MSI PRO MP275 review – a budget monitor for home and work

Inexpensive monitors, for all their “uninteresting” characteristics and screen size, are bought much more often than top-of-the-line models for gaming and professional work. We’ve already reviewed the universal 25-inch monitor MSI PRO MP251, which can be characterized as “sufficient quality at an affordable price” – today we’ll get acquainted with another model in this line with a slightly larger diagonal, the 27-inch MSI PRO MP275.

Specifications of MSI PRO MP275

Design

Externally, MSI PRO MP275 looks almost like an enlarged copy of PRO MP251: practical black matte plastic of the case, the same plastic leg and “base” (the only metal element in them is a plate that attaches the leg to the display case). In general, the monitor looks like a budget model, which is quite expected at this price.

The monitor is made in the traditional “bezel-less” design, in which the screen is hidden under a protective glass, and when turned off, it seems that there is only a thin line of the side edge of the case around it. When turned on, an additional black frame under the glass becomes visible, and in general, the screen is framed by a 7 mm wide frame on the top and sides.

The leg is simple, allowing you to change only the angle of the screen (-5°~20°), and the monitor is screwless. There is a possibility of wall mounting: the monitor has a VESA-compatible mount (100×100). This design makes it quite light for a 27-inch model – less than 4 kg.

As with the PRO MP251, this model also has a version with a more functional stand that also allows you to adjust the height and swivel the screen left and right – the PRO MP275P.

The video connectors are located to the right of the leg mount. Here you can find one HDMI 1.4b and one analog D-Sub. In addition, there are also mini-jacks for headphones and a microphone. MSI PRO MP275 has a built-in power supply.

Menu

The monitor is controlled by a five-way controller located at the rear right. Moving it in any direction launches the selected quick function (e.g. brightness/video mode/signal source), while pressing it opens the main menu. When the joystick is on, it can light up to serve as an operation indicator.

In the main menu, the first item is the Professional section – here you can find a choice of video modes, overdrive settings, refresh rate display, and some others. It is worth noting that there is a rather unusual functionality – a quick vision test for some specific defects, such as astigmatism or certain macular diseases.

The next section, Image, contains traditional image settings, such as brightness, contrast, color temperature, reducing the proportion of blue in the backlight, etc.

In the Input Source section you can manually select the required video source or activate its automatic detection, and the Navi Key section allows you to reassign user functions to all four joystick bumps.

And finally, the last section, Setting, contains other system parameters: OSD settings (unfortunately, there is no Ukrainian localization), joystick backlighting, built-in speaker volume, and resetting all settings to factory default values.

Functionality

The MSI PRO MP275 uses an 8-bit (6-bit + FRC) IPS panel with a diagonal of 27 inches and a resolution of 1920×1080 pixels. The pixel density is 82 PPI, and the dot size is 0.3113 mm.

As you can see, the dot of this model is quite large, and you can see individual pixels in the image without any problems even from a typical distance from the screen, let alone close up.

So we can say that the MSI PRO MP275 is more likely to suit users with not very sharp eyesight, for whom a large image size is more critical than its clarity and density – otherwise we can recommend the 25-inch PRO MP251 mentioned at the beginning of the review.

Like its counterpart, the PRO MP275 has a maximum refresh rate of 100 Hz, which is not something you’ll see very often in budget models. In addition, it supports a number of purely gaming functions: adaptive frequency (Adaptive Sync activation can be found in the Professional section), panel overdrive, which reduces blurring of objects moving quickly on the screen, and the MPRT (Moving Picture Response Time) setting.

The latter activates frame-by-frame backlighting, which makes the dynamic image in games much clearer (although it does cause flickering). So if you want, you can also play games on MSI PRO MP275 in your free time.

The brightness of this monitor is regulated by changing the current, and PWM is not used throughout the entire brightness range, so there is no screen flicker. We also note the presence of built-in 2x2W speakers.

