Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 review: A 240Hz display for under $200!

Best Prices Today: Lenovo Legion R27fc-30

Budget gaming monitors just keep getting better, and refresh rate is one of several areas where they’re pushing forward. The Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 has a refresh rate of 240Hz, yet typically retails for less than $200. That’s less than a buck a hertz!

Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 specs and features

The Lenovo Legion R27fc-30’s basic specifications are typical for a budget monitor. It has a 27-inch widescreen display panel with a resolution of 1920×1080. Refresh rate is the monitor’s most alluring specification, as it can reach up to 240Hz (or 280Hz in the overclock mode).

• Display size: 27-inch 16:9 curved widescreen
• Native resolution: 1920×1080
• Panel type: Vertical Alignment (VA) 8-bit
• Refresh rate: Up to 240Hz, up to 280Hz (overclocked)
• Adaptive sync: AMD FreeSync Premium Pro
• HDR: Yes
• Ports: 2x HDMI 2.1, 1x DisplayPort 1.4, 1x 3.5mm audio-out
• VESA mount: Yes, 100x100mm
• Speakers: 2x 3-watt speakers
• Price: $229.99 MSRP / $149.99 typical

The Legion R27fc-30 has a “value” of $229.99 (Lenovo’s version of MSRP) but is currently sold for $194.99 and appears to sell below $200 frequently. That makes it one of the less expensive 240Hz gaming monitors available.

Further reading: See our roundup of the best gaming monitors to learn about competing products.

Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 design

Lenovo’s Legion R27fc-30 leans heavily into a gaming-centric design, which often works to the monitor’s detriment. From the front, the panel is standard, featuring slim bezels on three sides and a small chin at the bottom. Turning the monitor around reveals a plain expanse of smooth, matte black plastic that feels unremarkable. It’s no Pixio PX248 Wave, but the Legion R27fc-30’s panel design is fine for the price point.

The stand is where things start to falter. Lenovo opts for a wide stand with a design reminiscent of a steel truss. Unfortunately, the materials used are obviously plastic rather than metal, which gives away the monitor’s budget pricing. The stand also takes up a lot of desk space, and while the base is technically flat, its truss-like design makes it difficult to place objects on top of it.

But it’s not all bad news. The Lenovo has significant ergonomic adjustment which includes height, tilt, and swivel. It can even pivot into portrait orientation. These features can’t be taken for granted in a budget monitor, as many are limited to tilt adjustment. A standard 100x100mm VESA mount is available, too, for attaching a third-party monitor stand or arm.

While the stand has many ergonomic adjustments, it attaches to the monitor’s display panel with screws instead of employing a more convenient quick-release mechanism. The monitor ships with thumbscrews that can be turned by hand, at least, so a screwdriver isn’t necessary to set up the monitor.

The display has an aggressive 1500R curvature. This curvature is noticeable but doesn’t feel overwhelming due to the monitor’s smaller 27-inch size. Personally, I’m not a fan of curved designs on a 27-inch monitor, as I don’t find it adds much to immersion—but it’s a matter of taste.

The R27fc-30 is unique among budget monitors in offering the full range of ergonomic adjustments.

Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 connectivity

There isn’t much to discuss when it comes to connectivity on the Lenovo Legion R27fc-30. The monitor ships with two HDMI 2.1 ports and one DisplayPort 1.4, providing a total of three video inputs. All video inputs support the monitor’s maximum refresh rate of 280Hz at its full resolution.

Beyond that, the monitor includes a single 3.5mm audio jack, and that’s it—there are no USB ports. I think all monitors should have at least a couple USB ports, I consider this a miss. However, many budget monitors omit USB ports.

Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 menu and features

Like most monitors, the Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 features a joystick for controlling the on-screen menu, located discreetly on the right-hand side of the monitor. The joystick is responsive, and the menus are logically arranged, making navigation easy. This is notable, as many budget monitors have clunky, hard-to-use menu systems. That’s especially true of monitors from budget-oriented brands like Spectre, Innocn, and KTC.

When it comes to options, though, the Legion is barebones. The monitor offers basic controls for refresh rate and pixel response time, which allow for fine-tuning motion clarity. In terms of image quality adjustments, you’ll find settings for presets, brightness, contrast, and color saturation. The monitor lacks more advanced adjustments, such as fine-grained controls for color temperature, gamma, and full color calibration.

A pair of three-watt speakers provide built-in audio. They’re reasonably loud and clear (traits that make them better than average for this price point) but lack the low-end required to handle music and games well. Most owners will want to use a headset or external speakers.

Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 image quality

The Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 has a Vertical Alignment (VA panel), a type of panel technology that’s especially popular among budget and mid-range monitors. VA panels aren’t always the best in terms of color performance, but they do well in contrast, which is good news for the Legion’s SDR performance.

First up, though, is brightness. Here the Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 performs well, as it hit a maximum sustained SDR brightness of 353 nits. That’s towards the high end for a budget monitor and certainly bright enough to use in most rooms.

There’s one caveat here. The monitor’s curve can focus the light from lamps or windows that sit opposite the monitor (or, in other words, behind the viewer). That could be a problem if you plan to use the monitor in a room with light sources that can’t be moved.

