Sony squares up to Asus and LG in the dual-mode, esports OLED gaming monitor market with a Fnatic collab
It's a match for the competition on specs, but not quite there on price
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Want to add more newsletters?
Join the club
Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.
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.

1. Best overall / 4K:
MSI MPG 321URX
2. Best budget 4K:
Asus ROG Strix XG27UCG
3. Best 1440p:
MSI MPG 271QRX
4. Best budget 1440p:
KTC H27T22C-3
5. Best 1080p:
AOC Gaming C27G4ZXE
6. Best Ultrawide:
Gigabyte MO34WQC2
7. Best budget ultrawide:
Xiaomi G34WQi
8. Best 32:9:
Samsung Odyssey OLED G9
9. Best dual-mode:
Alienware AW2725QF

Nick, gaming, and computers all first met in the early 1980s. After leaving university, he became a physics and IT teacher and started writing about tech in the late 1990s. That resulted in him working with MadOnion to write the help files for 3DMark and PCMark. After a short stint working at Beyond3D.com, Nick joined Futuremark (MadOnion rebranded) full-time, as editor-in-chief for its PC gaming section, YouGamers. After the site shutdown, he became an engineering and computing lecturer for many years, but missed the writing bug. Cue four years at TechSpot.com covering everything and anything to do with tech and PCs. He freely admits to being far too obsessed with GPUs and open-world grindy RPGs, but who isn't these days?
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.

