Acer Nitro XZ322QU V3bmiiphx Monitor Review

The Acer Nitro 31.5 WQHD curved gaming monitor has an understated appearance that works well in either a gaming or office environment. The bottom of the back panel has line etchings, and at the front the bottom bezel is thicker than the other three sides.

The build quality is decent. The materials feel good, and the monitor is sturdy. However, the stand doesn't hold the monitor firmly, as it allows a lot of wobble if someone bumps the monitor.

The ergonomics are okay. While you can make any adjustment in a horizontal position, the monitor's swivel mechanism has limited range. It also doesn't have anything to assist with cable management.

Because the stand doesn't have a quick-release mount, you need to unscrew the stand to remove the display. The thickness measurement is from the edge of the monitor to the back of the stand. In the middle, it's only 6.3" (16 cm) from the front of the monitor to the back of the stand.

The thickness measurement is from the edges of the monitor to the back. Because the monitor is curved, the thickness in the middle is 2.0" (5.1 cm).

The monitor has a joystick that serves as a power button and controls the on-screen display.

• DisplayPort cable
• HDMI cable
• Power cable and supply
• Documentation

The contrast is excellent. You can see fairly deep blacks next to bright highlights, though the monitor doesn't have a local dimming feature to improve this performance.

Though the Acer XZ322QU doesn't have local dimming, we still film these videos so you can compare the backlight performance with a monitor that has local dimming.

Settings

• Mode: User (after calibration)
• Color Space: Standard
• Brightness: Max
• ACM: Off
• Super Sharpness: Off

The SDR brightness is great. It's bright enough to fight glare in most situations except for intense direct light. Its brightness also doesn't vary with different content, which is excellent.

Settings

• Picture Mode: HDR
• HDR Mode: HDR-400
• Super Sharpness: Off

The HDR brightness is alright. While it's bright enough to overcome glare in most environments, it doesn't get bright enough for highlights to pop. That said, its PQ EOTF tracking is good, as there's a sharp cut-off at peak brightness, so highlights get as bright as possible.

The monitor enables Super Sharpness by default when HDR is in use. However, this can cause a shimmering effect with some content, and if this bothers you, it's better to turn it off.

Sometimes, if you change the HDR setting from 'Off' to either 'Auto' or 'HDR-400,' the monitor will apply what looks like an HDR filter over SDR content while listing it as an HDR signal. You can avoid this from happening by turning HDR off on the monitor when you're not receiving an HDR signal. The only reliable indicator of the monitor receiving an HDR signal is the brightness and color settings being locked-out.

The horizontal viewing angle is disappointing. The slightly curved screen helps reduce washout for a single viewer sitting directly in front of the monitor. However, it looks quite washed out and slightly green for anyone sitting next to you.

The vertical viewing angle is poor. Whether you're looking at the monitor from above or below, the image washes out and starts to look slightly green.

The gray uniformity is very good. While there's a notable amount of variability close to the edges, the center of the screen is fairly uniform.

The black uniformity is sub-par. You can clearly see backlight bleed along the edges of the screen, particularly in the corners. Additionally, this monitor doesn't have a local dimming feature to improve this performance.

The accuracy before calibration is excellent in the 'Standard' Picture Mode. The color temperature is close to the 6500K target, and the white balance is excellent. Additionally, color accuracy is great, and the gamut mostly stays within the sRGB range. However, brighter parts of scenes are too bright.

While this monitor has an 'sRGB' Color Space mode, it performs much worse than the 'Standard' Color Space mode. As long as you're not using the 'sRGB' mode, nothing is locked out. If you do choose to use the sRGB mode the following settings are locked out:

• Contrast
• Low Blue Light
• ACM
• Black Boost
• Gamma
• Color Temp
• Grayscale Mode
• 6-axis Hue
• 6-axis Saturate

The Acer XZ322QU's accuracy after calibration is outstanding, and you won't notice any inaccuracies.

The SDR color gamut is fantastic. It covers nearly all of the commonly used sRGB color space, but it has much less coverage of Adobe RGB. Additionally, green, red, and cyan are quite inaccurate in this space.

The HDR gamut is mediocre. It displays a limited range of colors in the commonly used DCI-P3 color space and an even more limited range in Rec. 2020. Additionally, a number of colors are somewhat inaccurate in both color spaces, though this is particularly true in Rec. 2020.

