AOC 27B3CA2 27″ 100Hz IPS Monitor Review

Performance

This is a really nice monitor, and the moment you turn it on, the IPS panel impresses with rich colours, good black levels and respectable brightness. Obviously, at this price range, the monitor isn’t exactly blowing the doors off with features, but at the same time, it doesn’t have to.

Watching a bit of YouTube or Netflix on it is perfectly suitable, and at 27″ it’s a good size for media consumption, and while higher resolutions are great, there’s nothing wrong with Full-HD, and it’s a great resolution for a panel of this size, so the pixel density gives you a fairly crisp image.

When it comes to productivity, it’s ticking the right boxes, and I can read small text clearly, and even have no issues with putting two windows side by side, and still have everything look clear.

Of course, at this price range and panel size, it’s ideal for a secondary display. However, with the USB-C connectivity, it makes it the ideal monitor for those using a laptop for work. You can hook this up and run it as either your primary display, or have it as a second screen to your laptop.

There are a pair of 2W speakers built in, not overly powerful, so I won’t find myself blasting Opeth out of them any time soon. However, for listening to a bit of YouTube content that is mostly speech and general system sounds, they hold up well enough in a pinch.

The screen can deliver 250 cd/m2 brightness, which is about the industry standard at this price range, and more than good enough to give you a bright picture in a well-lit office space or on a sunny day.

AOC doesn’t give the rated colour reproduction on their product page, just saying that it’s a 6-bit panel with FRC, likely taking up to the equivalent of 8-bit at 16.7m colours. However, the colours look good to the eye, and I’d expect it to be in the high 90% of sRGB at the very least to keep up with other monitors in this price range. So, let’s get to testing that on the next page!