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Acer ConceptD CP3271K Review: A Gorgeous Panel

In the early part of last year Acer unveiled a new category of products called ConceptD, which ARE specifically designed with content creators in mind. The range is therefore a little bit more expensive than the usual offerings that the Taiwanese manufacturer brings to the market, and aimed at swaying the Mac crowd.

So what’s Acer’s alternative when it comes to monitors? Well the ConceptD CP3271K is the answer in that regard. No the name doesn’t roll off the tongue like iMac does, as well as not being an All-In-One PC, but Acer has touted the superb visuals that it can deliver.

To find out if it can indeed live up to Acer’s billing, we took the CP3271K for a spin both at the office and at home. Here’s what we learned about the company’s content creator-focused monitor.

For serious setups

The first thing that struck us about the CP3271K is that it is a serious bit of kit. The box alone is bigger than most monitors of the same dimensions (27″) we’ve reviewed in the past.

While the packaging is imposing, setup on the CP3271K is rather simple. There is no need to attach the stand to the monitor for example, with only the three screen window accessories being elements you’d need to put together.

While getting the CP3271K out of its packaging is simple enough the primary ports, located beneath the display, are a little harder to reach. If you plan to move the monitor around the office throughout the day, or perhaps use a bevy of different cables to connect what you need to, the CP3271K may not be the most user friendly option out there.

As such this monitor is one you’re going to want to set up once and leave as is, becoming the central hub for all your content creation moving forward.

Shifting to some of the features that Acer has imbued the CP3271K with, the aforementioned stand has a central column that can raise or lower the display depending on your preferred height. It can also rotate into a portrait position, which is ideally suited for some large scale coding or backend web design work.

Sticking with the central column for a moment, it moves smoothly enough, but did shift whenever we tried moving the monitor to different positions in the office. This is not a dealbreaker, and more than likely not the usual use case for the monitor, but we thought it warranted a mention here.

Blooming into life

Once you’re setup and you power the CP3271K on, things don’t get off on the most promising of starts. The ConceptD logo appears in white against a black background on screen, and it looks rather pixelated, which isn’t the most confidence inspiring thing.

Luckily this is quickly abated as the screen quality once in actual use is superb.

There are a few resolutions settings, with the maximum being up to 4K UHD (3840×2160). The refresh also peaks at 144Hz, but both of these elements felt like slight overkill when we were doing more simple work-related tasks. For writing and editing documents, the Full HD resolution proved more than suitable.

Even at this level, icons, text and graphics look several degrees sharper than they do on our regular Full HD monitor. Here there is a degree of crispness and colour accuracy that it really pleasing, with it being more so when the resolution is bumped up for watching or doing more visually taxing work.

Said colour accuracy, to put into numbers, delivers 90 percent of the DCI-P3 colour gamut. This is particularly important when editing video and images, to ensure a specific standard of quality throughout. It also means the CP3271K is offering professional levels of colour accuracy, which content creators will specifically gravitate towards.

What we were also impressed by was the addition of Nvidia G-Sync and its ability to offer variable refresh rates for a smooth and unencumbered graphics performance. This is not billed as a gaming PC, but if you were looking to use the CP3271K in a few different scenarios, such as video editing, 3D motion work and some gaming on the side, it is adept at all three.

A couple of oddities

Now that we’ve waxed lyrical about the visuals on offer from the CP3271K, let’s touch on the elements that left us a little puzzled. Granted they are few and far between, but it seems like Acer may have missed a trick with a couple.

First the design flourish of a faux-wooden base. When we set up this monitor in the office, it was the first thing that people inspected, and quickly got disappointed by, as the wooden grain shown was artificial. We know that Acer can’t use actual wood for this monitor, but it feels like the firm could have done more to make it feel like the genuine article.

Added to this is the fact that the wooden base looks a bit of place against the silver column and black shell of the monitor. As such each of three elements do not meld well together, and some greater care could have been directed here.

We also need to note of one time that a strange white noise sounded bellowed from the onboard speakers (two 4W speakers), which may have only happened once, but was the first time such an oddity occurred for any monitor we were reviewing at the office.

Again, these are not deal breaking problems, but when Acer is fighting to win the attention of content creators who want hardware that performs solidly, as well as looking great, it feels like more can be done in future.

Final verdict

In the spectrum of high quality content creation monitors out there, the Acer CP3271K is on the more affordable side at R17 999 (RRP).

Yes that is still a fair chunk of change, but there is definitely a lot on offer with this monitor. The 27″ display is fantastic for one, catering to different types of tasks expertly, and works with very little fuss, allowing you to focus on the important stuff – content creation.

We have a couple of gripes, but those are quickly put to the side when weighed against the screen quality and solid overall performance on offer here.

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