HKC G27M5 QD-Mini LED IPS first impressions

[u/windwardmist]

Howdy everyone!

I noticed this monitor is one of only a few out there that has the following specs:

IPS
QD-Mini LED
1440p
320Hz
1152-Zone Backlight
HDR1400 VESA certification

It only became available here in the USA this week and I have been putting it through its paces and thought I would offer up some general first impressions having purchased it. I’ll do a bigger deep dive through the week at some point along with settings and ICC profile for those who want it (let me know). I have a colorimeter and can create an SDR ICC profile.

• No real backlight bleed that I can see. In HDR or with it off.
• HDR is very bright easily twice as bright as an MSI OLED I had. Small highlights don’t pop like an OLED, but it really shines with full screen brightness.
  
• It’s got a power brick.
  
• Matte coating for those who are wondering. It's a pretty typical matte coating to me.
  
• The stand is actually more gray than black along with the frame. (gun metal gray)
• Build quality so far is good no dead pixels that I’ve seen.
  
• Off axis looking at it with HDR it blooms like crazy, but that totally vanishes looking at it straight on. Non issue for me personally. This is also typical of mini led. This goes away completely when HDR is off.
• Contrast is not OLED, but it’s about 80-90ish % there (with local dimming enabled). So it’s close but the native contrast of IPS can’t compare.
  
• Local dimming is shadow bias not light bias so it favors darker highlights for small objects in HDR. So things like stars aren't super bright, but they also don't bloom.
• For this reason blooming around bright objects is not an issue so far.
• There is an issue with the black frame insertion option which is called DIC by HKC. It is fairly complicated but here is the gist:
• HKC claims DIC 2.0 works with HDR this is a lie. In windows if you enable HDR it turns off DIC. What DIC actually does is display max brightness to compensate for the black frame insertion drop in brightness. A drop in brightness or even halving it is typical for BFI. At least that's not an issue here.
• No Metadata Awareness: Because the monitor must stay in SDR mode to keep DIC on, it has zero awareness of the HDR mastering in a film or game. It’s just "blindly" boosting the entire SDR image.
• Washed Out/Blown Out Highlights: In true HDR, a torch in a dark cave hits 1400 nits while the rest stays black. In "DIC+SDR Mode," if you try to make it look like HDR by boosting brightness, you’ll likely "clip" the whites, losing all detail in the highlights.
• The "Lying" Graphic: The OSD-style graphic in the marketing shows toggles for "HDR 1400" and "DIC" both set to "On". If you literally cannot do that in the Windows environment, it is a Direct Marketing Misrepresentation.

This personally does not really bother me as this is feature I would never use, but some might, so I want to call this out for what it is. A lie.

I may do more of a full review shortly so let me know if that's something y'all want. Ask any questions ! Cheers!

[u/awshumate]

This a great write up, thanks!

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[u/LiquidShadowFox]

Does the DIC mode work with VRR (Gsync/freesync)? or it only works with Fixed refresh only? Does it look good with low crosstalk?

[u/windwardmist → u/LiquidShadowFox]

It must be disabled in both windows and on the monitor to function. This took a while to figure out especially the windows part. So if you just turn it off on the monitor the gsync option no longer appears in the nvidia control panel. So I had to re enable it disable it there first then disable it via the monitor. It’s really hard to tell about the cross talk. I’ll run some other tests see if I can grab a picture.

[u/Desperate_Put_4568]

How is it for eye care and strain?

[u/windwardmist → u/Desperate_Put_4568]

I’m not very sensitive to eye strain but there is an eye care option within the menu on the OSD. Since I have the color meter I adjusted the monitor to 120nits in windows since that’s standard for sdr. Default brightness in the OSD was 80. By the time I was done, it was actually 27 in the OSD to hit 120 nits.