Xiaomi G Pro 27i review

There’s a humorous thing about monitors. As you progress from a 14-inch goldfish CRT monitor, to a 17-inch screen that you can barely lift, to a 19-inch 4:3 LCD, to a 21-inch 16:9 1080p VA model, to a 27-inch 4K IPS, and finally 32-inch 4K with HDR or OLED, the “normal” setting in your mind changes with it.

Use a 32-inch monitor every day and you will quickly forget that it is a size that not so long ago would have been considered excessive for a living room TV. Upgrading to a 27-inch monitor after getting used to a 32-inch monitor is like going back to a 14-inch that was buzzing and needed to be demagnetized from time to time.

And then you remember that this screen only costs money £300/$350and suddenly any feeling of lingering unpleasantness disappears. A mini-LED monitor for this kind of money is extraordinary enough, comparable models from Cooler Master or AOC are available for twice the price, but the G Pro 27i also has Quantum Dots technology, a rapid 180Hz refresh rate (with FreeSync), and a whole lot of inputs.

For UK readers, there is also a three-pin plug on the power supply. Previous Xiaomi screens were sent for review with US-style two-pin plugs, which require an adapter, although they work perfectly fine on UK voltage and it’s nice to see this practice stopped. Although the screen requires its own power supply and the cable isn’t spectacularly long, you should keep it reasonably close to a power outlet.

The mini-LED backlight is divided into 1,152 local dimming zones, each made up of four mini-LED beads, which means it’s mostly free of the halo effect you can get on screens with larger zones. You’ll immediately realize that this means 3,200 pixels per zone, which at a pixel density of 109 ppi isn’t a huge area – assuming the zones have the same 16:9 aspect ratio as the screen itself you’re looking at. approximately 75×42 pixels. This is still much more than OLED’s individually illuminated pixels, but much better than conventional backlighting.

However, there is still some bloom, especially around radiant objects on gloomy backgrounds. It’s very radiant, unnecessarily so, and most of the time you’ll want to turn down the brightness, which is easily achieved thanks to Xiaomi’s judicious utilize of OSD controls. Place it next to a standard IPS panel and the difference is clear, with increased brightness and contrast.

It also boasts excellent color reproduction, claiming to display 99% of the DCI-P3 color gamut, which can display 25% more colors than the more popular sRGB. Combined with the HDR-1000 certification, this should make for an incredibly vibrant result if you enjoy playing games that contain color. This is confirmed by colorimeter tests, which show 98% response to P3 and a maximum brightness of 690 nits. That’s better than many OLEDs and much better than the usual numbers we see at this price point.

The dashboard is the main feature, but there’s plenty of other things to like. G Pro 27i is a screen that should be admired from all sides. As a result, there is a lighting ring (color controlled from the OSD) around where the stand attaches to the back of the screen, and a shield that covers where the input cables plug into the jacks (though you’ll still be able to see the cables are moving away).

The foot, unusually, attaches to the vertical part of the stand with four screws (screwdriver included) rather than a single thumb-turned attachment, which seems rather old-fashioned, but isn’t something you probably expect to do more than once or twice a year over the life of the monitor and this leads to a very stable configuration.

Having four video inputs is very nice on a gaming monitor, and a setup that uses them all probably appears somewhere in our dreams. Maybe desktops and laptops, gaming consoles and streaming devices? As the only screen in a dedicated gaming room or bedroom, it’s nice to be able to connect multiple devices without having to rely on switches, although you will need to plug something into the audio jack as the Xiaomi doesn’t have built-in speakers on the screen.

The HDMI ports made it to version 2.0, so they’re circumscribed to 144Hz at 1440p, but the DP 1.4 connections really allow for pixel flow. The only thing missing is a USB-C connection, and if you’re used to switching a USB hub between several computers, going back to doing things the old-fashioned way may be the key.

And this is one of the biggest advantages of the G Pro 27i. In the OLED world it uses mini-LED. Where USB-C is the video connector gaining popularity, DisplayPort remains and uses HDMI ports, which cannot support the maximum refresh rate. There is no such thing as a built-in webcam or even speakers.

While other monitors have become hubs around which computers and other devices can be organized, this is something more pure: a display and nothing more. Fortunately, displaying things is something it’s good at, and since it comes at a low price for a mini-LED panel, perhaps we shouldn’t discount its more focused approach too much. Stick one (or a pair!) of these devices on your desk and connect via DisplayPort, and you will enjoy rapid, radiant and colorful gaming on your computer. And isn’t that really all we want?