The OLED monitor boom is well underway, and gamers on a… generous budget, are finally reaping the rewards. OLED displays have typically been the premium option reserved for more expensive monitors, however over recent years, newer panel technologies have entered the market, and we’re starting to see OLED gaming monitors trickle into something resembling affordability.
Enter the MSI MAG 273QP X24, a 27-inch (or more accurately, 26.5-inch) 1440p QD-OLED gaming monitor that aims to bring OLED speed and contrast to more gamers. On paper, it ticks a lot of the right boxes: 240Hz refresh rate, 0.03ms response times, HDR support, and the kind of colour reproduction we’re used to seeing from great OLED panels.
But with the OLED monitor space becoming increasingly crowded, the real question is whether the MAG 273QP X24 stands out or is simply another very good display in a field of very good displays.
MSI’s MAG series is their entry-level line relative to the MPG and MEG lines, and while that’s not inherently a bad thing, it does mean we have to give up a few features to keep within budget.
In terms of design, what we get here is clean and angular. Something typical of an MSI gaming monitor. It has thin bezels around the panel, a larger chin, and a plastic housing that keeps everything together on the back.
The stand offers the usual adjustments you’d expect from a gaming monitor in this class, including tilt, height and pivot adjustments, while VESA mounting is also available if you’d rather attach it to a monitor arm.
Connectivity-wise, we don’t have much to offer, with two HDMI 2.1 ports and a DisplayPort 1.4a handling video input duties, and a single 3.5mm jack for audio output duties.
It’s not the most feature-packed monitor in terms of ports, making it built for someone looking for a pure display.
Up until now, it’s been relatively unexciting. Where this monitor shines, though, is in its display, essentially doing the job it was built to do.
The MAG 273QP X24 uses a 27-inch (technically 26.5-inch) QD-OLED display with a resolution of 2560×1440.
For many modern gamers, 1440p hits the perfect balance between visual clarity and GPU performance. It’s significantly sharper than 1080p but far less demanding than 4K, which means hitting high refresh rates is much more realistic on a more affordable GPU.
What makes QD-OLED particularly exciting is how it combines the strengths of OLED technology with quantum dot colour enhancement. This results in a display capable of extremely vibrant colours and crazy contrast ratios thanks to per-pixel lighting control.
In reality, that means blacks are truly black. No glow, no grey haze, and no backlight bleed.
Colours also look fantastic. The monitor covers nearly the entire DCI-P3 colour space and can exceed the sRGB gamut, producing rich, highly saturated colours.
Whether you’re exploring the neon chaos of Cyberpunk 2077 or the dull tones of Grim Dawn, the difference compared to traditional LCD panels is immediately noticeable.
For HDR fans, the monitor carries DisplayHDR True Black 400 certification, which means it can deliver the high contrast and deep blacks that HDR content thrives on. I find HDR a little bit of a hit and miss at times, though. While this isn’t a fault of the monitor necessarily, in some games, bright areas can be a little too overexposed.
OLED panels are also known for their speed. The MAG 273QP X24 runs at 240Hz, giving FPS hunters plenty of headroom for ultra-smooth gameplay. Paired with the monitor’s 0.03ms response time, and motion clarity becomes exceptional. There’s no ghosting in faster-paced games like Counter-Strike or Apex Legends.
The display also supports adaptive refresh technologies, including NVIDIA G-SYNC compatibility and AMD FreeSync Premium Pro, which help eliminate screen tearing during gameplay.
As impressive as OLED panels are, though, they still come with a few caveats.
Brightness is the most obvious one.
The MAG 273QP X24 is said to reach around 250 nits in SDR, with HDR peaks approaching 1000 nits. I had no issue with this when using the monitor, but most of the time I have my blinds drawn, making my room slightly darker. The monitor also suffers from the typical purpling of blacks under direct light, so just be aware of this when setting up your monitor.
Then there’s the perennial OLED concern: burn-in.
There are several features, including pixel shift, to help prevent burn-in, and MSI offers a three-year warranty on the panel, meaning you should be pretty safe here. But I would still take extra precautions to make sure you aren’t keeping similar windows open in the same place at all times, or at least give your monitor a break when you can.
Pricing is where the MAG 273QP X24 becomes particularly interesting.
I joked with Arielle that I was about to call this monitor affordable, and relatively speaking, it is. Plainly speaking, though, it’s around R15,000 to snag this bad boy for yourself. Not everyone has a spare R15,000 lying around, but if you are looking to enter into the QD-OLED monitor category, the MSI MAG 273QP X24 is a strong contender.
Sure, you aren’t getting much in terms of extra features, but you do get a stunning panel that’s eye-catching no matter what game you find yourself diving into. You get a pretty decent refresh rate and minimal response times thanks to the OLED technology, and for monitors of similar spec, you’re looking at a couple of thousand rand more.
Which means if you are looking to dip your toes into gorgeous quality monitors, the MSI MAG 273QP X24 is a decently warm pool of water that’ll treat you just right, and perhaps have you swimming in deeper pools of OLED as time goes on.
