AOC Q27G2S Review, Is This The Cheap 1440p Gaming Monitor to Get?

[Music] welcome back to hardware unboxed for our final monitor review of 2020. i just look back and realized that i've tested 34 new monitors throughout this year which is certainly quite a lot more than i expected but i know you guys do appreciate the work that we put into monitor testing and it's only going to get better and more in depth in 2021 so stay tuned for that for now though we are looking at the aoc q27 g2s and in typical hardware unboxed fashion we are rounding out the year with a budget monitor in the most popular category for gamers this is a 27-inch 1440p ips monitor with a high refresh rate it's a little unusual in that it comes in at 155hz but it does support all the usual adaptive sync features there's even a little bit of wide gamut here and the fact it features ips technology will be pleasing to those that love the balance between gaming performance and visual quality but before we go any further here's a word from today's video sponsor today's video sponsor is asus in partnership with scorptek to bring you the blackout rtx 3080 the ultimate gaming pc at the heart of this system is an eight core 16 thread intel core i7 10 700 kf cpu boosting up to 5.1 gigahertz and unlocked on the asus tough z490 plus wi-fi motherboard for maximum tuning potential then tearing through all the latest games is the asus tough gaming rtx 3080 an amazing graphics card that we've already reviewed on the channel and given the seal of approval so for more information please check the link in the video description the q27 g2s sits in the budget entry level space in the 1440p ips monitor market and right now i do only have australian pricing as it hasn't launched in the usa just yet aoc is selling this display for 440 australian dollar dues which is slightly cheaper than the popular vuesonic vx27582 kpmhd which i hear has just been discontinued in favor of a new model something to review for the future but at least this should give you an idea of the sort of price class aoc are targeting with this display so for those in the usa i would expect the q27 g2s to cost around 300 us which puts it in contention with the viewsonic model and others like the pixio px277 prime we also just recently reviewed the gigabyte m27q which is an excellent more entry-level monitor although this new aoc model is a step down from that as it is over 100 cheaper in australia one aspect that i've been really pleased with in aoc's budget oriented products of late is the design and build quality you're not getting anything super fancy here with a standard basic plastic construction and a few red highlights on the stand and rear but it gets the job done without much fuss and without looking like a really cheap low-end product cutting out stuff like rgb lighting is a sensible decision to save on production costs the one thing i really appreciate about aoc's designs is that you do get a stand with great ergonomics it's not the most sturdy thing i've ever come across but you do get a nice range of height adjustability plus tilt pivot and swivel support viewsonic's competitors are lacking in this regard and while most monitors do allow you to use third-party stands through vaser mounts getting something flexible in the box is always the best solution standard selection of ports is included here so that means two hdmi 2.0 and one displayport 1.2 to access the extra 10 hertz on offer here for a full 155hz you'll need displayport as hdmi is limited to just 144hz there's no usb hub or built-in speakers here so quite a basic affair but that's not unusual in this price class the on-screen display is unfortunately controlled through face buttons which makes navigating through aoc's menu quite difficult and there are many different features and options included in here so having a directional toggle would have been nice i don't think aoc has the most comprehensive set of features in today's gaming monitors but stuff like shadow controls crosshairs and frame rate displays keep them up with most of the important stuff on offer in their competitors products iuc's overdrive control is split into four modes and overdrive off is probably not a setting you'll be wanting to use although it is the default over a 10 millisecond average graded grey response time is nowhere near sufficient for a 155hz gaming experience and that also holds true using the weak overdrive setting which only improves performance marginally in fact even with the medium overdrive mode performance is still over 9 milliseconds on average which again is not that impressive while these modes do exhibit no overshoot i think most gamers will want a clearer experience with fewer ghost trails on their smearing the strong mode does deliver on that somewhat although the results here are a little unusual overall the monitor is capable of a six millisecond average at 155 hertz but overshoot does start to creep in a bit here the other not so good thing is that we do get slow dark transitions which is unusual for an ips monitor it's not as bad as a typical va but also not what we generally see from this monitor technology