Xiaomi A27i

Jul 26, 2024

Unboxing + Assembly

The box is rather simple, the unboxing experience is also more utilitarian than the "experience". It's packed rather nicely, with styrofoam, and everything is rather well protected. The monitor itself is also covered in a wrap around it for extra protection. In the packaging, you will find the power cable, an HDMI cable, a manual, and the monitor mount.

The assembly process is really easy. You simply take out the monitor itself, push the stand handle into the monitor itself (there's a little locking mechanism), and then you screw on the stand baseplate with the included hex key and screws. The monitor itself is also not really that heavy, so lifting it and moving it around is no problem. Though you can skil the stand process if you want to go with the VESA mount.

The monitor takes DisplayPort 1.4 or HDMI 2.0, and, of course, a proprietary power port. You love to see it.

Menu

The menu is versatile, easy to understand, and has a load of different features. Accessible by pushing the joystick on the back of the monitor to the right. Moving it to the left changes input, and moving up and down changes brightness. The menu is pretty much as standard as they get, but it is still pretty good. A no-nonsense solution.

Gaming

Gaming on this thing is a blast. You know those cliché "120hz makes everything feel smoother and nicer, and gives me more time to see stuff" things that everyone says on every single high refresh rate monitor ever? Well, I guess it's for a good reason. It really does feel a lot smoother. It's kinda like going from 60 to 120hz on your phone, just on the monitor. I played some games with it, and on some it's way more noticeable than on others, but on certain games everything just felt infinitely nicer.

One thing I didn't quite notice, though, is the HDR10+. I think I understand what it's meant to do, but if someone could enlighten me on where I could test it properly, I would appreciate it endlessly, as anywhere I have tried to test it, I have not noticed any difference whatsoever.

Another thing I really like is the size. Compared to 24", it feels huge. It may only be 3" more, but that adds up quickly. At the distance I sit at, it feels like the content is there, in my face, I feel way more immersed in the game I'm playing. I love it.

Creative workloads

By default, the colour tones of the monitor feel a little warm, so I had to knock it down a notch, but that was a very minor change, I only had to bump the reds down by 2 and bump the blues up by 1 to get what I'm used to. The monitor does feel a little bit darker, but at the same time due to how good the colours are, there's no issues with whites having no contrast and all being blown out, and the blacks in movies or games don't feel like they're pitch black and unviewable.

I can't quite comment about the true colour accuracy or the greatness of the sRGB, as I am not an expert, but I can tell you this: If you only have the budget for this monitor, you probably don't need perfect, cinema-grade colour accuracy. And I don't mean that as an insult, I mean that as a "spend your money elsewhere, not on a super accurate monitor".

Design & Build quality

What I like about the monitor is how good it looks. It's a really minimalistic style, with decently thin bezels and a simplistic stand design. Overall, I like it. Ironically, my webcam's stand is so big that I now have a notch on my monitor because the bezels are too thin.

One thing I do like is the build quality. It feels pretty good for a 120€ monitor. No flimsy plastic, ports stay in place perfectly, the stand feels like it could hold way more weight, and the monitor tilt actually requires a little bit of effort, which is nice because it doesn't wobble around like crazy.

Overall impressions

Overall, I gotta say, I have no regrets on this purchase and the second I save up enough for a second, I am completing my setup. These monitors are awesome.