ASUS VY249HF review: budget monitor with a refresh rate of 100 Hz

Budget monitors, despite their not-so-impressive characteristics, are actually of more interest to more people than top-of-the-line models for gaming or professional color work: it’s just that a high-quality display with decent parameters at the lowest price is needed by the general public much more often than flagship monitors with revolutionary technologies. The 24-inch ASUS VY249HF belongs to this budget category.

ASUS VY249HF specifications

Design

ASUS VY249HF is available in two color variants – traditional black and rarer white (full model name is VY249HF-W). We got the second variant for review. It should be noted that there is also a 27-inch model in this lineup.

The white case has an unusual look and favorably distinguishes this model from other budget monitors. The screen in ASUS VY249HF has a traditional “bezel-less” design, when the protective glass completely covers the entire front panel. As a result, when turned off or with a black image, it seems that the screen is framed only by a thin white line on the side of the case.

But unlike the black models, in this case, the bezel-less design makes the monitor look like it has two frames at once with a bright image on the screen – between the white body and the light picture, an additional black frame hidden under the protective glass is revealed.

In general, it can be noted that for a monitor costing less than 5 thousand UAH, ASUS VY249HF has an attractive appearance: the white case “distracts” from the really basic design of this model.

The leg is simple, allowing you to change only the screen tilt angle (-5°~22°). There is a possibility of wall mounting: the monitor has a VESA-compatible mount (100×100). It is quite expected that with such a design, ASUS VY249HF is very light – it weighs a little over 3 kg.

All the connectors are located in a small niche above the leg attachment point. However, “all” is a bit of a stretch; apart from the power connector (by the way, this monitor has a built-in power supply), you can find only a mini-jack for wired headphones and a single video jack – HDMI 1.4. There are no built-in speakers in this model.

Menu

The ASUS VY249HF is controlled by six hardware buttons located on the bottom edge of the case, to the left of the power button, which has the same shape.

On the front panel opposite them, there are markings for easy “touch” use: when you press any button, a quick menu appears with function icons above the corresponding buttons.

This control option used to be widely used, mainly in office models, but later it was replaced almost everywhere by a more convenient joystick – but, as we can see, not in this model. The controls are quite convenient in general, the only discomfort at first is caused by the fact that to navigate up and down the menu you have to press the buttons located on the left and right.

In the main menu, the first item is the Splendid video mode section, followed by the Eye Care mode: here you can find functions such as reducing the proportion of blue in the backlight, working time before rest, and so on.

The Color section contains standard image parameters: brightness, contrast, color temperature, and saturation. The next item, Picture, contains the rest of the settings related to the picture: overdrive, screen proportions, sharpness, etc.

Settings contains all the other settings, including those that could be found in other models from this manufacturer in the previous paragraphs, such as GamePlus game functions or QuickFit sizing grid settings. It is worth noting the presence of the Ukrainian localization of the on-screen menu – this is still not as common as we would like it to be.

And in the last item, Shortcut, you can change the assignment of two “hot” keys to other functions.

Features

The ASUS VY249HF uses a 23.8-inch IPS panel with Full HD resolution, which is a typical option for a budget “office” monitor. The pixel density is 92.5 PPI (dot size 0.2745 mm) – you can see individual pixels from a typical distance to the screen, but they are still quite small, so the image looks quite dense and does not turn into a “mishmash of pixels”.

The maximum refresh rate is 100 Hz, which is still rare for work monitors, so ASUS VY249HF is positioned more as a universal model that can be used not only for work but also for gaming. By the way, it also has support for adaptive frequency technology and panel overdrive, which are purely gaming features.

The brightness of this monitor is adjusted by changing the current, and PWM is not used throughout the entire brightness range, so there is no screen flicker.

Given the price, it’s no surprise that the ASUS VY249HF doesn’t have any additional functionality – no USB hub or built-in speakers.

ASUS VY249HF image quality

The screen coating is standard matte, with no parasitic reflections on a dark background. Its crystal effect is weak: you can see a typical pattern that scatters reflections only on a macro image of pixels, and even here it is quite moderate.

As for the panel response time, the manufacturer claims only 1 ms MPRT. In reality, the monitor demonstrates typical behavior for a typical IPS monitor: moderate blurring in dynamic scenes, which can be slightly reduced by overclocking the panel.

This feature, traditionally for ASUS monitors, is called TraceFree and has five overdrive levels (from 20 to 100% in increments of 20) and the ability to completely disable it. In the factory settings, TraceFree is set to 60 – this is the first stage at which the effect of overdrive is really felt. Subsequent values reduce blurring a little more, but at the maximum, artifacts in the form of dark plumes behind objects moving on the screen become barely noticeable.

TraceFree = 00 (off), 60, 100 (100 Hz refresh rate):

Black uniformity is mediocre, and lighter spots along the edges of the screen become noticeable in a dark room at maximum brightness.

The glow effect is typical of IPS technology: when you look at the screen from the side and from above, a noticeable silver or brown glow appears near the black background, depending on the angle of view.

Viewing angles are also traditional for IPS: when viewed from the side, color saturation remains almost the same, brightness is noticeably reduced, and the image acquires a subtle colder tint.

After resetting to factory settings, if you refuse the proposed power saving mode, the video mode is set to Standard. Let’s start with it.

ASUS VY249HF has a standard color gamut of 97% sRGB (75% Adobe RGB, 77% DCI-P3). This gives moderate color saturation and a natural look to the image.

The brightness is adjustable in the range of 40-277 cd/m² – the lowest value allows you to work comfortably in almost complete darkness, the highest value is quite enough for typical office lighting. The maximum static contrast is 1230:1, which is very good for a budget IPS panel and almost corresponds to the monitor’s “passport” characteristics.

As for the color temperature, the corresponding parameter in the settings changes it from 7300K to 10900K. As a result, even in the warmest mode, the image has a slightly cooler tint.

You can fix this by using a blue filter in the backlight – the corresponding option can be found in the Eye Care menu. It allows you to adjust the color temperature in great detail thanks to up to 20 steps of blue reduction. The temperature changes in the range from 7500K to 4800K, and the standard value of 6500K corresponds to the fifth position of the slider. Given that this slightly improves color accuracy, we would recommend using these settings.

The ASUS VY249HF does not have gamma adjustment, but even without it, the monitor has very good settings: its real value is very close to the standard 2.2 (the deviation is only 0.03).

The color temperature uniformity is mediocre: the maximum deviation in different areas of the screen ΔE is 5.9. But the situation with white field uniformity is better: the brightest areas are the center and upper left corner, the darkest is the bottom of the screen; the difference between them is 13% (in budget models, this figure often exceeds 20%).

As for the color accuracy, it’s not perfect: although most colors demonstrate very high accuracy, with an average ΔE of one, a few individual colors deviate significantly from the reference. In general, this is not critical for a budget monitor, but if the user plans to work with color seriously, it is better to calibrate this monitor additionally.

In sRGB mode, manual image settings are blocked, brightness is set to 106 cd/m², color temperature is set to Warm, and contrast is 940:1. Surprisingly, the color gamut in this mode is additionally greatly reduced (if the native gamut were expanded), and as a result, it is only 72% of the sRGB space – colors lose a lot of saturation, and color accuracy also deteriorates significantly.

The same reduced color gamut is found in the Theater mode – the rest of the modes have the same gamut as the Standard mode. Their color accuracy is also very similar, and they differ mainly in the initial settings of brightness, gamma, and color temperature. You can visually compare them in the following gallery.

Splendid video modes: