Sony squares up to Asus and LG in the dual-mode, esports OLED gaming monitor market with a Fnatic collab
With the gaming monitor market absolutely swamped with different makes, models, and specifications, it can be hard for manufacturers to stand out in the crowd. However, Sony reckons it has just the ticket, in the form of a dual-mode OLED display that's practically the same as what Asus and LG offer, except it's got the thumbs up from Fnatic.
If you're not a follower of professional esports, the name Fnatic won't mean anything to you, and truth be told, it didn't to me either, until I looked it up. It's not a pro gamer, though, it's a brand: "A global esports performance brand headquartered in London, laser-focused on levelling up every gamer."
Anyway, Sony's new Inzone M10S II OLED gaming monitor isn't the first time the Japanese company has teamed up with Fnatic: it did it for the first iteration of this display. So what's new? Well, the paper specifications essentially point to its being a near-direct clone of the Asus ROG Swift PG27AQWP-W and LG Ultragear 27GX790B-B.
All three are 27 inches in size and sport an OLED panel that has a native resolution of 2560 x 1440, with a maximum refresh rate of 540 Hz. They also boast a 'dual-mode' function where, at the click of a button, they switch to a correctly-scaled 1080p, but with a blistering 720 Hz refresh rate. Each monitor can also limit how much of the display is used in this mode, to give pro gamers that 24-inch feeling.
Competition is good for the consumer, of course, though I don't mean that from an esports sense. Having multiple manufacturers battling for the same customer usually results in at least one of them resorting to outdoing the others by undercutting them on price, and that's precisely the case with LG.
Right now, you can bag the LG Ultragear 27GX790B-B for $750 at Amazon, which is significantly cheaper than the $1,099 Asus wants for the ROG Swift PG27AQWP-W. It's a bit of a shame, then, that Sony has set the launch MSRP for the Inzone M10S II (or 2, if you prefer) at $1,099.99—that makes it the most expensive of the three.
Sony says its new monitor has been "refined with feedback from Fnatic", but until the all-singing, all-dancing gaming display has been independently tested and reviewed, there's no way of telling whether the collaboration is worth paying the extra.
Dual-mode monitors seem to be a bit of a 'thing' at the moment, and our Andy spotted this great deal on a 4K model from LG, but I do wonder if it's at such a great price because fewer gamers than expected are buying them.