AOC AGON Pro AG344UXM 21:9 MiniLED 170Hz Gaming Monitor Review
Peter Donnell / 9 months ago
Performance
Right out of the box, the colours and contrast ratio of the AGON Pro are simply stunning, obviously an SDR photo on a webpage does it little justice, but even still, I think the photo of it looks great too.
Being ultrawide, you have a massive amount of workspace, with the 3440 x 1440 resolution providing plenty of real estate to open up multiple windows side by side, which is fantastic productivity.
What I really loved it for, however, are the colours and that mini-LED backlight. Movies have cinema levels of colour reproduction and the black levels are astonishing. Given the 27″ 4K monitor I tested has double the backlight zones, I find it pretty hard to see how this looks basically as good with “just” 1152 zones. Given that edge-lit monitors often have one zone, that’s a mighty upgrade, and it can turn off or turn down the backlight in dark areas to retain those black levels.
In games, which tend to use more unrealistic and vibrant colour pallets, it’s even more stunning. It’s also silky smooth, with a 1ms response time and a 170Hz refresh rate, you can get a truly sublime gaming experience, assuming you have a GPU that’s capable of running it. Ultrawide 3440 x 1440 at 170Hz is a lot to ask for, but if you can game at 60-90 FPS at 4K, the performance requirements are fairly similar. Plus, with FreeSync and Adaptive Sync, you don’t get screen tearing either, so if you can’t hold 170FPS consistently, it’s really not a problem.
The motion handling is awesome, with no overdrive, Quake Remastered felt pretty tight, and while your mileage may vary, you can overdrive this monitor for a faster response, but the most extreme settings can cause a little ghosting, but largely, I felt no need to push it that far anyway, stock settings are very nicely tuned for gaming already.
HDR modes are fantastic too, and the black levels are close to OLED levels of good for the most part, but the monitor is able to output a higher peak brightness too, and unlike the last OLED I reviewed, there’s no constantly active fan trying to save the panel from burning out but the monitor is also thick with a huge radiator, so pros and cons I guess.
For colour-sensitive editing work, there are few monitors out there that can surpass what this has to offer. It has exceptional colour reproduction and accuracy. I, on the other hand, am using it to edit images to print onto vinyl to stick on my car… don’t judge me.