Image quality of MSI PRO MP275

The monitor has a standard matte screen finish: there are almost no parasitic reflections on a dark background, regardless of the angle of view. The crystalline effect is rather weak: you can see a typical pattern that scatters reflections only on a macro view of pixels, and even then it is not very strong.

The declared response time is standard for an IPS panel – 4 ms (GtG). Despite the fact that the monitor is designed for work, not gaming, it has a typical gaming function – matrix overdrive (Response Time item in the Professional section). It has two levels of overclocking and the ability to completely disable it.

Without overdrive, even at 100 Hz, the dynamic image is noticeably blurred. Switching from Normal to Fast significantly improves the situation: objects moving quickly on the screen have much less blurring.

The second level, Fastest mode, has little effect on the clarity of dynamic images, but it causes overdrive artifacts in the form of dark plumes, so we recommend using Fast mode as the main mode.

Response Time: Normal, Fast, Fastest:

The black uniformity is not very good, at least in the copy that we reviewed. In general, the good situation across the entire screen is spoiled by two noticeable highlights along the left side edge and several much more moderate, but still present, on the right side.

The glow effect is typical of IPS technology: when you look at the screen from the side and from above, a gray glow with a warm or cool tint appears near the black background, depending on the angle of view.

The viewing angles are also traditional for IPS: when viewed from the side, the color saturation remains almost the same. Compared to more expensive IPS monitors, the MSI PRO MP275 has a slightly stronger brightness drop and a warmer tint at high angles, but overall the image hardly loses any quality.

The Professional section of the OSD menu offers various video modes for typical desktop monitor tasks: Eco, Anti-Blue, Office, Movie, etc. After a factory reset, the Eco mode is automatically set, but we’ll start testing with the basic User mode, which offers higher brightness and the ability to manually adjust all parameters.

The color gamut of the MSI PRO MP275 is standard, covering 96% of the sRGB space (79% DCI-P3, 75% Adobe RGB) – colors are natural and vivid, but duller than models with extended gamut (such as the same PRO MP251).

The brightness is adjustable in the range of 47-370 cd/m² – the lowest value allows you to work comfortably in almost complete darkness, the highest value is more than enough for typical office lighting.

The maximum static contrast at the initial settings in User mode is 1090:1, if you switch the color temperature from Normal to Customization, the contrast can be increased a little more – up to 1140:1. This is a very good indicator for a budget IPS panel, and even slightly higher than the value declared by the manufacturer (1000:1).

As for the color temperature, you can set it to 5600K (Warm), 7300K (Normal) or 11100K (Cool) using the corresponding parameter in the Image settings. Unfortunately, all the options are not very close to the standard temperature of 6500K, so the image is either too warm or a little cool.

If you activate Low Blue Light, a setting that reduces the proportion of blue in the backlight and makes all of the above modes warmer, the user will be able to choose between 5700K (Customization) and 7000K (Cool), which is also not ideal, but closer to the standard value.

MSI PRO MP251 has no gamma adjustment, and the manufacturer’s settings make it slightly higher than the standard 2.3 (against 2.2). This leads to greater image saturation and deeper shadows, but for an IPS panel, this is generally not the worst option and is definitely better than the other way around.

The color temperature uniformity is frankly mediocre: the maximum deviation in different areas of the screen ΔE is 7.1. But the situation with the uniformity of the white field is much better: the brightest area is the center, the darkest are the lower corners; the difference in brightness between them is 10-12%, which is very good even for more expensive models.

The color reproduction accuracy is also a pleasant surprise: with the exception of one color (which is out of the picture due to the peculiarities of the test colorimeter), we can note that the maximum ΔE value is 1.7, and the average is less than one. As a reminder, it is believed that the average user is not able to notice the difference between the reference color and the one displayed by the monitor if ΔE does not exceed two.

The other video modes are not very different from each other and have different initial settings for brightness, color temperature, gamma, etc. At the same time, the color coverage remains unchanged (except for the last B&W mode).

You can visually compare them in the following gallery (Eco — User — Anti-Blue — Movie — Office — Black-White):