Neotez Aquila 27 Gaming Monitor Review: The Underdog

Monitor is always on demand, and in the last two years, it also happens to be one of the popular purchases for Work from home setup. But if you notice, monitors were never sold at SRP. Due to the shortage, prices went up and has yet to come down. Currently, there’s a new player in town which wants to shake and disrupt with their offerings. Neotez is a completely new player, and they made three gaming monitors. We received the Neotez Aquila 27 Gaming Monitor for review, and it’s quite the underdog.

Design and Build

1/9

Right out of the box, while it may seem like it has a very basic design as per some monitors we see in the price range, the Neotez Aquila 27 Gaming Monitor brings some versatility to the table. We particularly asked the 27” as it is a sweet spot of a monitor, as compared to the 34” which is going to target a very niche audience.

Once you put the stand and the monitor together, it’s an alright build. Personally, I have encountered better monitor builds with sturdy stands and while this may fall short and feels a wee bit flimsy, it still balances the display very well.

On the back, it does have some gamer-esque designs to make your ambience soothing, along side with the RGB lighting on the back and the bottom which shows the logo of the brand. In terms of movement, the Neotez Aquila 27 Gaming Monitor is very versatile. Not only you can adjust the height, but you can pivot it above and below to position the display the way you like it. If you are the vertical orientation kind of guy, you can swivel the screen.

To be very honest, as much as you might think you can do with every other monitor, you really can’t as it’s a premium you need to pay and, in this case, I am very well impressed with the orientation and movement of the monitor. You won’t be needing a VESA mount to do any of the aforementioned tasks and that’s money saved. But hey if you plan to, the option is open.

Specification

In terms of specification, the Neotez Aquila 27 Gaming Monitor comes packed with the following:

• 27” Quad HD 16:9 IPS Display
• 165Hz Refresh Rate Support with Adaptive Sync
• 1ms Response time
• Brightness up to 400 nits and HDR400 support
• 2x HDMI 2.0 and 2x DisplayPort 1.4
• 1x Audio and 1x AC in

The specification you see above is very decent, with the ability to connect up to 4 displays in a same monitor eliminates you from getting external controller and it can be the one stop hub for everything.

Display

Neotez claims this display to have a ZeroBezel design which I disagree with as the monitor does have a slightly thick bezel all around and at the bottom where the logo is located. But other than that, the monitor doesn’t look to shabby so to speak. The thing that turns me off with this monitor is the OBD controls which are located on the right side of the monitor.

Since it’s a button based, you will have to memorize which button does what and changing the settings can be a challenge. I wished it went with a joystick-like controller making it extremely user friendly even in being able to switch the display output.

Another thing you will notice is that, at the back, the monitor has a cut out for built in adapter but unfortunately, it comes with an external adapter. Another thing could have tackled, which would have made cable management easier. This is just me nitpicking really and I am fine with having the adapter really. But the real question is, can this display deliver the experience a user could ask for?

User Experience

Right off the bat, Neotez Aquila 27 Gaming Monitor got off on the right foot with not just getting the specification right, but pretty much everything about it in the display department right. It features a 27” Quad HD Fast IPS display, which already makes things miles better as 27” FHD displays feels very inferior and dated due to the pixel spacing.

On top of that, they have some features that will entice gamers – the 165Hz with 1ms response time. As for those who plans to use this monitor for editing related work, it comes with 100% sRGB and 90% DCI-P3 Color Gamut Support.

Now in my day-to-day use, as I am using this monitor for 3 weeks as my daily driver, I am impressed with the quality of panel that they have went for. Unfortunately, we do not know what panel it is but it has surpassed our expectations. During our test where we look for Defective pixels, we couldn’t see a single one, right out of the box, which shows that has gone through some serious QC testing.

The uniformity of the display is neat too with brightness equally distributed around the display and no uneven gray zones. The sharpness of the display in different font sizes manages to appear legibly with no fringing or blurriness.

Since its an IPS Panel, the viewing angle is well done with good coverage and you don’t see any color shift or tints watching from different angles. The gamma level blends at 2.2 and at sRGB level as well making it close to accurate as to what they claim with the scores. Finally with the response time, it is as claimed as it would be.

In my day-to-day experience, my task heavily relies on creating content and gaming as well. In the past three weeks, with this monitor, I have to say there wasn’t much of a discomfort in anyway possible. Given that during our test, it really kept up very well. The performance was just as good as those results.

Editing on Lightroom definitely did gave me a bit of time to adjust to but once I got the hang of it, the display was good and the colors were as I expected it to be. As I moved the final edited image over to a much color accurate display, and compared it on my mobile, it had a 2% difference but it wasn’t significantly big enough to be a deal breaker.

Gaming on the other hand, is where the monitor excels at its peak. We played titles like Doom: Eternal and the Adaptive Sync is as per claimed, with super smooth refresh rate and the response time were instantaneous as we shoot the demons in the game. The same applies to games like Division 2 and more where it did put up a good show. The HDR400 is what it is, and while it isn’t true HDR, you are better with the toggle turned off as the colors are better.

Conclusion

A good panel is extremely crucial to a display and everything else falls next and in this case, the Neotez Aquila 27 Gaming Monitor surpassed our expectations in more ways than one, by offering one of the most appealing display at a tough to beat price which is RM 1549. Right now its on an offer, for RM 1399 which is a steal.

While there are many inexperienced players in the market, and it’s all right to feel skeptical as to how it will pan out, Neotez is on the right track. If they continue this as they fix some of the little missteps like the on-board controller which is still a hard one to get used to, it will be the perfect monitor other brands should be worried about.

Special thanks to Neotez Malaysia for gracing us with the Neotez Aquila 27” Gaming Monitor for making this content happen.