. Even at obscure angles of around 50+ degrees, you could easily see the monitor with very little deviation in both color and luminance. This monitor would be perfectly acceptable for multiperson usage, especially co-op gaming.

Color Gamut

As part of the calibration process, the DisplayCal will give an accurate measurement of the color gamut the monitor can provide. Below are the results of the color gamut test:

As you can see from the results above, the Acer Nitro XV282K offers a wide color gamut that far exceeds the sRGB space. With 127.7% sRGB volume, the XV282K can display a much wider range of color than lesser alternatives. We also recorded an 83.1% Adobe RGB and 86.8% DCI-P3 color coverage – putting this panel into the higher end of the color gamut spectrums – if such a thing exists.

Looking at the physical color gamut graph, you can see where the Acer Nitro XV282K extends past the sRGB space. It is particularly clear in the green and red sections of the color space. Overall, from a color accuracy and gamut standpoint, this monitor exceeds the needs of most general gamers. It offers fantastic colors and a wide color gamut, resulting in an immersive experience that is a joy to view.

Maximum And Minimum Brightness

We ended the color accuracy and picture quality testing by checking the maximum brightness, minimum brightness, and 120 candelas points on this panel. The results are below:

Brightness	Candelas
100% Brightness	293.33cd/m²
0% Brightness	30.45cd/m²
30 Brightness	120 cd/m²

Calibrated Profile

For those who want to use our calibrated color profile, you will find a link below where you can download the zip file.

Acer Nitro XV282K: Gaming Performance

With color accuracy out of the way, it’s time to put the Acer Nitro XV282K through a number of different gaming scenarios to see how it stacks up in pixel response, input lag, and HDR content. Let’s dive straight into it!

I started off with a few competitive titles to see how the monitor stacked up from a response standpoint. Before playing, I cranked the refresh rate up to 144Hz (in the GPU display settings), enabled Over Drive, and set VRB (visual response boost) to ‘normal’.  So, as I was saying, the first game I loaded was CS:GO – a fast-paced shooter where players actually gain an advantage over their competition by having quicker refresh rates and response times.

I began by playing some deathmatch which left me feeling incredibly positive about this panel. I had just finished testing the Acer Nitro XV252Q – a 390Hz 24.5″ monitor – and the difference between the two was very slender. Granted, the XV252Q did feel a little faster, but nothing overly obvious. The 144hz refresh rate of the XV282K was more than enough to keep me up to speed with many of the players in the server. Players moving quickly were extremely clear, with gun sprays and rushes offering much more clarity than slower alterantives. As I was tampering with the monitor’s OSD settings, I did notice that cranking the Over Drive up to ‘Extreme’ would result in slight amounts of overshoot. Whilst it wasn’t completely detrimental to gameplay, it was definitely noticeable. Furthermore, VRB mode cranked up to ‘Extreme’ would reduce the brightness exponentially. It also provided a jittery feel to the gameplay when used in tandem with Over Drive at ‘Extreme’ that was fairly unpleasant. That being said, when you find the perfect balance between the two settings, the gameplay was incredibly immersive.

Playing games such as Shadow Of The Tomb Raider and CyberPunk only made my impression of this monitor go up. The 27″ panel offered a good size for general game immersion, resulting in a connected feel that was great for both casual and competitive play. I enabled high dynamic range for both SOTTR and Cyberpunk, but was left a little disappointed by the results. HDR400 certification is the entry-level standard, only adding limited detail to bright and dark areas. With no local dimming, the HDR this monitor offers is fairly pointless. That being said, gaming in 4K really is a joy to experience. Granted, most people will probably struggle to reach the 144 frames required to get the best visual experience from this panel – but if you can, it really is exceptional.

Let’s not forget about that HDMI 2.1 support either. Console gamers have been eagerly awaiting monitors with this input support – well, the Nitro XV282K serves you well. It allows both PlayStation and Xbox users to reach 120Hz when playing in 4K. Yes, support for this facility is still limited, but it really does make the difference when compared side by side to a lesser panel.

There are some downsides though – and not just the jittering that comes with VRB and Over Drive. Firstly, if you’re in the market for this monitor, not only are you going to have to splash a healthy $800, but you’ll also require a powerful PC to boot. In 4K, AAA gaming is incredibly demanding. Many GPUs are unable to reach over 100FPS in this particular format – making gameplay less than enjoyable. Whilst you will be able to utilize the variable refresh rate support – you should always be aiming to hit high FPS with limited drops.

Final Thoughts

So, there you have it, our comprehensive review of the Acer Nitro XV282K – one of the latest 4K 144Hz monitors the market has to offer. The only question left to answer is, do we feel it offers good value for money?

Well, let’s start from the top. The Acer Nitro XV282K is a 4K gaming monitor that offers up 144Hz refresh rate with a quick 1ms GTG response time. It comes equipped with FreeSync Premium support, HDR400 certification, and a fairly color-accurate IPS panel at its heart. For many, this is the holy grail of monitor specifications, offering up high-end picture clarity alongside esports levels of speed and response. Furthermore, with HDMI 2.1 support, console gamers will finally be able to relish in 4K gaming at 120Hz refresh rate – something that was previously unavailable.

The XV282K will launch for around $899, putting it into the higher end of the price spectrum. However, when you compare this to other 4K 144Hz monitors, you’d have to say the XV282K offers pretty good value for money. Yes, it might fall short in the features department, but it still offers a very enjoyable gaming experience where it matters. If you prioritize picture clarity and smooth gameplay, you really won’t be disappointed by this panel.