This review is for the AOC CQ27G! 27" 1440p monitor, not the 1080p version.
Knowing this is a VA panel and reading some of the customer reviews that were very negative I was skeptical about purchasing this monitor. BUT! At 212 US on Cyber Monday I figured I'd give it a shot. Right out of the gate I have to say I'm very impressed. No problems with this monitor whatsoever, no stuck pixels, no light bleed, very good grey balance (which was a huge problem on the IPS display that this has replaced) and very good color and brightness. So let's look at the details.
Out of the box this monitor comes well packaged, even with some damage to the box the contents were perfectly fine. In the box you get the monitor, the stand (tool free installation), a power cable, a display port cable, and an HDMI cable. The stand feels very high quality. It's made entirely of metal, has a good heft to it, and clicks into place without needing any tools. A built in screw on the bottom secures the base to the stem of the stand. The stand itself provides tilt, swivel and height adjustment which is very unusual at this price range. Negative tilt is very minor - 4 degrees I believe, but since I'm looking at the monitor straight on this isn't a problem. If you were mounting this up high or have your monitor elevated it could be a problem so take note. The stand itself is also very stable, moreso than the monitor arm that I'm using for my IPS ultrawide. As I type this that monitor is wobbling gently just from the impact of my keystrokes. The AOC monitor is rock solid. Very nice.
The panel itself sports connection for 1 display port, 2x HDMI, and line out audio jack if you want to use it for ... whatever reason. Maybe keep down cable clutter? Whatever. The cutout of the monitor IO overhangs the inputs just a little bit too much meaning I kind of had to force my DP cable in. It connected without any problems but the tolerances for this cutout seem to be a bit off here. The monitor is curved but it's pretty subtle when you're looking at it. It's neither more immersive nor intrusive. The bezels are very small, so small in fact that my logitech brio obscures a few mm of the screen sitting atop it. This is entirely a good thing. If you're not perching a webcam atop the monitor you won't even notice. But man ... so thin!
Adjustments to the monitor are made with 4 menu buttons that rest beneath the bottom right side of the panel. A fifth button powers the display on and off. These buttons are a bit on the squishy side and there are a lot of settings to adjust on this display. Navigating screens and making changes will take you a little while to get the hang of. You could of course download the software from AOC to make the adjustments in windows, but that means running yet another peripheral's software at startup. I tried it for a bit, and while it works there are some features you're not able to access through software so I'm sticking with the manual controls. Out of the box the display settings are fine. I calibrated this against my IPS display which has very accurate color reproduction at default settings and I was able to get them looking basically identical with just a few minutes tweaking. Brightness in particular is surprising as I've read online that this display doesn't get very bright. I suppose if you're using you're gaming under super bright lights like a caveman it might not get bright enough for you, but at the default settings it was too bright for me. I can't remember offhand what the brightness is set at, and I can't be bothered to get into the menus to check, but it's definitely under 50% brightness. So not an issue. By default freesync is enabled, but you might want to check just in case if this is a feature you're interested in using. So how's it perform?
In short it's great. I went to nvidia control panel to tick the "enable g-sync, gy-sync compatible" box, but it was already ticked. I did have to set the refresh rate to 144 hz, it was set at 90hz for some reason, but once I did I was good to go. Fired up a handful of games and again, impressed. League of Legends runs between 300-400 fps (you have to be uncapped to utilize freesync) and I never noticed any tearing, no noticeable input lag. It just works. Same for Overwatch, on ultra settings with rendering scale turned to the highest setting I was staying in the high hundreds, dipping into the 200s. Jedi Fallen Order and GTAV (my constant standby) both benefit greatly from the increase in resolution (I'm coming from 1080p) as well as the higher framerate. GTA's fps are good, but I can't honestly give a concrete number as this game is very scalable with hardware and can perform as well or as poorly as you'd like based on settings. I'm using the ultra preset and have a bunch of other settings tweaked and I'm mostly in the 120s, though this game will dip all the way down into the 80s depending on the scene. These swings aren't at all noticeable as freesync appears to be doing its job perfectly. Jedi Fallen Order is at a near constant 90fps (it's a little higher) at ultra no matter what I do. I've played with the few settings available, disabling resolution scaling to provide a constant render size, nothing seems to affect the fps. It looks great, but considering how modest that game is when it comes to requirements I'm surprised that it's not going higher. It seems to be some kind of internal frame limit cap, I haven't found a solution to unlock the games framerate, but I'm happy with its performance nevertheless. It's completely stable.
I'm not a big esports gamer, but I do play a few of those titles. These games will all generally run at or above 144hz if you have decent hardware. Other titles will be much more demanding with the increase in both resolution and refresh rate, so if you want to get high or max fps on this monitor you will need a pretty good system. I'm running an i79700k and an RTX2080super and I'm very happy with performance. I'm not obsessed with hitting/surpassing the monitor's 144hz as long as everything looks great, which it does. Just be aware that if you're hooking this up to a 5 year old machine that was mid-range when it was built, you might not be happy with the results. 144hz 1440p is pretty demanding, but if you have the muscle it looks amazing.
Final thoughts?? I'm really impressed with this monitor. I put off writing a review until I'd really had some time to put it through its paces. I work and game on this monitor every day. I do most of my online shopping on this setup, I read long articles on this display. It excels in all of these activities. If anyone is worried about the negative reviews and you're not sure a monitor this affordable can possibly be any good let me put your mind at ease. It's great. I haven't had a single issue with it, freesync works flawlessly (with my hardware), and it's such a massive upgrade from a 21:9 256x1080 @ 60hz display that I'm still not quite accustomed to to it yet. Also keep in mind that if you do get a dud, dead/stuck pixel, or whatever Amazon will most likely replace it free of charge, but you will be without this monitor while you wait for shipping to take place. AOC now has an incredible warranty that covers pretty much everything, including a zero stuck/dead pixel policy that lasts for 3 years. They'll even replace your monitor for accidental damage within the first year. So yeah knowing the reputation that AOC is building, seeing the glowing reviews - and the bad - and learning about their unmatched warranty, I took a shot with this monitor. It has surpassed all of my expectations. It's great. If you can get this for a good price, if it comes back in stock, or you can find it elsewhere near the 200 price point, buy it. It's an insane deal.
| Standing screen display size | 27 Inches |
|---|---|
| Screen Resolution | 2560x1440 |
| Max Screen Resolution | 2560 x 1440 |
