AOC AGON AG271QG Review - The first impressions V2 (pictures added)

[GER_T4IGA]

The basic stuff first:

This is my first proper review and since I haven't found many proper reviews of this monitor yet I thought it would be a good thing to put this out there. I haven't taken any pictures yet but bear with me  I will maybe add some down the road.

 

Today I received my first G-Sync monitor, the AOC AGON AG271QG.

You can find the specs here:
http://aoc-europe.com/en/products/ag271qg

The quick rundown is

1. 2560x1440p
2. 144Hz overclockable to 165Hz within the OSD
3. IPS-Panel

My first PC monitor was a BenQ GL2450 (1080p@60Hz) with a TN-Panel and was replaced by this monitor. It is rather forgiving when it comes to non-native resoluted playback and generally feeling very "innaccurate/forgiving" as far as I can tell by comparing to the other displays at hand. Very similar to bad headphones which mask the quality of a recording/mastering by blurring the output. "Gaming performance" is nothing special and can be deemed normal if you have never seen any high refreshrate monitors before. Its stand is only tilt-able but nothing else.
The second monitor I got is a LG 24GM77 (1080p@144Hz) and also a TN-Panel. This one is way sharper and less forgiving with colours and resolution of for example badly compressed video. I can hardl describe it but twitch 720p streams allways looked smoother on the BenQ than the LG. The reviews say this monitor is already calibrated fairly well out of the box and surpisingly accurate for a "gaming TN-Panel". This seems to inline with my visual experience with this monitor.
The stand features everything you would ever need from portrait mode to ~15cm (estimated) of height adjustment and is generally very stable.
Everything I mention here is something I want to you to keep in mind when I describe how I feel about the AGON since we experience from what I have learned in the past everything very realitve to each other.
My first Impressions:

The stand of AOC AGON AG271QG monitor is made out of aluminium and appears to be very durable though I think I looks better than it feels. It has 3 rubberized sections one and each end of the boomerang shaped foot and one at the "intersection of the two lines". The stand is latched and screwed into a small moving platform in the center of the base. AOC uses a single phillips head screw on one side and a metal latch on the other to secure the monitor. The connection feels solid and tilts left and right without making rubbing noise or even feeling like rubbing.The upper part is also mostly made out of aluminium and features 130mm of height adjustment. The monitor is screwed into the stand with 4 black phillips head screws and is completely stable when it is on your desk tilt it or adjust the height. No wobble at all. This thing is even more sturdy than my LG monitor and ony wobbles while typing becsaue my desk is a pos ... but that is a different story. 

The panel:
I heard many stories and saw pictures of backlight bleed dead pixels and hair or dust in panels of this price class. Here is what I got.

When I opened the manual the first suprise I found was that this panel is acctually what in germany is called "Pixelfehlerklasse" or "Pixel failure (rate) class" 1 instead of 2 as I was expecting.

The panels used in the Asus PG278Q,  Acer XB270HU and Dell S2716DG are all class 2. This was a pleasent surprise and to those who don't know about it. This is what it is: The "pixel failure class" determines how many dead pixels a panel may have when it first use it. Class 2 means that this panel may have up to 2 dead pixels and you are essentially not even allowed to complain at or below that (why complain about 0 dead pixels anway ). Class one means up to 1 dead pixel is permitted. Luckily I haven't spotted any yet and i hope it stays that way for a long long time.

"But I once returned a monitor because of a dead pixel and they didn't say nothing" is what you might answer and that is true. Most places will take the monitors back and online stores will even have to except a return within 14 days after arrival in germany. Amazon and some others gives you 30 days of time volunteerely.

This my first IPS panel but I noticed right away that there was some backlight bleed in the bottom right corner. My smartphone camera revealed that all four corners have some slight bleeding but to my naked eye only the bottom right which considerably worse is noticable to a degree. But I don't want to make it sound to bad. On a completely black screen like the boot up screen of the mointor with the AOC logo in the middle this is very visible however in the 1 round of BF1 I played after installing the monitor I didn't notice it at all. And on the forum with the dark theme typing this first impressions part of the review there is no sign of it.

