ASUS ROG Strix XG17AHP 17.3" Black

The XG17AHP is a 240Hz portable gaming monitor that's incredibly compact but has a dim, washed-out display. It's great for travel gaming if speed matters more than picture quality. For desk use, buy a real monitor instead.

The refresh rate is the star here. 240Hz on a portable monitor is wild, and the 3ms response time keeps motion looking clean. Adaptive-Sync helps smooth things out when your frame rate dips. But the panel itself holds it back. 250 nits of brightness is rough if you're gaming anywhere with real light, and 72 percent color coverage means games look a bit washed out compared to a decent desktop monitor. The 165Hz spec listed in some places is confusing, but the 240Hz max is what ASUS pushes, and that's what matters for fast-paced shooters.

Stacked against the LG UltraGear 27GX790A-B or the Samsung Odyssey G60SD, the XG17AHP loses on raw display quality and brightness by a wide margin. Those are proper desktop panels with better color and higher peak brightness. The MSI MPG 271QR QD-OLED X50 is in another league entirely for image quality. But none of those fit in a backpack. The Gigabyte AORUS FO32U2 and Dell UltraSharp U4025QW are also desktop-bound. If portability is your top priority, the ASUS wins by default. If you're mostly gaming at a desk, any of those competitors will give you a better picture.

Pricing is all over the place depending on where you shop. In the US you're looking at USD 470 to USD 555 across two listings, with the lower end being the better deal if you can find it. European buyers face a much wider spread, from EUR 776 up to EUR 1,026 across four listings, so shopping around matters a lot there. For a portable monitor with this refresh rate, the US price is reasonable if you prioritize speed over picture quality. But at the high end of those ranges, you're getting into territory where a solid desktop gaming monitor starts looking like a smarter buy.

The ASUS ROG Strix XG17AHP is a 17.3 inch portable gaming monitor that tries to cram a desktop gaming experience into a backpack. It runs a 1080p IPS panel at up to 240Hz with Adaptive-Sync, which is genuinely impressive for something this size. The whole package weighs just over a kilogram and folds up with a tripod and carrying bag included.

But here's the catch. The display itself is pretty dim at 250 nits and only covers 72 percent of the color gamut. That lands it near the bottom of our database for display quality and color. It's a speed demon for portable gaming, but it's not winning any picture quality awards.

Skip this if you care about picture quality at all. The 250 nits brightness and 72 percent color coverage will frustrate anyone used to a decent desktop monitor. If you're not traveling constantly, put your money toward a proper gaming display with better color and brightness. Also skip it if you need something for office work, since it scores just 39.8 out of 100 for that use case.

This is for people who travel constantly and refuse to game on a laptop screen. The 240Hz refresh rate and compact form factor are the whole pitch, and for that specific use case, it delivers. Everyone else should probably just buy a regular monitor. The display quality is too compromised to recommend as a primary screen, and the price is high enough that you're paying a serious premium for portability.