It wasn't long ago that you needed deep pockets to own a big-screen monitor, but nowadays you can get one for under $300 if you don't mind making a few sacrifices. With the AOC e2752Vh ($299.99), you get a 27-inch twisted nematic (TN) display that brings good color quality and audio output, but is light on features and washes out when viewed from a side angle. Still, there are better-performing monitors out there in the same price range. The Acer H276HL, our Editors' Choice for affordable big-screen monitors, offers rich, accurate colors and better gray-scale performance for a list price that's $50 less

Design and Features
The e2752Vh($199.00 at Amazon) lacks the slick aesthetics of its more attractive sibling, the AOC i2757fh. The 1,920-by-1,080 TN panel is framed by 0.8-inch glossy black bezels on the top and sides, and a 1.5-inch bezel on the bottom. The matching oval base lets you tilt the cabinet forward and backward, but there are no height, swivel, and pivot adjustments. Four VESA-compliant mounting holes on the back of the cabinet allow you to hang the monitor on a wall using an optional mounting kit.

The back of the cabinet has HDMI, DVI, and VGA video ports, an audio input, and a headphone jack. There are no DisplayPort or USB ports, and it doesn't offer Mobile High-Definition Link (MHL) connectivity like the Acer H276HL does. It does have a pair of 2.5-watt speakers that deliver strong audio output without distortion. They don't give you booming bass, but they are more full-sounding than most monitor speakers.

There are four function buttons and a power switch located on the lower right edge of the cabinet. The buttons are used to navigate the on-screen menus and adjust settings, but you'll need to memorize what each button does as the glossy-black labeling on a glossy-black bezel makes them virtually impossible to read. In the Luminance menu, you can adjust Brightness, Contrast, Gamma, Dynamic Contrast Ratio (DCR), and Eco mode settings. As with all AOC monitors, including the AOC E2460SD-TAA( at Amazon) and the AOC i2357fh, Eco mode has nothing to do with power-saving features; it's what AOC calls its picture presets, which include Standard, Text, Internet, Sports, Game, and Movie modes. The Color Setup menu offers five Color Temperature settings (Warm, Cool, Normal, sRGB, and User Defined) and a Dynamic Color Boost (DCB) setting that can be used to enhance colors, though colors appear way too oversaturated with DCB enabled.

The e2752Vh comes with a three-year warranty covering parts, labor, and backlighting. Inside the box are VGA and audio cables and a resource CD containing a user guide, drivers, and AOC's iMenu utility that lets you adjust picture settings using a mouse and keyboard rather than the function buttons.

Performance
The e2752Vh's TN panel produced fairly accurate colors for a low-cost monitor, although reds and greens were a bit off the mark. On the chromaticity chart below, our color measurements are indicated by the colored dots, while the ideal CIE coordinates for each color are represented by the boxes. Blue was spot-on, but reds came up a little light, and greens were a little heavy. Fortunately, the slightly skewed colors did not translate to oversaturated colors or tinting issues.

Image quality was generally good while watching The Wolverine on Blu-ray disc, but the panel's inability to display dark shades of gray resulted in some loss of shadow detail in darker scenes. However, the panel had no trouble displaying lighter shades of gray on the DisplayMate 64-Step Gray-Scale test, and this showed on my test photos; highlight detail was sharp and well-defined.

Viewing-angle performance was typical for a TN panel. Color shifting was obvious when viewed from a side angle of around 65 degrees off-center, and the image washed out when viewed from the top and bottom at around 55 degrees off-center.

The e2752Vh has a 2-millisecond (gray-to-gray) pixel response, which accounts for its motion-handling prowess. While playing Aliens vs. Predator, the action was smooth and showed no signs of blurring. Results where similar with the monitor connected to my PS3 console; Burnout Paradise, a fast-paced street racing game, was fluid and artifact-free.

Power consumption came in at 28 watts during testing while set to Standard mode. By way of comparison, the Acer H276HL used 24 watts, and the ViewSonic VX2703mh-LED( at Amazon) used 27 watts, but both have Eco mode settings that bring consumption down to 22 and 17 watts, respectively. The e2752Vh lacks a power-saving mode, but it does come with AOC's e-saver utility, which lets you turn off the monitor after a period of inactivity or when the host PC goes to sleep.

Conclusion
If you only have $300 to spend on a big-screen monitor, the AOC e2752Vh can fit the bill. However, its gray-scale performance could be better, and it suffers from the narrow viewing angles that plague so many TN-based monitors. On the plus side, it offers fairly accurate colors, a fast pixel response, and good audio output. However, our Editors' Choice for affordable big-screen monitors, the Acer H276HL($354.18 at Amazon), is a better deal; it has an In-Plane Switching (IPS) panel that delivers better all-around performance and offers a sleek, bezel-free design, for $50 less.

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