 What's up internet? Pinahiram kami ni Asus no monitor and gusto ko saan na i-review. Yung problema, the last time pinahiram kami ni Asus no monitor, sobrang kong nagustuhan, minakaw ko from the shop. So para iwas tukso tayo ngayon, we got a tech expert and you know him from Pwede magtanong, it'll be Marvin who will review the monitor. So now to the big question. Does the 165 Hz refresh rate that this monitor offers make any difference? Can you tell the difference between 60 Hz, 75 Hz and the 165 Hz refresh rate? The short answer, yes, there is a difference. My whole life has been a lie. Humans can see more than 60 frames per second. On a more serious note, we ran a few tests using the testUFO.com website and with our naked eye, we could appreciate the difference that the 165 Hz refresh rate brings. Of course, the challenge was how we could show you that difference using a YouTube video that at most would only show 60 frames per second. So to emphasize the difference, what we did was we used the slow-mo feature of our camera that could film at 200 frames per second to show you these differences. Here, even at full speed, you can see the difference between the 165 FPS sample and the other lower FPS samples. When we go to the slow-mo version, the difference is even more pronounced. Now here is the scrolling text test in slow-mo. As you can see, the 165 FPS sample is smoother, easier to read as compared to the other samples. Now here's the video game motion test. First at full speed, then in slow-mo mode, where you can really tell the difference. This monitor also features extreme low-motion blur, or ELMB. This is ASUS's proprietary technology that reduces motion blur. It uses backlight strobing to sort of make images a little crisper. Now, take note that you can only activate this by turning off FreeSync and AdaptiveSync. When we ran our tests, yes, it did make images more crisp at the expense of a little brightness. It's a bit more challenging to show this on YouTube, but we'll try. So here we have the UFO test on slow-mo again. Aside from the video being a little out of focus, you can see that the images themselves are blurry. You can barely make out the details on the ship. However, when we turn on ELMB on standard mode, the strobing light effect starts. And by some magic, the details are now more pronounced. The image is a little crispier. When we activate the Turbo mode, the strobe effect light increases in speed and there is a corresponding increase in the image clarity. So here's what I think after using the TUF Gaming BG249 Q1R for more than a few weeks, side-by-side with my existing monitor. Before, I belonged to the camp that firmly believed that high refresh rate monitors were a waste of money because humans supposedly couldn't see above 60 frames per second anyway. In fact, when I bought my most recent monitor, I chose a 27-inch monitor with a 75 Hz refresh rate over a 24-inch monitor with a 144 Hz refresh rate even if the price of the two monitors were almost the same. But now, my belief on that point is not quite so firm. Yes, higher refresh rate monitors might be more expensive than other types of monitors. For example, the TUF Gaming BG249 Q1R has an SRP of almost 13,000 pesos. That could buy a 27-inch monitor or even a 32-inch monitor. So who are the people for whom it would make sense to spend the extra money for monitors like the TUF Gaming BG249 Q1R? For one, people who play a lot of fast-paced games like first-person shooters and MOBAs. In fact, I read somewhere that some professional gamers still practice on 24-inch 1080p monitors with high refresh rates precisely because these are the types of monitors that are commonly found in tournaments. It could just be a coincidence, but I found that when I played valorant on this monitor, I was surviving more one-on-one shootouts whereas before, I would usually end up dead. Now, my reaction time didn't get better so the only thing that changed was the higher refresh rate. This monitor also makes sense for people who play other types of games but who have GPUs that are already overpowering their 60Hz monitors at 1080p but it's not powerful enough to play at 1440p. All in all, this monitor represents a good value for those people who want to take the first few steps into higher refresh rate gaming but it's okay with paying a premium for extra features and a good build quality. So, this is the TUF Gaming VG249Q1R from ASUS out of the box. Really quick, let's go through some more important specifications. It's a 23.8-inch monitor with an IPS panel. It has 1080p resolution. It has acceptable brightness at 250 kandelapar square meter. Claims to have a response time of 1 millisecond but instead of the usual GTG measurement, measures it using the stricter moving picture response time metric. So, it would seem that it's really good. More importantly, it claims that it has a maximum refresh rate of 165Hz which will delve into deeper at a later time. Let's take a closer look at it. As you can see, it's very thin and when I lifted it, it felt really light. So, this is what it looks like from this side and here's how it looks like from the other side. Unlike its other siblings, the only options are tilting up and down. It's pretty tight so no fear of wobbling. It doesn't have any pivot options but of course you can get a separate monitor arm for it. So, this is what it looks like at the back. It has a sort of matte finish coating on it. It does tend to be a little bit of a fingerprint magnet. It has the ASUS and the tough gaming branding prominently on the back. Looks good, looks good. It has one display port input as well as two HDMI inputs. It also has a 3.5mm earphone jack. If you wanna use that instead of your earphone jack on your CPU. It does come with a pair of speakers but they're pretty small It's just something there in case you have no other alternative. And it does have its own power cord plug-in because this does not use onboard power rather there is a separate power brick. For its user interface, it does come with a joystick option rather than the multiple button options that the other monitors have which personally, I prefer it's simpler, more intuitive. And lastly, it does have its standard Vesa mounting option 75x75 which makes using a monitor arm that I referred to earlier quite simple. Let's take a closer look at the base. It's circular, quite different from the usual rectangular or square basis or those flimsy legs that some monitors come with. As I mentioned, it's quite light and you can see a bit of that red accent it has. Let's do a build quality test. First, a dead pixel check. So let's do a backlight bleed test. It is an IPS panel so some bleed is to be expected. Now, looking at this monitor we do see some bleeding out at the upper part of the screen. So for example, here, I can see this part even with my naked eye as well as a little bit of this part. Now, it doesn't look this bad using your eyes. It is a little exaggerated given the fact that I am filming in a completely dark room and also our eyes work a little different from the camera. So the other parts where there might seem to be a bleed like in the lower parts like here and here they don't appear to me when I look at it with my eyes. And to be honest even the upper bleeds when I look at it using normal use it doesn't really bother me until I start looking for it. Let's take a look at the menu options it offers. The usual brightness, contrast, some proprietary ASUS options blue light filter then you have the usual color adjustments that you can make on a hardware level as opposed to using your computer to make software adjustments input selections then you have system setup pretty standard. ASUS does provide some game visual options preconfigured color modes so we have scenery mode racing mode cinema mode the RTS RPG mode and of course an FPS mode an SRGB mode and a very very strange MOBA mode which appears to highlight the greens and reds and blacks out everything else. Generally I use the FPS mode for most of the testing done today. So thank you to ASUS for lending us the monitor and thank you to Marvin for reviewing it and feeling ko baka mawala na lang yan or manakaw yan from the shop one of these days.