Acer Nitro KG241Y Monitor Review: The Budget 180Hz Gaming Monitor

Budget monitors hold a strong spot in the market and with how panels have matured over the years, we see much better value for money at the entry price of $99 or RM 400. The AOPEN Gaming Monitor was our reigning champion as the go-to budget friendly gaming monitor but it’s finally dethroned by a new contender and in this Acer Nitro KG241Y review, we’ll share why.

Acer Nitro KG241Y Monitor Review

Now, if you plan to get a Gaming Monitor under RM 400, then stick around. At this price point, you can forgo a lot of fancy things (which usually sets back a lot of money) but all you need to look for are these two important criteria that gives a good value to a budget gaming monitor: a good panel and decent connectivity (at least HDMI and DP, after all it’s a gaming monitor).

Starting with the Display and Panel

The Acer Nitro KG241Y features a 24” display, which is bigger than a laptop display, and it comes in a 1080p resolution, which is perfectly alright for this dimension. IPS panels are great, and logically, that’s what I’d go for because it offers a better colour production and look great to the eyes. But the catch with IPS is that you might not get a higher refresh rate and response time, in this price range (in fact, the most affordable one we could find is a 120Hz IPS monitor).

But with how VA Panels have improved and offer the best of what IPS and TN offer, VA panels have a much better potential to hit higher refresh rates. And in this case, this Acer Nitro KG241Y does a whopping 180Hz with 0.5 ms response time. Take it from us, we tried a plethora of games on this, and I am impressed to see how far VA panels have come and matured. It is AMD FreeSync Premium enabled, but for those G-Sync users, it’s still recognised as a G-Sync compatible monitor.

For users who dabble in the world of Apex Legends, Counter Strike and competitive shooters like such, you are going to be happy with this. For gamers like myself, who enjoy games like Doom Eternal, Arc Raiders, and the list goes on, honestly, I wasn’t disappointed. This Nitro monitor is easily better than the AOPEN Monitor we reviewed years ago.

What caught my attention with this Acer Nitro KG241Y is the colours and the viewing angle. I have seen a lot of terrible VA panels and this one, is by far the best VA panels I have seen in a budget monitor. The viewing angles of this monitor max out at about 175 degrees which is way wider than the generation 150-160 degrees.

Out of the box, the colours of this monitor are a little muted and have a bit of a cold tone bias. But thanks to the OBD controls, you can adjust the tone of this display, and the warm tone was up to my liking.

Though I’d still not recommend this for colour work because you can see the colours shift from a saturated tone to a pale-ish tone when you switch between refresh rates. For those who are looking for a decent colour-accurate monitor, you still have to look for one that costs more because the white tone sides more towards an Ivory White tone than a neutral white tone, which is not a good thing for colour work.

So, for general consumption such as gaming, for entertainment and maybe even if you want to do light editing, where the colour accuracy isn’t particularly necessary, you are okay.

Other Note-worthy Things

The Ports and Speaker

I am happy to report that, the Acer Nitro KG241Y has one HDMI 2.0 and DisplayPort 1.2 – which is more than enough to connect two devices – perhaps your laptop and Gaming PC or your Gaming PC and a console, however you’d like it.

If getting dedicated speakers breaks your bank, well, this monitor has a small speaker that sounds okay if you need one but there’s a good chance you’d be getting a headphones to pair with your setup.

The OBD Control – This one was a surprise

Generally, cheap monitors would have multiple buttons to control the brightness, power, and other quick settings. Not this Acer Nitro KG241Y because it has a proper joystick control, making life a whole lot easier in controlling the inputs, settings, making fine adjustments and so on. A big W to Acer.

The Design

I appreciate Acer for keeping this monitor modern looking enough where the bezels are super thin, that it’s almost frame-less, the stand is decent too – though it has limited adjustability, you still have the option to mount it to a VESA mount – which not a lot of monitor in this price bracket offer. And yes, such a simple feature that doesn’t cost much – and I am happy to see it with this monitor.

Anything You Should worry about? – Conclusion

Well, at this price point, I don’t think so. Under RM 400, there are so many compromises Acer could have made: perhaps gone for a much cheaper TN panel with 240Hz, but the colours would have been abysmal, limited the ports to just HDMI and VGA, kept a very dated design and so on. But I am very glad that Acer didn’t do any of those and managed to retain the bare minimum in other aspects like the stand and such, but include a better panel, ports and even a speaker. We know monitors, which cost over a grand, that don’t come with a speaker.

And for students and consumers who are on an extremely limited budget – this 24” Monitor does real justice. I am happy Acer still makes affordable and usable monitors and I hope this budget series of monitors don’t fade away and only gets better over time. We give the Acer Nitro KG241Y our Vesper Choice Award for the best bang-for-the-buck Gaming Monitor under RM 400 or $100 USD* (and that’s without Trump’s tariffs).

For more tech, gaming, and lifestyle content, make sure to follow us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Better yet, stay tuned to The Adventures of Vesper.