Gigabyte MO27Q28G review: OLED gaming monitor

The monitor also doubles up as a small USB hub with two USB ports, which ends up being more useful than expected if you’re running peripherals directly through the monitor. The built-in speakers, meanwhile, are exactly what you’d expect at most gaming monitors: they are functional, but not for serious use. Stick to a proper external speaker set or a headphone for your Counter-Strike 2 or Call of Duty sessions.

One thing you notice early on is the screen coating. The MO27Q28G uses a matte anti-reflection layer rather than a glossy finish, and this shapes the experience more than you might expect. In brighter rooms, it’s genuinely helpful – reflections are kept under control, and you’re not constantly adjusting your room’s window blinds or repositioning the screen. At the same time, compared to my ROG Swift OLED monitor with a glossy display, the image does look a touch softer. It’s not a deal-breaker or anything negative and ultimately comes down to your personal preference – but it’s there.

Image quality, colour, and OLED performance

Like any OLED display, the Gigabyte monitor’s strengths show themselves almost immediately here. Blacks are deep without crushing detail, and scenes with mixed lighting have a sense of depth that LCD panels will never be able to replicate convincingly. Dark games like Elden Ring benefit the most here, but even everyday content looks prettier by comparison.

Colour reproduction is strong here too, covering nearly the full DCI-P3 colour space. Out of the box, Gigabyte seems to have tuned the panel towards contrast and saturation rather than neutrality, which works well for games and media. It’s only when you start doing more mundane tasks such as editing photos, juggling browser windows, working with Word, that you might feel the urge to dial back the contrast level slightly. Once that is adjusted, the panel settles into a more balanced presentation.

Brightness remains a familiar OLED compromise. In SDR use, it’s more than adequate for typical indoor lighting, but it won’t overpower a brightly lit room in the way some high-end IPS panels can. HDR is where the panel shows more nuance. Small highlights pop convincingly, and high-contrast scenes look dramatic without feeling exaggerated. Large, sustained bright areas still trigger brightness limiting, but this behaviour is predictable and less jarring once you know what to expect.

OLED burn-in is real but modern OLED monitors (and televisions) have gotten better at preventing it. I can’t vouch for how well Gigabyte’s OLED care features operate in my limited-time with it, but you do get prompts now-and-then that its handling pixel refresh and brightness management in the background. The inclusion of a 3-year warranty that also covers burn-in should add some consumer confidence in my opinion.

The headline feature of the MO27Q28G is, of course, is the maximum 280Hz refresh rate. I’m not sure how many gamers can discern the difference beyond 144Hz – not me at least. But experiencing between 120Hz to 280Hz while playing Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 with it, motion feels fluid and immediate even at the lower spectrum of the refresh rate. Seasoned esports gamers specialising in fast shooters will undoubtedly benefit the most.

Final thoughts

In our part of the world, pricing has become a key consideration in the current economic climate – and the state of GPU pricing certainly isn’t helping matters. Gigabyte has officially priced the MO27Q28G at S$899 in Singapore, but at the time of writing, it can already be found closer to S$797 at retailers such as Techyard. That shift is meaningful. An equivalent 27-inch OLED gaming monitor from ROG still commands a few hundred dollars more, and at this level, those differences are hard to ignore.

Seen in that context, the MO27Q28G starts to look less like a luxury indulgence and more like a well-thought upgrade. OLED gaming monitors are no longer rare, but they still sit firmly in the “do you really need one” category. What Gigabyte delivers here is a set of tangible gains such as deep contrast, near-instant response times, and a speedy 280Hz refresh rate, without tying those benefits to a 4K panel or demanding top-tier GPU hardware to make the most of them. For gamers already balancing budgets across expensive components, that distinction is very helpful.

I think it’s great that the MO27Q28G doesn’t pretend that OLED is without compromise, and that honesty works in its favour in my opinion. Rather than chasing high-end gaming extremes, Gigabyte has focused on delivering performance where it counts, at a price that feels easier to justify in today’s market. For Singaporean gamers weighing their next monitor upgrade carefully, this ends up being one of the more sensible price-to-performance OLED options available, and not because it’s “cheap”, but because it aligns well with how most mainstream gamers actually build and use their PCs.

The Gigabyte MO27Q28G W-OLED gaming monitor is available at Techyard. Click here to buy.