AOC AGON AG276QZD2 QD-OLED, 0.03ms 240Hz Gaming Monitor Review
Performance
The QD-OLED panel is striking, offering a vibrant image from the moment you power it up. Obviously, being OLED, you get perfect black levels, and it’s nice and bright too, hitting around 250 nits in SDR mode, 400 nits in the HDR True Black mode, and up to 1000 nits peak brightness in Movie, Gaming or Peak HDR modes; albeit in a smaller window rather than full-screen. For most users, however, I would suggest using the Peak mode, as it seems to pop a bit more and doesn’t mess with the colours like Gaming or Movie modes.
The monitor has excellent colour calibration right out of the box, and while the display will technically benefit from a full calibration, it likely won’t offer much benefit to your typical gamer. Especially if you’re gaming or watching movies in HDR, where the monitor tends to lock out settings. For most users, leaving it in the Panel Native colour setting and setting the colour temperature to warm gives you a good balance of accurate colours and a desirable white point. For colour-sensitive work, there is an excellent sRGB profile on the monitor, but it does lock out most other OSD settings when applied; annoying, but not uncommon on most monitors.
At 27″, the panel is a nice size for both work and productivity tasks. Personally, I like a 32″ 4K monitor, but at 27,” a 2560×1440 resolution looks great too, with a tight pixel density that’s further enhanced by the popping contrast and colours offered by QD-OLED. The resolution is more than enough for reading smaller text or appreciating the finer details in movies and games. It’s also good enough to throw a few windows side by side and still be able to clearly see everything.
For gaming, this monitor scores very highly. Hooking it up to the PlayStation 5, it’ll natively accept a 120Hz signal, but for some reason doesn’t support VRR on the PlayStation. Input latency feels OK on console, but obviously, at half the available refresh rate, you’re not going to be getting the full benefit of this monitor’s true capabilities with a console.
However, PC gamers will want to hook their system up via DisplayPort, as the HDMI 2.0 interface taps out at 144Hz at this resolution, while DisplayPort will unleash the full 240Hz refresh rate. Gaming is a no-brainer, with a lightning-fast 240Hz refresh rate, it’s going to deliver silky smooth gameplay is a wide range of titles. Admittedly, you’re not going to be maxing out Borderlands 4 at 240Hz, but there are plenty of games that actually do make use of it. Rocket League, Call of Duty, Fortnite, CS:GO and so many others can push this display to its limits.
However, for me, I’m happy with anything around 120Hz or above, and while there are diminishing returns from more extreme refresh rates, there are certainly benefits in terms of reaction time and smoothness that cannot be ignored or denied.
What really sells me on this monitor is the response time. It seems not that long ago to me that sub-5ms was considered alright, and then we got to 1ms, and now QD-OLED panels like this one are responding in 0.03ms. You wouldn’t think sub 1ms would really be that noticeable, but it absolutely is. Time from input to action on the screen feels telepathically fast.
Combine that ultra-fast refresh rate with the super-fast response times, and it’s a winning combination. The addition of VRR, G-Sync/Adaptive Sync, sublime contrast and HDR performance, and it really feels like a next-generation experience. If you’re coming from something like a 144Hz IPS LCD panel, the difference is night and day for movies and gaming.