a better overdrive configuration likely would have addressed slow transitions in this area like most entry-level monitors we are not getting a single overdrive mode experience the strong mode is good down to about 120 hertz and then delivers a borderline usable experience at 100hz but definitely with some overshoot present pushing the refresh rate lower particularly to 60hz reveals considerable levels of inverse ghosting which means you will see some bright trails while gaming the medium mode basically gives us the opposite experience this mode is too slow for gaming right at the top end of the refresh range so you won't get a particularly clear image at 155 and 144 hertz but below 100hz year while the response time averages aren't amazing at around 8 milliseconds this is still usable and the level of overshoot is minimal this means the buyers of the q27 g2s will need to make an overdrive setting choice depending on the sorts of refresh rates they plan on using anyone wanting to game primarily in the higher refresh zone should choose strong overdrive while those more around 60hz should choose medium this isn't ideal for variable refresh rate gaming but to get a single overdrive mode experience you typically need to purchase a more premium monitor with a faster panel compared to other 1440p gaming monitors the q27 g2s doesn't bring up any surprises as an entry-level product it's six millisecond response times sit in the typical entry level zone we see from today's displays this level of performance is similar to products like the pixio px277 prime px7 prime and va options like the mag272 cqr and 32gk650f opting for ipsc does leave us with less overshoot to worry about than vas around this mark but we aren't in the upper end of the speed range in particular the viewsonic vx27582 mhd is the faster display at its highest refresh rate and the gigabyte m27q also delivers better performance so that's something to keep in mind if you are tossing up between various monitors around this price point the most important performance metric we look at is average performance across the refresh range most mid-range and entry-level products require you to turn down the overdrive setting one notch relative to the best performance at the highest refresh rate so this is what we end up with there is a fairly clear separation between higher end products like the lg 27 gl850 and more budget-friendly options ultimately the q27 g2s is a bit below average here usually we see cheaper ips panels delivering a seven millisecond average experience but this aoc monitor is more like an 8 millisecond product which is disappointing while overshoot is impressively low ultimately monitors like the vuesonic vx27582 kpmhd deliver a faster experience both peak and on average and even something like the px277 prime is also somewhat better this is compounded by lackluster dark level performance again we're not quite in the ballpark of most va panels which are really slow in this metric and exhibit noticeable dark smearing but an 8 millisecond average for dark transitions is slower than most ips monitors i've tested this stops the q27 g2s from providing clearly superior performance to similarly priced va monitors and with similar average performance as well you may want to consider a va monitor like the g27 qc depending on your budget and preferences average error rates are low and i think this highlights that aoc are leaving some performance on the table especially for average performance i think a mode between strong and medium would have worked really well variable overdrive would be even better although that's probably unrealistic on this sort of monitor at 60hz again we see mediocre performance ideally i'd have liked to see a few milliseconds better to push up more to the level of the viewsonic input lag is decent with a low processing delay however it is let down somewhat by slower response times not a bad result but nothing spectacular then for power consumption we're actually seeing really good results here relative to most other monitors of this size aoc does include a backlight strobing mode with this monitor but it's not worth spending any great deal of time on response time performance is too slow for proper backlight strobing so strobe crosstalk and double images are a serious issue and make the mode practically unusable for color performance the panel aoc are using here does provide a wide gamut experience with 95 percent coverage of the p3 color space a good result for a more entry-level monitor although this is becoming more and more popular across all monitors the vx27582 kpm hd delivers similar numbers although other competitors like the px277 are not wide gamut default calibration with my q27 g2s sample was lackluster my unit had a noticeable pink tint out of the box and while gamma adherence is decent this tint led to below average delta e numbers what we are looking for is a delta e average below 2.0 so a result even in delta e 2000 and 5.5 is not very good and worse than the average gaming monitor we've tested we also get an unclamped color gamut so this means over saturation when viewing srgb or rec 709 content