I really, really like the HyperX Armada 27 gaming monitor. I think its 165Hz QHD IPS panel produces a lovely image with a solid response, and its customisation options — including an adjustable arm for desk mounting — are beyond what most established brands will pack into the box. It delivers everything you want in a solid, reliable gaming monitor at a ripper price.
I honestly didn’t expect to like it this much. The Armada is HyperX’s first tilt at a monitor since its acquisition by HP and, as with any push into new territory, I expected it to have a few rough edges.
But it doesn’t. Not really. This is just a rock solid monitor no matter how you slice it. It’s been constructed with a confidence of a manufacturer that’s been doing this forever. If you didn’t know that HyperX hadn’t ever produced a monitor before this, you might struggle to pick that.
When shopping for a gaming monitor, you’re always looking for a balance of price and performance. The Armada 27 sits in the dead centre of that Venn diagram. At around $AU780, it’s one of the better deals on a gaming monitor I’ve been able to find. Indeed, the only thing the Armada 27 sacrifices over its slightly smaller 25″ stablemate is refresh rate. The Armada 25 can get up to 240Hz, compared to the 165Hz on the 27. As trade-offs go, that minor reduction in refresh rate is a sacrifice I’m willing to make.
The panel on the 27, though, is every bit a match for the 25. Despite the lower refresh rate, the Armada 27 still pumps out pretty smooth visuals. It’s G-Sync certified if you’re an Nvidia fan, and FreeSync compatible up to 165hz if you’re running an AMD card.
Within the built-in OSD, you’ll find a sensible array of options for making the most of your new monitor. There’s a five-tier overdrive system for those who want to manage the way the monitor displays fast motion. Level 3, the default, is a smooth motion setting that doesn’t result in ghost or artefacts. The closer you get to Level 5, the more trails you’ll start to see. There’s a backlight strobe that can be enabled in place of Adaptive Sync via MPRT. One neat function I found in the menus was a crosshair editor that lets you create your very own aiming dot in the centre of the screen. For games like Sea of Thieves that are in first person but don’t have a crosshair on things like cannons, this seems almost too overpowered for words.
I’ll take it, though. I’m a pirate, not a law-abiding, no crosshair … guy.
You can get quite a bit more granular with your video controls on the HyperX Armada 27 than you can on the 25, so if you are a habitual preset tweaker, you’ll be well served here. However, I found that I didn’t have to change much of anything once the Armada 27 was set up. Across the board, its default settings returned a strong and smooth picture in every game I threw at it.
The highlight of the package, though, is the mounting arm that comes in the box. Extremely convenient, and with a hefty clamp that will keep the monitor secured and hoisted above a desk of just about any size, it’s rare to see this kind of thing offered as a pack-in. The arm can be moved in direction and the monitor swivelled to portrait or landscape profiles. It can be tilted to any angle you like, and you’ve got about a foot of clearance for height arrangement. Better still? There’s tools required to set it up. The arm snaps together from several pieces and is ready to go in minutes. For those who have a multi-monitor setup already (or are looking to construct one), the Armada 27 makes the setup (and therefore, life) extremely easy for the user. It would not surprise me to see streamers with multi-panel displays using several of these monitors in the future.
In terms of its external design, the Armarda 27 is another HyperX device with minimal frills. The bezel is quite narrow (8mm along the top and sides, and around 19mm along the lower edge), and the ports are placed in the lower centre on the panel rear, below the connectors for the boom arm.
Final thoughts
I feel like you get the gist, right? The HyperX Armada 27 is a rock solid gaming monitor that, I feel, provides more than enough bang for buck. The packed-in mount and boom arm make it a very attractive package among many in the price range, saving you the extra spend on gear and sending you home with everything you need. As first attempts go, it’s hard to remember the last time anyone stuck the landing so thoroughly. Clearly, having HP’s extensive knowledge base behind it helps, but even factoring that into the equation, the Armada makes a hell of a first impression.
If you’re in the market for a new monitor, I strongly urge you to consider it.
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