AOC - 27" Q27G40XMN Mini-LED, QHD, 180hz Gaming Monitor - Black

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• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  Great update to the AOC Q27G3XMN

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  • Owned for less than 1 week

  This monitor is a great update to the previous mini-led budget champ, the AOC Q27G3XMN (I'm going to refer to them as the G3 and G40 for the rest of the review). Pros -Insanely bright for impactful HDR -Great contrast and highlights thanks to impressive 1152 zone backlight -Decent color performance -Fast panel response (little to no dark level smearing, great for a VA panel) Cons -Color issues (dithering) at max refresh -Terrible stand -Only one Displayport and one HDMI port -VRR flicker in certain situations This monitor, the G40, is a great upgrade over the G3. It has over 3x the amount of lighting zones, so much so that I haven't been able to notice any blooming while using local dimming. Additionally, due to the increase in zone count, highlights stand out a lot better in HDR as the algorithm can better illuminate smaller bright items. There can be some interesting gamma shifts when using the local dimming in SDR, but I haven't seen any issues in HDR. Additionally, there are no issues enabling HDR in windows and having the monitor switch automatically, and SDR and HDR settings can be set separately and retained, which is great. Its amazing brightness (calibrated in windows to around 1300 nits) results in a striking HDR image. Another improvement is the elimination of scanlines when using VRR, which was present in the old model. Now, everything is incredibly clear. There are some cons. The stand is atrocious, and a step down from the previous model. This stand only offers tilt, and is quite low in height. Also, you won't get a fully bloom free pixel perfect lighting like an OLED. Additionally, it won't offer the same motion clarity, but it is quite good for a VA panel (there is visible overshoot at the highest overdrive mode, I recommend using the "faster" setting). Lastly, it would have been nice to have an additional HDMI port, and for the picture settings to retain themselves for each different input, rather than just for SDR and HDR. Lastly, it does flicker sometimes in the low ranges of VRR, but, so does just about every other VA and OLED. Some final thoughts. It isn't an OLED, but what you lose in pixel perfect HDR and lighting, you gain in not worrying about long term burn in, a ridiculously bright picture with no full screen dimming, and clear text rendering due to the sub-pixel layout, so it's a good option for long days of both productivity work and gaming. Disable local dimming in SDR to control the brightness, it's TOO bright for productivity work (spreadsheets and the like). Also, for full 10-bit color performance, limit the monitor to 120hz. For avoiding dithering while using 8-bit+2, limit the monitor to 170hz. Either way, incredibly hard to notice. This is a great update to the previous model and an amazing budget option for an impactful HDR experience, I don't think it can be beat on price, and due to brightness I think it delivers a comparable or better HDR experience to 1440p OLED montiors at half the price.

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  Posted 1 month ago by TheOldJimmyJam

• Rated 5 out of 5 stars

  OLED monitors have some competition

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  • Verified Purchaser

  The visuals of this monitor are extremely good for the price. The pros: It has 1152 local dimming zones using mini-LED tech and that translates into gorgeously vivid (quantum dot tech) and bright (windows HDR calibration tool has my panel rated at over 1300 nits in HDR mode) images on the screen in HDR content such as PC Games and videos. The black levels look impressive as long as the settings are dialed in correctly on your game or video. SDR mode is rated at 450 nits and with tweaking it can also display content to a good standard, although this monitor really shines in HDR content. The viewing angles seem pretty good for a VA panel. Responsiveness in PC Gaming feels the same a my previous IPS monitor and black smearing is very minor on the UFO test although I haven't noticed it while gaming at all with the 2nd highest overdrive setting. You don't have to worry about burn-in like OLED users have to worry about. Some negatives of this monitor are that it is not very robust with features such as lacking USB ports, the HDMI port is limited to HDMI 2.0, there's no way to update the firmware, the stand only tilts the screen, and the AOC USA website doesn't yet have a dedicated section to this monitor with drivers, software, or manuals (although you can go to the Australia AOC site and get everything you want there for this monitor). The bottom line: Great bang for your buck monitor that delivers great visuals while somewhat lacking extra features and ease of use options.

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  Posted 3 weeks ago by RyanB

• Rated 3 out of 5 stars

  Great HDR For the Price, Lacking in Other Areas

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  I'll start with what I like about this monitor. First, the HDR on this monitor is awesome for the price. It has phenomenal contrast, capable of producing deep, inky blacks. And when it wants to get bright, it gets blindingly bright. The colors are great, too. As good if not better than my (admittedly dated) IPS panel. Good local dimming as well. Regarding motion clarity, it's good, but sometimes I can find cases of smearing when I am actively looking for it. This is to be expected of a VA panel. That said, by VA standards it's probably better than most others of its kind. You're still going to want to run either the 'Fast' or 'Faster' overdrive setting ('Faster' had a little too much overshoot for my taste, 'Fast' seemed like the best balance). Other miscellaneous things I like about this monitor: No noticeable input lag. Comes with a display port and HDMI cable in the box. Adaptive sync works great. Haven't noticed any flicker yet. I do have some complaints, though. For one, the monitor stand is an afterthought. No height adjustment. No rotation. It has tilt adjustment only. Buy a VESA mount or custom stand for this thing, because the viewing angles are not perfect. You need to be facing this monitor head on or you will see shifting. Also, the menu options are severely lacking. Most of them get locked out with HDR in use. For instance, the 'Brightness' setting gets grayed out, and you have to mess with other settings like contrast or local dimming if you want to change the brightness of the panel, which is far from ideal for obvious reasons. I have also noticed some settings get reset when you power off the monitor, which can be annoying. Another issue with this monitor is the fact it is limited to 120hz if you want to run 10bit with RGB and full dynamic range, and at the advertised 180hz it forces chroma subsampling. You can make a custom resolution of 179hz and get full dynamic range and RGB, but at 8 bit. That is fine, I guess, but why are we even making this compromise? DisplayPort 1.4 should not have this limitation, which this monitor says it uses. Since there are no USB ports for updating firmware, I'll just hope it's a bugged driver causing this. Sadly, the AOC support page is almost non existent. It's just a link on their Australian website (there doesn't seem to be a page on the US site for this monitor yet) that starts a driver download. There is no date and changelog information page, so if they ever do update the driver, you won't have any way of knowing until you download it. This is easily a 4-5 star monitor without the limitations. However, unless you just want a low priced HDR panel and don't care about the other features, it currently leaves a bit to be desired.

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  Posted 3 weeks ago by PhilipH