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AOC also has a software version of the display settings, called i-Menu, which gives you all of the same menu options and equally scant explanation of the various settings.
Other options include multiple gama presets, a Clear Vision mode for upscaling content, a low blue-light mode that filters out harmful rays and Dynamic Color Boost mode, which lets you ramp up the saturation for blue skies, green grass and skin tones. This monitor delivers a punchy performance, offering excellent value-for-money, superb colour accuracy and great features like PiP and uniformity compensation. There are a few minor niggles but none of them really outweigh this monitor's big selling points. Given the monitor's 10-bit color support, we had high expectations, and the range of color offered by the display was indeed quite impressive, with a 144.9 percent sRGB color gamut. By comparison, the LG 34UC89G (126 percent) and the Dell P3418HW (129 percent) are slightly less expansive, while the HDR-capable Samsung CHG70 outperformed them all (154 percent).
All the basics for competitive gaming packed into a fantastic budget 4K gaming monitor, that wishes it was true HDR.
Finally, the brightness averaged a decent 286.8 nits. For a monitor limited to standard dynamic range, that's pretty good. The LG 34UC89G topped out at 292 nits, while the Dell P3418HW averaged 263 nits. HDR-capable displays, like the Samsung CHG70, can go as high as 600 nits, but only for HDR-formatted content.
The latest high-end 32in 4K gaming monitor from Asus leverages HDMI 2.1 and Variable Refresh Rate technology to broaden its scope beyond the reach of PC gaming enthusiasts. This is a gaming monitor for PS5 and Xbox Series X owners – and a very good one at that. monitors with VA LCD panels tend to have great contrast and good colours but much higher response times and poor viewing angles. They can also exhibit higher than average amounts of motion blur when gaming, due to slow pixel response times. You can always play around with the OSD settings which provide an impressive level of granularity. More details are provided in the monitor's online manual.If you want something a little more reasonable, the wide-screened Dell P3418HW is good for office workers who can make do with 1080p resolution. And Acer Predator X34 gives you a great gaming monitor with 4K and a curved screen that won't bowl you over. There are also a few unexpected options. There's the Bright Screen mode, which lets you highlight one quadrant of the panel when running it as a four-screen multi-monitor display, literally highlighting one of the four feeds. Unfortunately, it applies only to input coming from the PC, and can't be used to highlight one screen from among multiple sources. Finally, next-gen console owners will want to keep an eye out for HDMI 2.1 ports, the new standard that facilitates 4K/120fps on PS5 or Xbox Series X.
As 4K monitors with HDR tend to be at the pricier end of the market, they often come with higher DisplayHDR certifications, such as DisplayHDR 600, 800 or even 1,000. The number indicates the maximum brightness (in nits) of HDR content on the monitor in question, and generally, the higher the number, the better. If you want the absolute best HDR experience, then your monitor absolutely needs to have local dimming technology too, so make sure to look out for it in the specifications. Panel technology: IPS LCD is the most common form of panel technology. IPS monitors tend to have great colours and viewing angles, but contrast ratios and response times are often inferior to that of VA LCD panels. You’ve got plenty of room for cables here, which is great news: two HDMI 2.0 ports and one DP 1.4 port sit alongside a four-port USB-A 3.2 hub and a single upstream USB-C 3.0 port that provides up to 65W of power and can also carry a video signal (although in doing so, prevents use of the USB hub). Below, you’ll find our favourite 4K monitors, alongside a brief buying guide to help newcomers understand what makes a UHD display different from the rest. This 27in IPS monitor supports a rudimentary form of HDR: it’s not exactly going to blow your mind, but we noticed an improvement in colour vibrancy all the same. It also supports AMD FreeSync technology for reducing screen tearing when gaming. These things are noteworthy simply because they aren’t commonly found on office monitors; if you’re a casual gamer with a good rig that you’ve ended up reluctantly using very often for work, the 279C9 caters for you.This is partly dependent on personal taste, but usually monitors in the 27in–32in range are well suited to being placed on a desk and used for office work and after-hours gaming. You can go bigger, but you’ll obviously need to sit further away to comfortably view the entire panel. The MVA panel technology lessens the severity of the poor viewing angles and produces a good contrast ratio and peak brightness. It’s not as accurate as its predecessor, unfortunately, but is nonetheless a punchy and colourful display for office use. The 75Hz refresh rate and 4ms response time (G2G) won’t prove too off-putting for casual gamers, either.
There were some issues with overdrive mode worth noting. I found inverse ghosting occurred increasingly as I moved up through the higher overdrive settings. After calibration, you’ll be surprised about how AOC’s display expertise and high-quality panels ensure that most AOC monitors require only small amounts of calibration or no significant changes at all. The panel comes with Vesa's DisplayHDR 400 certification—the lower end of the spectrum with less of a wide colour gamut than others, and devoid of local dimming. Essentially this helps keep the price down, but means the AOC U28G2XU isn't the greatest for HDR. AOC's choice to opt for dynamic contrast does mean it'll try to adapt as it darkens to make up for the low contrast ratio IPS monitors like this tend toward, and does an alright job at it. Just as the steps above, prepare your display for calibration by selecting the default mode, letting it warm up first and making sure the panel is free of smudges so the sensors can work accurately. Install and open the calibration software and follow on-screen instructions. Note that you can bypass the OSD and use AOC's own i-menu instead – this is a software-based display control panel. Another interesting tool is Screen+ which can split your desktop into different panels and is essentially an improved version of Windows Snap. Early verdictThere’s plenty of colour available with gamut volumes of 163.3% sRGB, 112.5% Adobe RGB, and 115.7% DCI-P3 while the Delta E variance scores of 1.2 vs DCI-P3 and 1.6 vs AdobeRGB are professional grade. With two HDMI 2.0 and one DisplayPort 1.4 video input, four USB Type-A 3.2 Gen 1 data ports, two Thunderbolt 4 / USB-C 4 ports, and a gigabit RJ45 LAN port, the Philips is very well connected. Is it worth two grand? Absolutely. Obviously, this monitor isn’t cheap, but it’s one of the most well-rounded high-end gaming panels we’ve ever encountered.
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