Controls and OSD

The RCA Evolution M27PG135F has a single 4-way joystick, found behind the bottom edge of the panel, which is used to navigate the OSD. The home screen is opened by clicking the button, but you can also pull it in either direction to access four quick menus: KVM, Input, Game Plus (timer, virtual crosshairs, and FPS counter), and Preset (factory picture profiles).

The OSD is split into the following sections: Display, Color, Gaming Setup, Advanced Settings, Input, and System Set.


The Display menu is where you can adjust the brightness, contrast, black level, aspect ratio, and sharpness, as well as go through the factory picture presets (Standard, User, Movie, Photo, RTS, FPS1, FPS2). Most of them lock you out of changing the brightness, contrast, and black level, and the best picture quality is obtained by manual setup anyway, so that's the path we'll explore on the next page of this review.


The Color menu lets you change the color temperature, gamma, hue, and saturation, and apply blue light filtering, should you have issues with eye strain during nighttime.


The Gaming Setup menu contains the adaptive synchronization toggle (surprisingly, it's off by default), as well as the overdrive settings (Off, Low, Middle, High), MPRT toggle, and gaming extras, such as three virtual crosshair designs, a timer, and a framerate counter.


The Advanced Settings menu is where you can toggle HDR and rear-facing RGB strips on and off, as well as adjust the KVM switch – tell it which connected device you want to use your peripherals on (USB UP, which is the USB Type-B upstream port, and Type-C). The HDR toggle is of course only a way to make the monitor detect an incoming HDR signal. It cannot do much with it, though, as it lacks the necessary brightness and local dimming technology.


The Input menu lets you switch between video inputs, although you're better off doing the same through the quick menu.


The System Set menu is where you'll find the OSD position, transparency, timeout, and language settings, and do a factory reset of the monitor's settings. Here is also the only place where you can adjust the audio output volume, as well as install an upgrade of the monitor's firmware. There were no firmware updates available during my time with the RCA Evolution M27PG135F, but this is a great feature to see, as monitor firmware updates often bring substantial improvements to their performance. I can't know if RCA will bother releasing firmware updates and at what pace, but the option is certainly there.