Contrast is the big strength of a Vertical Alignment (VA) panel, and the Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 capitalizes on it with a measured contrast ratio of 6030:1 at 50 percent brightness. That’s a great result for any budget or mid-range monitor and it leads to a more immersive, alluring image with respectable shadow detail.

This is a major difference between the Legion and competitors that use IPS panels, such as the Gigabyte M27QA ICE and Pixio PX248 Wave. IPS panels tend to show a distracting “IPS glow” in dark scenes, which is the result of light from the monitor’s backlight leaking through the display panel. VA panels don’t entirely conquer this, but they’re much better and don’t appear to have a glow unless used in a room that’s nearly pitch black.

While VA panels do well in contrast, they can stumble in color gamut, and this trips up the Lenovo Legion R27fc-30.

It achieved 99 percent of sRGB, 86 percent of DCI-P3, and 81 percent of AdobeRGB. These aren’t bad results but, as the graph shows, they’re a bit behind most budget and mid-range monitors we’ve recently tested. Only the Pixio PX248 Wave was less impressive.

Whether this matters depends on your use. The Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 still looks colorful in SDR games and movies. However, content creators might find the limited color gamut an obstacle. The monitor is not able to display as many colors as some peers, and that can lead to issues when editing photos, videos, or digital art.

The Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 is technically the least color accurate of the budget monitors we’ve recently tested. However, budget IPS and VA panel monitors have become shockingly accurate in recent years, so this isn’t a major issue—especially not at this price point.

I measured a default gamma of 2.1, which is only a tad off our preferred target of 2.2 and indicates the image looks a bit brighter than it should. This error isn’t bad for a budget monitor. It’s the same story with color temperature, as we measured a default color temperature of 6400K, just off the target of 6500K. That means the image is very slightly warmer than it should be and, again, it’s a good result for the price. However, the monitor lacks good gamma and color temperature controls, so owners who want to drastically alter the monitor’s performance in these areas will need to rely on color calibration software.

Sharpness, meanwhile, is mediocre. The monitor’s 1920×1080 resolution works out to about 81 pixels per inch, which is towards the low end of a modern computer monitor. Pixelation and aliasing can be rather distracting around small fonts and in games that lack a good built-in anti-aliasing solution. Video, meanwhile, can seem a bit soft.

The Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 delivers mixed but respectable SDR image quality for the price. It delivers a bright, high-contrast image that looks alluring and realistic, but fails to stand out in color performance or sharpness. However, given that this monitor usually sells for well below $200, its overall SDR image quality is competitive.

Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 HDR image quality

The Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 technically supports HDR input. That came as a surprise, as nothing in Lenovo’s marketing indicated the monitor has HDR support.

Omitting mention of HDR was a wise decision, though, as the Legion R27fc-30’s HDR performance is rather bad. It lacks both brightness and color gamut required to do HDR justice. Because of that, HDR content often fails to look any better than SDR—instead, it just looks a bit different.

That’s to be expected, as most budget monitors are incapable of good HDR image quality. Those who want passable HDR on a budget should consider an entry-level Mini-LED monitor like the Xiaomi G Pro 27i.

Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 motion performance

Gamers will appreciate the Lenovo Legion R27fc-30’s refresh rate of up to 240Hz, which can be overclocked to 280Hz. This is an extremely high refresh rate for a budget monitor, and it leads to good motion performance—aside from a couple caveats.

First, the good news. A refresh rate of up to 240Hz/280Hz provides a huge boost in motion as compared to a 60Hz or 144Hz monitor. The monitor also supports AMD FreeSync and VESA Adaptive Sync for smooth frame pacing (Nvidia G-Sync should also function but is not officially supported). The result is a buttery gaming experience. The fact it’s possible to buy a monitor this smooth for well under $200 is a bit astounding.

However, the monitor’s VA panel is not the best when it comes to pixel response times. Longer pixel response times cause ghosting, so while motion is generally crisp, it’s not as good as a high-end IPS or OLED gaming monitor with the same refresh rate. When viewing test clips of League of Legends, for example, I noticed that character and moving UI fonts were still hard to read, whereas they’re often legible (with a bit of difficulty) on more expensive gaming monitors.

The Legion R27fc-30 tries to mitigate that with its 280Hz overclock and several overdrive modes. This can slightly boost clarity, but it also creates visible shimmer around high-contrast objects. Personally, I preferred the 240Hz mode with Overdrive off. 

There’s also a backlight strobing mode, which is another tactic to improve motion clarity. This mode reduces a monitor’s brightness and creates a noticeable “double image” effect. It’s not a great implementation and I can’t recommend using it.

But don’t let these flaws turn you off, as they’re quite common in the sub-$200 monitor category. Taken as a whole, the Legion R27fc-30 provides great motion performance for the price.

Should you buy the Lenovo Legion R27fc-30?

The Lenovo Legion R27fc-30 is a solid choice for gamers who want good motion clarity and contrast in a gaming monitor often available for less than $200. It has some flaws, like the oversized stand and lack of image quality adjustments, but also some perks, like a good range of ergonomic adjustments. Image quality, meanwhile, comes up a bit short in color performance but delivers on motion—which, for many gamers, will be a good compromise.

Best Prices Today: Lenovo Legion R27fc-30