HyperX Armada 27

The monitor sphere focused on gamers and gaming seems to be the hottest part of the whole gaming world right now in terms of pure hardware. Otherwise, headphone giant HyperX (now owned by HP) or the chassis and cooling experts at Cooler Master wouldn't have suddenly jumped into the monitor fray, like HP, which earlier this fall unleashed a new line of monitors with promises of a more substantial, future investment precisely here. The amount of high-quality monitors optimised for gaming on the market right now is getting a bit perverse, and for HyperX to really be seen, heard and noticed here - it's going to take outright miracles.

HyperX makes, in my opinion, one of the absolute best gaming headsets of all-time with the utterly brilliant HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless, which not only offers great sound, a superb microphone, brilliant fit and great durability but also 300 hours of battery life per charge. I use a HyperX Cloud Alpha Wireless for my PlayStation 5 (where I play Warzone 2.0 on a daily basis) and couldn't like those headsets more than I actually do. The same goes for their Pulsefire Haste gaming mouse that I use in our racing rig, and which I consider to be brilliant. For this very reason, my expectations for the Armada were very high and initially it's a capable display, which after a period of use exposes a couple of dull blemishes, however. But let me start with the positives.

There's a good panel sitting in this screen, clearly. IPS, 2560x1440p resolution with 165Hz refresh rate and six millisecond input lag with 450 nits maximum brightness (SDR). There's lots and lots of brightness here (more than you'll ever need) and the panel covers 92% of the P3 gamut and offers really nice face contrast with minimal amounts of clouding. The blackness is a bit worse than the best IPS monitors in this segment and certainly worse than the HP 27u, among others, but then again, it's not an OLED display. Motion handling is good and while I would have expected a 240Hz panel for this price, G-sync works well and the screen is snappy and stable in terms of performance.

HyperX hopes to differentiate itself from most of the competition by shipping with a mounting arm similar to the Multibrackets arm that I use on my desktop today, and the arm itself is high quality, simple to install and works very well. However, this makes the Armada unnecessarily expensive. On the other hand, if you include LG's equivalent plus a Multibracket arm, you reach about the same price, and that's probably how we should think here.

There are things that should have been here though. Including HP's control software and more inputs on the back. There are also speakers missing here and although I never use the monitor speakers regardless, the price is at such a level that it should have included both an alternative table stand, more inputs, as well as built-in speakers. HMDI 2.1 as well as USB-C should have been included, too. Take the competitor Gigabyte M27Q X 27 as an example. Same size, wider colour gamut, many more inputs as well as 240Hz panel for a little less money. If I were to recommend a monitor for purchase, I'd recommend the M27Q over the Armada, any day of the week. Or I'd advise you to step up to the HP 27u and pay a little more and in the process get one of the best gaming monitors we've ever seen here at Gamereactor.

The HyperX Armada certainly isn't bad and the idea of the included mounting arm is a good one, but it lacks some necessary features as well as inputs which makes the relatively high price unjustified. It's good, but nothing more. And I would choose several of the nearest competitors' models over this one.