HKC M27A6F 27-inch 1080p VA Monitor Review

The market for the 1080p 27-inch monitor isn’t what you’d exactly call healthy, throw in the term “gaming” and the prices would shoot up way past the budget meal threshold. There have indeed been signs of new “gaming” monitors popping up. It’s a misuse of terms, so don’t let that fool you. Not only does it not apply, the pixel density even gets worse as you move up the screen real estate. Going back to the topic, we’re here today to take a look at a 27-inch monitor, the HKC M27A6F to be exact.

The market for the 1080p 27-inch monitor isn’t what you’d exactly call healthy, throw in the term “gaming” and the prices would shoot up way past the budget meal threshold. There have indeed been signs of new “gaming” monitors popping up. It’s a misuse of terms, so don’t let that fool you. Not only does it not apply, the pixel density even gets worse as you move up the screen real estate. Going back to the topic, we’re here today to take a look at a 27-inch monitor, the HKC M27A6F to be exact.

PACKAGING

Let us be clear that this is not a gaming monitor, and thankfully HKC doesn’t want to lie about that. Starting from the box, the M27A6F is packed in a simple brown carton that’s pretty much standard with monitors.

What’s included here is pretty much another standard affair with monitors, and as basic as it gets. The panel itself, the base, the DC 12V power adapter, and some paperwork. That’s about it. We’re not looking for anything special here, and for the price (which we’ll get to in a while), it’s what you’d expect.

DESIGN 

We love anything straightforward, no-frills approaches whenever we come by products for review, and the HKC is it. Its beautiful frameless design is quite pleasing to the eyes, and its slim form factor is desirable if I do say so myself. The menu buttons are a bit hard to actuate, and you might as well expect a wobble sometimes when you try to fire it.

What we detest about the M27A6F is its base and stand. No, it’s not because it’s not sturdy enough. Rather, it’s a bitch to get on that we had a lot of difficulties just to mount it. And don’t even get me started on removing the base from the stand. It’s next to impossible without inflicting any damages.

As far as the ports go, it’s pretty much basic. There’s one for HDMI, one for VGA, and that’s about it. It could have done well with an added audio jack for its size as a great entertainment monitor, but no. HKC just had to stray far from the light on that one.

OSD CONTROLS

The OSD controls on the M27A6F is what you’d probably call difficult for starters. The base just isn’t that sturdy, and paired with its light body the monitor tips whenever you tweak your settings with a push of a button.

From the main menu, you can adjust the brightness levels, image positioning, color temperature, OSD settings, resetting the OSD settings, and the hotkey type to make things easier. We usually just fine tune it to our liking, and there’s not much to worry about since you only have so little to tweak.

Now, these options on the menu are quite self explanatory. But let’s go ahead an expound on them. Brightness lets you change the brightness and contrast levels, plus access to different presets such as Text, Game, Movie, and Standard. This section also lets you enable DCR and blue light filter.

Next up is the Image section, which lets you adjust the H and V positions of the screen, plus the clock and phase, and the aspect ratio of the display. Color Temp on the other hand lets you adjust the color temperature, which is done through RGB levels. OST Settings lets you adjust the position of the OSD screen plus the transparency, while reset gives you the option to start from scratch as well as enable auto off. HKC isn’t clear on the duration for that, but it’s best that you turn it off. The Miscellaneous section lets you adjust the hotkey type for < and >, as well as choose the signal source between VGA and HDMI.

PERFORMANCE

We’re dealing with 27 inches of 1080p screen space right here. 27 inches is indeed massive, but for a 1080p VA panel, things get a little murky. The pixel density goes lower as the screen size increases, and 24 inches would probably be the sweet spot when it comes to that. But hey, that doesn’t mean the M27A6F is bad, not by a long shot.

TEST SYSTEM SETUP
Motherboard	GIGABYTE AB350M-DH3
CPU	AMD RYZEN 5 1600 3.2GHz
GPU	ZOTAC GTX 1060 6GB AMP
RAM	16GB DDR4 2400MHz
Cooler	Corsair H60 (2018)
Storage	Plextor M9e 512GB M.2 SSD+ Seagate BarraCuda 4TB + 2TB Western Digital Green HDD
PSU	Corsair VS450
Case	Silverstone RL06
OS	Windows 10 Pro N
Display	HKC M27A6F 27-inch 1080p monitor

Colors are quite rich and vibrant on the 26A6F and do pop out, and the viewing angles aren’t too shabby. Sure, it’s a VA panel, but it does bode well when it comes to viewing angles. That’s also complemented by 220cd/m2 brightness level right on here.

On the other hand, if you find 1080p a thing of the past for you, NVIDIA’s DSR helps by moving things up a bit to increase your working space to 4K. It's not exactly native 4K, but it does a great job expanding your horizons. That’s what I’ve been doing to make things efficient and help on the productivity side, you just don’t want to waste that size, you know?

Since we’re also one for multitasking, we have also used the 26A6F with our PlayStation 4. That screen size is great enough for a bedroom or a personal room if you’re limited on space, although the lack of an extra HDMI port and an audio jack may turn you off. But hey, if it works, it works.

VERDICT

The HKC M27A6F doesn’t make any bold claims as a gaming monitor, or even a high performance monitor at that. It’s a straightforward offering that gets the job done for those that want something that “just works.”

It’s not what you’d exactly call perfect – there are several gripes you’d have to deal with first. Installation is a bit of a chore, and the lack of an extra HDMI port or at least a DVI port and an audio jack could be off-putting. But once you get past around that, the HKC M27A6F poses itself as a well-rounded offering that gets the job done.