AOC Q2770PQU 27″ PLS Monitor Review

Final Thoughts

Pricing

Like a number of the other monitors that I’ve reviewed and seen over the last few years, US and UK pricing is not directly relational between one another and this generally does come down to how both of the markets are fulfilled in each region and how well each brand in known as well. AOC fortunately is a well-known and trusted brand on both sides of the Atlantic and this means that we are able to find comfortable price tags attached to the box. In the US stock is a little hard to find at the moment and whilst Amazon.com do have a number of suppliers available, prices of over $800 are to be expected which to be honest is a little steep. TigerDirect on the other hand are a lot more conservative and at $599.99 you can grab yourself a good bargain – thats only around $50 more that AOC’s own G2460PQU. The UK does see a few more outlets stocking the Q2770PQU with Scan, Overclockers and Amazon for around £380.

Overview

Depending on what you mainly use your computer for, a 2560 x 1440 may be a suitable path to go down if you’re in the market for your first monitor or an upgrade to your existing setup. There is this whole argument circling around that for the purpose of gaming, anything over 1920 x 1080 is a waste of time and money, this being reflected by the ‘gaming’ monitors on the market that all sport 1920 x 1080 resolutions. In my opinion, the resolution that you opt to use really should be down to your overall budget for a screen that gives a higher resolution and also a graphics card that is able to push out sufficient graphics power at that resolution in your game of choice – ultimately the decision is yours. Aside from gaming there is a whole group of basic system users that are not really going to require anything more than a standard HD resolution for general office type work and web browsing so moving up to a high-resolution display is basically paying high performance prices for general day-to-day tasks.

On the other hand a minimum resolution of 2560 x 1440 has a large number of benefits and there is similarly a huge market of potential users out there that would benefit greatly from the larger working area. This review for example was written using a 2560 x 1440 desktop and I am comfortably able to have two application windows positioned side-by-side on a single display without feeling like I am short of a working area. Obviously there is always the option to go one step further and getting two of these panels and having a multi-screen setup will provide you with a massive desktop to work in. To put this into a quantifiable figure, a dual screen 1920 x 1080 setup will provide you with a workspace containing 4.17 million pixels whilst a dual screen 2560 x 1440 array will give almost double the number of pixels at just over 7.32 million – for a power user this increase is highly sought after and thus the reason why the market for 2560 based screens is a strong as ever.

Resolutions aside and looking at the particular elements of this display, AOC have proved to me multiple times that they know what it takes to produce a quality panel with a crisp, sharp image that will whet the appetite of any enthusiast with ease. The Q2770PQU does fall into this group of panels once again, although to boost the appeal it would be nice to see a couple more features such as a card reader and a better positioning of the USB3.0 ports – tucked right round behind the panel isn’t exactly what I would call convenient and easy to access to be honest – why not position them on the side or underside of the bezel?

With 4K panels now appearing with sub-£500 price tags and the price of 2560 x 1440 / 1600 panels in some cases coming relatively close to the same price bracket, there is going to be a lot more competition in the professional monitor range in the coming months. Consequently I do feel that the price of 2560 panels does need to start coming down a shade to keep a gap between them and the 4k market. The Q2770PQU however is a good buy and to be honest they are certainly worth the money if you are going to use them in a professional manner – if it is just gaming or light home office environment that you are in then a 1920 x 1080 panel would be far more suited to your needs. Until AOC release a 4k panel later on this year this is going to sit in my top pick of panels, unless someone comes along with a similar product that carries a bargain price tag that is.

Pros:

• Massive 2560 x 1440 resolution
• Low 5ms response time
• Crisp, clear and vibrant image
• well established brand

Cons:

• USB3.0 not in a convenient position
• Price is getting dangerously close to that of the latest 4k panels.

“Although the price of 4k panels is dropping dramatically, moving up from a resolution of 1920 x 1080 to this new super resolution is still a costly affair. 2560 x 1440 is a sensible half way point to move up to for the prosumer and professional user groups. The amount of desktop space that they provide is near double that of a standard HD panel and for the price you simply can’t go wrong.”

Thanks to AOC Europe for providing us with this review sample.