The HDR color volume is adequate. It doesn't display brighter colors vividly, and darker colors are a bit washed out.

The text clarity is good. Using Windows ClearType (top photo) helps improve the boldness of letters and makes them easier to read. These photos are in Windows 10, and you can also see them in Windows 11 with ClearType on and with ClearType off.

The reflection handling is good. Though the matte screen effectively diffuses light, its reflections can be distracting if you place it opposite a sunny window.

The gradient handling is fantastic. There's minimal banding between shades of similar colors.

This monitor supports FreeSync VRR and is G-SYNC compatible, but it doesn't support HDMI Forum VRR.

The motion handling is decent across its VRR range. While the 'Normal' setting has the best motion handling down to just above 60Hz, 'Off' also performs fairly well and has less inverse ghosting below 60Hz. However, the 'Extreme' setting doesn't perform well at any refresh rate. Its CAD is so high that it exceeds the limit of our default graph, though you can see its performance in an alternate graph.

The refresh rate compliance is good. However, its response time isn't fast enough to make full-color transitions before the monitor begins drawing the next frame.

The CAD at the max refresh rate of 180Hz is great, and there's not too much blur or ghosting, though there is some smearing in darker shades. The recommended Over Drive setting is 'Normal,' as 'Off' has much more blur, and 'Extreme' has much more inverse ghosting.

The CAD at 120Hz is decent, with only a moderate amount of blur or ghosting, though there is some smearing in darker shades. The recommended Over Drive setting is 'Normal,' as 'Off' has much more blur, and 'Extreme' has much more inverse ghosting.

The CAD at 60Hz is decent, with only a moderate amount of blur or ghosting, though there's more smearing than at 120Hz. The recommended Over Drive setting is 'Normal,' as 'Off' has much more blur, and 'Extreme' has a bit more inverse ghosting.

The Acer Nitro XZ322QU has a backlight strobing feature called VRB to reduce persistence blur. However, you can only use it at 180Hz or 120Hz, and it causes image duplication. If you try to adjust brightness while VRB is on it turns off.

The 'Longest Pulse Width Brightness' measurement is from the 'Normal' VRB mode, while the 'Shortest Pulse Width Brightness' measurement is from the 'Extreme' VRB mode.

While this monitor doesn't have VRR flicker in brighter scenes, it does have flicker in the darkest parts of scenes. Even though the flicker isn't immediately apparent, it's not hard to spot again once you see it.

The backlight is completely flicker-free, which helps reduce eye strain if you're sensitive to it.

Settings

Ultra-Low Latency: On

The input lag is very low. The input lag is slightly higher when Ultra-Low Latency is turned 'Off' or when you're using backlight strobing (VRB), as you can see below:

The Backlight Strobing (BFI) measurement is with VRB set to 'Extreme' and Ultra-Low Latency 'On.' 

This monitor only supports some of the PS5's capabilities. Additionally, while it supports HDR, you need to manually set the monitor to 'HDR 400' for the PS5 to recognize it as HDR-capable.

This monitor works well with the Xbox Series X|S. However, while it supports HDR, you need to manually set the monitor to 'HDR 400' for the Xbox to recognize it as HDR-capable. The Xbox only supports HDR with 4k signals, so HDR only working at 4k isn't a limitation of the monitor.

While some sites list this monitor having DisplayPort 1.4 bandwidth, we can confirm this monitor has DisplayPort 1.2 bandwidth.

The Acer XZ322QU V3bmiiphx works well with macOS. If you're using a MacBook, closing the lid migrates windows from the MacBook to the Acer's display if you have a keyboard and mouse attached. When re-opening the MacBook or resuming from sleep, windows return to their previous position. HDR looks good, provided you turn off the Super Sharpness feature, which is on by default in HDR.

The Acer Nitro XZ322QU V3bmiiphx has some extra features, like:

• Aim Point: Displays a virtual crosshair that your game's anti-cheating tool won't detect.
• Black Boost: Brightens darker parts of scenes so that it's easier to see opponents better in games.
• Low Blue Light: Reduces blue light to help reduce eye strain.
• Refresh Rate Num: Displays the current refresh rate of the display.

You can learn more about the monitor's settings in the user manual. You can access it by expanding the 'Documents' section of the Product Support page.