THIS IS SO COOL, But…. (ROG XG17AH Portable Gaming Monitor)

Today we are going to take a look at one of the coolest products that I have used in quite a while. But its really hard to recommend actually getting one.

And that is the ROG XG17 portable gaming monitor from ASUS.

Just before we get into why I link this little device so much, lets talk about what I don’t like and that is the price.

Price

The XG17 is retailing for around $500 for the standard kit with a folding cover that works as a stand.

But then for a $100 more you get the collapsible, height adjustable, metal stand which weighs almost as much as the monitor itself. Don’t get me wrong, the stand is actually really nice. It’s very sturdy, folds up into a small package and has a quick release clip. But for a $100 it is quite a bit because you can actually use any 1/4inch tripod to mount the monitor on.

Screen

Now as for the display it comes in at 17.3” which is small enough to fit in a few laptop bags but just big enough to actually use it for gaming. The IPS has a max resolution of 1080P which isn’t too crazy but it runs at 240hz, which by the way is above 144hz and has a . This is definitely not needed for most people but if you are a competitive FPS gamer that’s on the go a lot  then this could be quite nice to have. Plus with the builtin 7800mAH battery you don’t even need any extra power for around 3hours of 240hz gaming and over 4hours of 60hz media consumption. As for when it does you can also full charge it back in around 2 hours.

Thanks to the IPS panel viewing angles are good with only a little color change but still great for some buddy gaming or video watching. 

Even though this is a 240hz gaming monitor it still has pretty good color accuracy with my model that was pre calibrated, not sure everyone is going to be. But it covered 99.1% of the sRGB color gamut, has a 0.67 average Delta E rating, a 2.17 gamma score and a 1000:1 contrast ratio. The panel isn’t overly bright at 300 nits so outdoors won’t be ideal even with the non-glare coating.

Design

For the design its again a 17inch panel that has a full metal shell but that’s only 10mm thick and only weighs 1KG, (2.2pounds) Thanks to that metal shell it feels really well built and has some flex but not too much.

Speakers

The XG17 also has 1x 1W stereo speakers which isn’t anything to brag about but is a nice backup

IO

For IO, on the side you get a Micro HDMI, a Display port Over type, a Type C for charging and then a headphone jack. So there are 2 ways to connect the XG17 either with the micro HDMI that can run off the battery or while powering it with the type C port. Or if your device supports DisplayPort over Type C like some laptops, phones and tablets you can just use a single Type C cable to power and display the image.

Above the IO you get 4 buttons for power, Menu and volume. The menu looks identical to other ROG gaming monitors and you get most of the same feathers like the Cheat crosshairs, FPS counter, Shadow Boost, Bluelight filter and then you also get 8 picture profiles.

Performance

Then finally getting into gaming, its not going to be the most amazing gaming experience ever because of the smaller size. BUT I had a blast using it. Just the idea of playing on such a compact device that runs at such a high refresh rate is so cool. The response time is also very good with a tested 4-5ms, plus you have adaptive sync for reduced screen tearing.

Something I was quite worried about was input latency. It has been a problem for the majority of previous portable monitors with even 25ms making fast paced games feel sluggish. But luckily this was not a problem for the XG17 with it having around 6ms. It’s still not the fastest but it’s at the point where I couldnt notice it.

Ok so it’s really nice fast paced PC gaming but how about consoles or mobile games? Well unfortunately I don’t own a console to really test it, but it will still work really nicely. The only problem is that because it’s 240hz it’s not really being utilized fully. From what I could find it also doesn’t look like next gen will run at 144hz or 240hz in 1080P so might be a waste for that. But it still works fine at 60hz and will be a great travel monitor for your PlayStation, Xbox, Switch and mobile phone. It’s especially useful if your android phone has a desktop version combined with Bluetooth peripherals. It makes for a very nice portable workstation seeing how powerful phones are getting.

Conclusion

So in conclusion, the ROG XG17AH is the worlds best portable gaming monitor. But its not for everybody because of the high price tag, the smaller size, lower resolution and high refresh rate. Even still I love this little beast and really want one. But I will need to wait till ASUS maybe brings out a possible TUF version with some reduced specs but at a lower price. That’s what I want.