Review - BEZEL 27MD28911 144Hz FreeSync Gaming Monitor

BEZEL 27MD28911 144Hz FreeSync Gaming Monitor

Specification

Model Number: 27MD28911
Colour: Red Black
Viewing Angle: 597.6 x 336.15 mm2
Resolution: 1920 x 1080
FreeSync
3ms Response Time GtG
Max Brightness: 300cd/m2
Screen Ratio 16:9
Display Colour: 16.7 Million Shades
Size: 27 Inches
Screen Type: TFT LCD Display
Panel: MVA (Multidomain Vertical Alignment)
Refresh Rate: 144hz
LCD Manufacturer: AU Optronics
Contrast: 3000:1
Response Time: 4ms
Power: AC 100-240V
Power Consumption: <25W
Stand-by: 0.05W
Interface: 2x HDMI | 2x DP
Included: 1x Power cable | 1x Display Port Cable

Where to Buy

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BEZEL is probably a brand that none of us has ever heard before. It is a new brand in the display market and is only available in the Philippines as of this writing. If you do a quick Google search of the brand, there is a high chance that you might not find anything about the brand or the company. BEZEL monitors are distributed by NEXT Technologies, a company that produces mobile accessories, monitors, and retail Wi-Fi solution.

Unboxing – BEZEL 27MD28911 144Hz FreeSync Gaming Monitor

One of the main products of NEXT Technologies is gaming monitors. Specifically, 144Hz monitors. As of this writing, the company already offers the MD28911 144Hz monitor.

Here in our labs, we have the BEZEL 27MD28911 27 Inch 144Hz Gaming Monitor. We are going to have a closer look and see how it performs.

In terms of packaging, the monitor is packed inside a cardboard box that highlights the physical appearance of the monitor and its screen size. It has a red accent with some highlighted foreign language that translates to “LCD Monitor” and “D Series”. The back doesn’t have anything worth mentioning since the front and the back has the same design.

Opening the box, we are presented with a couple of included items such as the power cable, the stand, and the power brick.

It also comes with a free display port cable. The power brick is manufactured by Dajing Electronics.

The stand comes in two parts that you can easily assemble with the included screws.

The monitor is covered with a foam bag to protect it from trivial damages such as scratches during travel. Other than that, that’s pretty much what the box contains.

Closer Look – BEZEL 27MD28911 144Hz FreeSync Gaming Monitor

Design

The BEZEL 27MD28911 features a black and red colour theme and boast a bezeless design with a centre stand. The brand logo is imprinted at the bottom bar of the display.

The back of the monitor has nothing much else to offer other than the specification label, the menu button controls, the I/O, and VESA mounts.

I/O, VESA, Navigation

Looking at its I/O section, this monitor features 1x 3.5mm audio jack port, 2x HDMI 2.0 ports, and 2x 1.4 Displayport.

The BEZEL 27MD28911 features a traditional built-in menu navigation and control buttons. Most monitors these days feature a joystick type single navigation control button and we rarely see monitors that comes with multiple buttons. The company may have decided to keep or implement this design to keep the overall price of the monitor in-check.

As you can see, this monitor has 5 buttons. One for power, one for AUTO/Back configuration, one for each navigation button that also acts as increase or decrease, and a menu button that opens up the built-in menu. It also acts as a SELECT button once you press it inside the menu interface.

Another worth mentioning is the section where you attach and screw the stand. The attachment head has 3 screw holes for tighter and firmer assembly.

Lastly, this monitor features a VESA mount screw holes of 75mm by 75mm.

Dimension, Specification, Manufacturer

Label specification reveals that the manufacturer is Shenzhen Dall Displays Co. LTD., a.k.a DALL or DARE. DALL is a Chinese company that produces OEM displays including TVs and Monitors. A quick google about them did not give us any informative result.

We measured the thickness of the display and it’s 8mm in thickness. According to specs, it’s 6mm in thickness. But, it shouldn’t be an issue.

Imprinted at the middle of the display bar is the brand logo. However, the way the logo is imprinted makes the monitor look cheap.

And last but not least, the BEZEL 27MD28911 comes in a centre stand with a big base. The base has a dimension of 26.2cm by 14cm. It also features 4 foam feet to prevent the monitor from sliding.

Just like attaching the neck to the monitor, you will also need to attach the neck to the base with 3 screws.

Built-In Menu | Settings

The BEZEL 27MD28911 features a built-in menu that allows you to change its overall display quality.

Under the brightness menu, you can change the level of brightness, contrast, black level, and sharpness. You can also toggle the Dynamic Contrast Range.

Picture Mode features 6 different presets namely standard, RTS, FPS, Game, Movie, and Text.

The next option is called IMAGE. This option enables you to change the displays’ position, clock, and phase if you’re using a VGA cable with an adaptor to HDMI or DP. The display aspect lets you change the displays aspect ratio.

With Colour Temp, you can change the overall RGB level of the display. If you don’t want to experiment with this setting, colour temp comes in 4 different presets namely custom, cool, warm, and sRGB.

On-Screen Display (OSD) settings is simply a setting that changes the position, time-out timer, and transparency of the built-in menu user interface. This setting also has the language in it. Out of the box, the menu of this display is set to the Chinese language by default.