It doesn't look quite as bad in person as it does on this photo. It is however shares the most resemblence with what you I see. I don't see any bleed on left top and bottom and also don't notice the top right over the quite noticeable bleed down at the bottom right. Shot at ISO 1600 with 1/40s exposure on my Oneplus 3 and in very dark conditions.

This is way of from what your eyes can acctually detect but gives you an overview of the backlide bleed of the whole panel. Shot at ISO 250 and with 1/2s exposure

What also became apparent pretty fast is how glossy this panel is. Don't get me wrong. It is nowhere as glossy as a smartphone screen or a glossy laptop screen but it noticable reflects light more while using it compared to my previous monitors. The following is not an angle you would work at but rather serves as a demonstration of how glossy we are talking about. I have a window behind my at 4-5 o' clock (how do you phrase that) so this might be more of an issue for me than it would be for you so keep that in mind.

What to look for here is not what I have on my desktop but how clearly the LEDs are reflected of the screen's surface. I couldnt come up with a better way to show what I mean. If you have any ideas feel free to tell me.

The frame os something between matte and glossy with a texture to it. So far I had no problem with any reclections compared to my super glossy BenQ which annoyed the crap out of me. The reflections of the frame are not bothersome or flashy but I have to spend some more time with it to be able to explicitly state that.

The colours of the display are as I expected noticable richer than TN-Panels. If you are used to your screen and try to match your TN-Panel with your IPS-Panel on one colour like white you will see massive deviation in color vibrance but also on day to day use in the browser things appear a little more boomy. Like comparing IPS and AMOLED on phones but with less innaccurate colors. I have no way of calibrating the display other than by eye or copying values others with those tools provide. What I can at least subjectively tell you right away however is that the panel in factory conditions comes set to the warm preset but even on the normal preset it is to warm. if I had to estime maybe 2500K which is way way on the warm side of things. The sRGB preset is also garbage if you ask me. When I compare it to the LG which is supposedly decently factory calibrated and out of the box near misses 100% sRBG then this is utter bullshit and nowhere near sRGB. I currently use contrast 55(-100), brightness 100(0-100), game color(which is basically saturation WTF?? lel) 100 (0-200), shadow control (lightens up the blacks) 0(0-3), Gamma 1(2-->darker, 3 --> brighter);
Low blue light 0(0-20), Color Temp User(Warm-Normal-Cold-sRGB-User), Red 48(0-100), Green 47(0-100), Blue 54(0-100) and I like the colours this generates and I deem them to be fairly natural but I can't measure anthing .

Gaming impressions:

As I said I played one round of BF1 so far I wasn't to dissapointed.What does that mean? A saying in germany is "no criticism is praised enough" but I have some things.
The were some things though. The reflections on the panel itself were bothersome on dark surfaces of the game and we noticable irritating me. The specific case was me jogging down a hile with a relatively dark spot at the bottom and right oriented cause by the arm of the soldier with the gun in his hand. This shadowed spot showed some conspicuous flashing and it took me a few seconds to find out what that was. If your room is layed out differently which it most likely is you might not encouter the same issue. I also have to add that i either got used to it over the course of one game or the lighint conditions outside causing the reflections dramatically changed (I never botherd to turn away from the screen to check - you know that feeling too ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡° ) ). Either way at the end of the session this appeared to have fixed itself.
G-Sync ... That story I decided in favor of this AOC with the Asus MG279Q and the Dell S2716DG being a cheaper option. I had the money and didn't want to sacrifice features so I got this one for 100 bucks more. Was it worth it?
I can't tell. From the very first impressions I would say the 165Hz feature is more valuable than G-Sync but I have to spend more time with the monitor and maybe switch back to my old to find out if I can "feel" a difference. If I had to tell you right away I would say it felt no different than one my Non-Sync LG. When my framerate dipped to 80fps (cause BF1 + 3770k@4.6GHz OC = ain't exactly the best combo out there) I noticed it right away even without the framecounter I had displayed on screen. Things felt fluid but not more than they did before. I have to see if this changes over time / if I get used to it and wanna commit suicide when going back to Non-Sync. Time will have to tell. So far, nothing.
What I noticed heavily was the higher DPI, not necessarily the larger screen but the higher DPI make distant objects noticably sharper and enemy solders easier to spot.

