Acer Nitro KG241Y P3 Review – Affordable Speed

Unboxing

Today we’re taking a look at Acer’s Nitro line of monitors, in this case we have the 24-inch Nitro KG241Y P3 gaming monitor with FHD resolution and up to 180Hz of refresh rate. As the market is slowly moving towards 1440p (QHD) displays, pricing for 1080p monitors has since gradually come down, meaning this gaming monitor is among the cheapest ones you can get today.

The box includes these items:
– Warranty card
– Installation guide
– Regulatory and safety notices
– 36W DC power adapter
– AC (C13) power cable (Type G, UK / Malaysia)
– HDMI cable
– Stand base
– Stand strut

Walkaround

Inside this 23.8-inch matte display uses vertical alignment (VA) panel, which means you get better contrast ratio over IPS, though viewing angles suffers slightly; you also get an exposed 100x100mm VESA mounting for installing third-party monitor arms. Like most budget monitors, the included stand only offer basic articulation that is tilt, but Acer has integrated a cable management channel behind the stand so you can keep your cables tidy and clean.

Monitor OSD can be navigated through the joystick behind the monitor, though unlike the monitors we’ve tested before, the power button behaved slightly differently – you have to press and hold the button to turn it off. In terms of I/O, it’s bare-bones: you get one HDMI 2.0 port, one DisplayPort 1.2, a headphone jack, and the DC barrel jack for power.

Specifications

Acer Nitro KG241Y P3 (KG1 Series)

Full specifications available in product webpage.

Display Panel Type	23.8″ flat VA
Display Surface Type	Anti-glare (matte)
Resolution	1920 x 1080 (16:9, Full HD), 93 PPI
Refresh Rate	180 Hz
Pixel Response Time	0.5 ms
Gamut Coverage	72% NTSC
Color Depth	8-bit (16.7M colors)
HDR Support	HDR10 *Signal support only, as the display is not certified for HDR.
Brightness	250 nits
Contrast Ratio	3,000:1
Viewing Angle	178°(H) / 178°(V)
Variable Refresh Rate Support	AMD FreeSync Premium
Display Certifications	None
I/O	1x HDMI 2.0 1x DisplayPort 1.2 1x 3.5mm headphone jack 1x DC-in
KVM Switch	None
Onboard Speakers	Stereo speakers
Power Consumption	Standby: 0.5W Peak power consumption not listed
Stand Articulation	Tilt: +25° ~ -5°
VESA Mounting	100 x 100 mm
Dimensions & Weight	Monitor only: 612.2 x 44.1 x 362.9 mm, 4.14kg Monitor with stand: 612.2 x 215.0 x 538.1mm, 5.91kg

Performance

Brightness Uniformity

This is an interesting one: while the report shows brightness deviation across the board, all eight boxes are more or less consistent to each other (lower half seems to drift a bit more), meaning it’s the center box (reference point) that achieved a slightly higher brightness than the rest of the monitor. However, the overall brightness is fairly low, though all but one box exceed Acer’s claims of 250 nits.

Color Accuracy & Gamut

Measurement: sRGB	Preset: Graphics (Brightness 100%)	After Calibration
Whitepoint	6324K	7034K
Average ΔE	2.99	2.62
Maximum ΔE	6.73	5.55

For color accuracy test, we opted to use the Graphics preset to see the best-case scenario. The monitor itself is only claimed to achieve 72% NTSC (roughly equal to 100% sRGB, but the coverage differs slightly), though our measurements show some level of inaccuracies in most colors. That being said, the monitor does fairly decent at grayscales, which brought the Delta-E value down to 3, a fairly reasonable result for regular non-calibrated monitors.

DisplayCAL Measurement	Gamut Coverage	Gamut Volume
sRGB	98.1%	121.2%
Adobe RGB	81.6%	83.5%
DCI-P3	84.1%	85.9%

The measurement result also shows the monitor covering nearly the full sRGB gamut with decent gamut volume. As a budget gaming monitor, this is perfectly serviceable, and it should work fine for general media consumption.

Pixel Response Time

Here’s the more important aspect for the Nitro KG241Y P3 monitor – pixel response performance. Right out of the box, the monitor runs on Normal preset, and here we can see some degree of undershoot especially on the darker shades. Off presents severe undershoots, while Overdrive unsurprisingly produces lots of overshoots in the form of inverse ghosting (bright trailing edges on the UFO). (For reference, here is what a monitor with good pixel response characteristics looks like.)

The Good

As a budget gaming monitor, the Acer Nitro KG241Y P3 has a few positives. For one, you get a very fast 180Hz VA panel that offers fast pixel response time, for not a lot of price. It wasn’t too long ago that budget gaming monitors stick to 90Hz only, and you have to pay a bit more to get 144Hz panels. With 1080p monitors getting cheaper than ever, even 180Hz monitors like this gets very affordable these days.

A nice addition for this monitor is the integrated cable management channel, so you can keep the cables out of sight for a cleaner look. As for the stand itself, it’s very easy to install, no tools required – simply slot in the stand and the strut and the monitor is ready to go.

The Bad

On the contrary, such budget monitors naturally have some limitations. In exchange for a cheap price tag, you get a panel that can struggle in bright environments as the maximum brightness is on the low side; same applies to the pixel response tuning, where we observed significant overshoots or undershoots depending on settings.

Another downside is the limited articulation of the stand – you can only do tilt adjustments, nothing more. However, you can always use a third-party monitor arm with its VESA mount should you need additional adjustments for more flexible or even multi-monitor setups.

Verdict

The current price for the Acer Nitro KG241Y P3 gaming monitor is RM379 – certainly a very cheap gaming monitor to be had today, and for the price you’re getting great value out of it despite the shortcomings commonly associated with monitors within this price segment.

Special thanks to Acer Malaysia for providing the Nitro KG241Y P3 gaming monitor for this review.