The RESET menu is basically a menu that resets all the changes made within the settings of the monitor to default settings. It also allows auto adjustment for image and colour depending on the input as well as the power off timer.

Lastly, you can change the input signal if you have multiple inputs for this display with the MISC menu. It also has the eye care technology or low blue light adjustment level, volume level, AMD FreeSync toggle, and overdrive toggle.

Performance – BEZEL 27MD28911 144Hz FreeSync Gaming Monitor

Refresh Rate | Ghosting | Motion Blur

In terms of performance, we used various tools to test and measure the overall performance of this monitor.

Using the tools provided by https://testufo.com/, we verified the refresh rate of this monitor and it actually is a 144Hz monitor with frame rates hitting around 143.9. No ghosting occurs. However, there is a slight motion blur occurring though it’s in a point where it is barely noticeable.

Viewing Angle | Colour Shifting

This monitor, like most VA panels, do suffer from a poor viewing angle issues. Colour shifting occurs when viewing at a 20 degrees angle and up from the centre. Though it seems that when viewing side to side, the colour is consistent but on a closer look, some colour becomes a bit washed out while some become darker than they actually are. Viewing from top to bottom results on contrast shifting. Colours become saturated when viewed at the top and darker when viewed at the bottom.

Uniformity | 50% Std. Dev

This monitor has excellent grey uniformity. Though little clouding is noticeable in the lighter shades of grey. No dirty screen effect can be seen when browsing the web and also, please note that the edges might look darker due to the poor viewing angles of this monitor.

Defects | Dead Pixel

We tested the consistency of every pixel and looked for out of the box issues. Since it’s quite common to get defects or display issues from cheap monitors. We tested this by using a full display single colour using red, green, blue, white and black.

After testing, we didn’t find any display issues, or out of the box defects.

No frame skipping issues as well.

Banding | Clouding

Out of the box, there are no clouding issues.

Excellent result on our gradient test. Little banding is noticeable which is expected from an 8-bit image sample. You should have no banding issues with this monitor.

Contrast | Brightness

The contrast of the BEZEL 27MD28911 is good which is expected as it is a VA panel. A good contrast ratio results in better picture quality as it makes black look deep and blacker in a dark room. This also gives this monitor a good shade to shade colour contrast. This also improves picture and colour quality overall. However, in terms of colour accuracy, it’s not as good as an IPS monitor though by far better than any TN monitor.

Overclocking

The BEZEL 27MD28911 features a native resolution of 1080p and sports a 144Hz refresh rate. With the mentioned specification, this monitor requires a total bandwidth of 8.96 Gbps. HDMI, nowadays, are configured to allow a pass-through data bandwidth of 18Gbps over existing High-Speed HDMI Wire Cables. DisplayPort, on the other hand, can transmit up to 32.4Gbs bandwidth. With that, this should allow us a headroom allowance for overclocking this monitor.

There are different ways you can use to overclock your monitor. Especially depending on what type of graphics card you are using. For our test, we are using an NVIDIA graphics card.

After patching the driver’s pixel clock, this then allows us to overclock the refresh rate of the monitor. We were able to achieve an extra 5Hz, making its refresh rate to 149Hz. Anything above that results to a black screen. Meaning, the monitor is having difficulties to perform beyond its specs.

Final Thoughts…

There are a ton of monitors that can cater your needs in the market right now. Especially if you are on a budget. With the BEZEL 27MD28911, it is a great option if you are looking for a big screen monitor to game on. It sports a 144Hz refresh rate, a FreeSync, low blue light eye care, overdrive, VA panel, 27 Inch screen, and a 3ms response time. Any gamers will surely love these features. At the price of ₱13,999, this monitor is worth looking into.

Though it is far from being a perfect monitor and it should not be considered as a top of the line. With its specification and price considered, this monitor is leaning toward consumers that desire big display with 144Hz refresh rate at an affordable price.

The design is good overall. The aesthetics, build, and ergonomics are within our standard. Its bezel-less design follows the latest trend in monitors. It has a sturdy build despite having a plastic casing overall. Especially when it comes to the stand, at first look, the stand looks weak and we were expecting a wobbly monitor. After assembly, it’s not as wobbly as we thought it would be.

We didn’t like the cheaply done imprint of the BEZEL logo. The red accent around the display comes down to individual preference. The position of the I/O is another issue for us. It should have been, at least, perpendicular to the display and not parallel to it. This caused some difficulties in hiding the cables.

The monitor comes with a free DisplayPort cable. Unfortunately, the cable that we received had some issues. But it seems to be an isolated case since there are no complaints reported from other owners.

Actual Gaming

Note:

The monitor is producing 144 frames per second on the video.
The camera is recording at 30 frames per second.
You will only see 30 frames per second in this record and will not perceive the 144 frames per second.
You will see vertical lines on the monitor, this is due to the focus created on the camera. The vertical lines or the odd things that you see on the display of this video is due to the camera focus.

Award – B2G Value

Overall, if you’re on a budget, we recommend checking out this monitor. This 27 Inch monitor is ideal for consumers that want to experience the goodness and smoothness of a 144Hz monitor on a big screen with a 3ms response time (GtG). The included technology in eye care, FreeSync, and more is definitely a plus without breaking the bank or a cost of one kidney. Though if colour accuracy matters to you, then there are other better option out there.