which is the majority of content viewed today again delta e performance numbers aren't great although at least we aren't seeing as much of the sunburn skin look as we've seen from some recent very wide gamut displays ioc does offer an srgb mode but it's practically unusable as it blocks changes to brightness and color temperature blocking out the brightness controls in the srgb mode is stupid and oems like aoc should stop it because it ruins an otherwise useful feature so the osd adjustments we are left with are just basic color temperature adjustments like you were seeing here this does significantly improve grayscale performance and fixes the pink tint with my unit however it doesn't address the unclamped gamut which is where that functional srgb mode would have come in handy as expected calibrated performance is very strong and thanks to the benefits of ips combined with a flat panel and decent dci p3 coverage the q27 g2s is a versatile monitor that is somewhat suitable to colour work the very top end of p3 is limited as we aren't getting full coverage but otherwise you can expect a decent experience from this display maximum brightness is good at 370 units that should be plenty for most people and with minimum brightness just below 50 nits that is also providing a decent experience for those that like to use their monitor in a dim environment the contrast ratio on offer here is average for an ips panel at just shy of 1100 to 1. va panels naturally give quite a substantial advantage here although it is good to see that we aren't sitting below a thousand to one which is where some ips panels end up for most gamers i don't think the contrast is too problematic but those that game in the dark will prefer what va panels offer uniformity is good most of the central zone is consistent with the center of the display however there is some fall off along the outer edges grey uniformity is strong and ips glow is minimal although this does vary from unit to unit so as always your mileage will vary there overall i have mixed opinions about the aoc q27 g2s i love how affordable this display is and i really appreciate monitors that bring 1440p high refresh rates to lower and lower prices but the q27 g2s doesn't really have any areas that stand out from the pack aside from its price there's nothing overly terrible here but nothing amazing either and ultimately most areas of performance fall between the average mark and somewhere below average response time performance was disappointing not because it didn't live up to high-end monitors but because the performance here isn't quite as good as other budget-friendly monitors with similar specifications greater grey response time averages weren't substantially worse than other ips monitors but the entry-level market is cutthroat and when other aspects of a product are quite similar a one millisecond difference in response times becomes a deciding factor the q27 g2s ends up slower than the viewsonic vx27582kp mhd in both average and peak performance and that hurts other areas to this monitor are unremarkable again nothing here screams a broken product or terrible experience but aoc hasn't quite delivered the standard that's already set in the market take factory calibration for example it's below average and again not quite as good as the viewsonic model sure there's nothing wrong with its brightness contrast or uniformity which all similar to other options but a small weakness here or there can add up the main strengths to this display end up being its excellent ergonomics for a budget monitor and its low price tag the price is going to vary from region to region but at least here in australia the q27 g2s is one of the absolute cheapest 1440p 144hz plus ips gaming monitors you can get and that's sure to attract buyers who have a limited amount of cash to spend with that said at the end of the day i don't think the q27 g2s is quite cheap enough this monitor is only slightly cheaper than the viewsonic vx27582 kpm hd and its new replacement and in my opinion the viewsonic monitor is better i would happily spend an extra 20 to 30 dollars to get a small but noticeable performance upgrade even if it means sacrificing on stand quality but if the price difference is larger than that well the discussion becomes much more difficult and could sway in favor of the q27 g2s given that it's still quite a capable gaming monitor anyway that's it for this review of the aoc q27 g2s and yeah this is sort of the last video that i'll be making in 2020 which is great i'm looking forward to having a break and getting back into more monitor testing and other stuff in 2021. thanks to everyone for the support on the channel throughout the this year and yeah the last couple of months in particular if you're interested in supporting our channel and our monitor testing you can sign up to places like our patreon floatplane links to those are in the description below so check those out and yeah that's it i'll catch you in the next one [Music] you

Channel: Hardware Unboxed

Views: 168,757

Keywords: hardware unboxed

Id: ZWJbyggbFmo

Length: 14min 54sec (894 seconds)

Published: Thu Dec 24 2020