HP is flooding the zone with seven new gaming monitors

HP has gone on a tear and announced seven new gaming monitors in its X lineup, featuring a range of sizes, panel types, and resolutions, as well as some that are curved or flat-screened. It seems like HP is aiming to deliver a flurry of options that have a high refresh rate, low response time, competent design, and crucially, competitive prices. HP is staggering this launch over the next few months, with availability starting now for some of its monitors and continuing through October.

To begin with, there’s HP’s X27, which is available now and comes in a 1080p version for $259.99 or a 1440p variant called the X27q that costs $339.99. Both are IPS panels with a 165Hz refresh rate and a 1ms response time.

Resolution differences aside, they’re very similar in design. Each features slim bezels on three sides and can be raised, swiveled, and rotated to your liking. If you don’t like the stand that’s included, they include VESA mounts so you can mount them to one of the many monitor arms that are available.

In terms of ports, these are simple offerings with a DisplayPort 1.4 port, a HDMI 2.0 port, and a headphone jack. Each panel can reach up to 400 nits of brightness (the X27q, the X32, and the X34 that’s mentioned below support HDR content, but at the HDR400 standard that isn’t all that bright), and there’s AMD’s FreeSync Premium for variable refresh rate.

(In fact, every monitor announced today has the same selection of ports, and each has an adaptive sync feature that works with both AMD and Nvidia GeForce GTX 10 series, GTX 16 series, and newer graphics cards. I’ve reached out to HP for clarification on how its adaptive sync compares to Nvidia G-Sync compatibility.)

Image: HP

Coming in August is a larger variant called the HP X32, a 1440p monitor with many of the same specs and features as the X27q (though it can’t pivot or swivel); it will cost $389.99. A month later, in September, the HP X34 will add an ultrawide option to the lineup; it will cost $459.99. It has a 21:9 aspect ratio display and a 3440 x 1440 resolution. It’s still limited to just one DisplayPort and a single HDMI port for video input.

HP will release three different sizes of 1500R curved gaming monitors in October, and these are similar in design, port selection, and feature set to the flat panel options. These, however, have VA panels that usually boast more narrow viewing angles, but that’s less of an issue on a curved screen. They also have 350 nits of peak brightness compared to 400 nits in the flat panel monitors.

The X27c with a 27-inch 1080p curved screen is $259.99 — the same price as the flat X27. The X27qc is the 1440p curved variant, bumping the cost just $10 over the non-curved option at $349.99. Finally, HP is releasing a 31.5-inch X32c with a bigger 1080p curved display that costs $309.99.

Each of these monitors support VESA mounts and can be raised or lowered, but don’t support pivoting or swiveling.

Image: HP

Those are appealing prices if you’re thinking of dipping a toe into the world of curved gaming monitors. You could get two of each size and still spend less than the cost of a single Samsung 49-inch Odyssey Neo G9. The picture quality and features provided by that $2,499 monitor are way ahead of these curved HP models, but you’re paying dearly for it.

In announcing so many monitors at once, it’s clear that HP wants to flood shelves with plenty of options for the latter half of 2021. Seven monitors might be overkill, but these could be worth checking out if you’re on a budget and don’t want to decide between buying a graphics card or a display.