More to come ... I hope.
Feel free to ask any questions that are left over and I will try to answer them the best i can from my limited time with this device. Hope You liked it so far
 

Edited November 7, 2016 by GER_T4IGA
Pictures added

[Celmor]

Thanks for the review, also haven't found too many reviews of this monitor either but what I found basically confirms most of the same stuff (BLB, inaccurate default colors, rest pretty good). But if set-up properly colors should be pretty accurate and BLB shouldn't be as bad as their competitors (mainly Acer and Asus).

I've had the Asus ROG Swift PG278Q until recently and am now looking for an IPS equivalent and this pretty much looks like the best option for a 1440p+GSync+IPS panel.

Just as I wanted to buy though Amazon went out of stock (they had 2 units 1 day before).

[GER_T4IGA]

4 minutes ago, Celmor said:

Thanks for the review, also haven't found too many reviews of this monitor either but what I found basically confirms most of the same stuff (BLB, inaccurate default colors, rest pretty good). But if set-up properly colors should be pretty accurate and BLB shouldn't be as bad as their competitors (mainly Acer and Asus).

I've had the Asus ROG Swift PG278Q until recently and am now looking for an IPS equivalent and this pretty much looks like the best option for a 1440p+GSync+IPS panel.

Just as I wanted to buy though Amazon went out of stock (they had 2 units 1 day before).

I ordered at "Jacob".

Didn't have any issues. Ordered Wednesday night and received my order on Friday. My first order from them but so far I am satisfied. They were also 14€ cheaper than Amazon. 

[Celmor]

19 minutes ago, GER_T4IGA said:

I ordered at "Jacob".

Didn't have any issues. Ordered Wednesday night and received my order on Friday. My first order from them but so far I am satisfied. They were also 14€ cheaper than Amazon. 

My old monitor I ordered from Amazon (the ROG Swift) which has gone defect now nearly 2 years after I bought it got taken back and fully refunded by them.

I don't order by price that much, I'd rather look if I can buy that product on Amazon (directly and not market place) for not too much of an increase in price because they're pretty accommodating (as you can see from above). Also through an Amazon Ref link I can give back some of the purchase price to someone I like which pretty much negates the higher price in my eyes.

[Praesi]

i noticed the difference with Gsync within the first Minutes. Like Night and Day.

[Celmor]

1 hour ago, Praesi said:

i noticed the difference with Gsync within the first Minutes. Like Night and Day.

Depends on the game, some are purely coded and the frame times for some frames goes up and then you clearly notice it because brightness decreases and color fades out because that frame has to stay up longer on the screen.

Same especially in menus where frame times often spike because of loading times.

Had that experience especially in GTA 5 for example.

Maybe it's just my setup though, I'm using that VGA passthrough setup Wendell once showed on Tek Syndicate.

[GER_T4IGA]

@Celmor @Praesi Pictures are up now.

[GER_T4IGA]

On 5.11.2016 at 4:38 PM, Praesi said:

i noticed the difference with Gsync within the first Minutes. Like Night and Day.

You made the switch from a 60Hz panel to a what+G-Sync panel or a 144Hz to 144Hz+G-Sync panel? I cam from 144Hz.

[Praesi]

1 hour ago, GER_T4IGA said:

You made the switch from a 60Hz panel to a what+G-Sync panel or a 144Hz to 144Hz+G-Sync panel? I cam from 144Hz.

27" IPS 144Hz Gsync.

[Celmor]

Well, looks like I gave the Amazon(.de) product page a look at the exactly right time, it was offered for 637,48 EUR directly from Amazon now as I promptly therefore reserved the next available unit (it was 700 EUR yesterday), even tracker sites didn't update the price that fast.

I think Amazons automatic system dropped the price that radically because there was a market place offer for about 430 EUR, of-course with the usual untrustworthy 'E-Mail me before buying' Disclaimer (with inserted apostrophes to make that phrase harder to find by Amazon).

 

Edit: Aaaand (a few hours later) it already went up in price again to the normal 700 EUR.

Gotta love the market place idiots who try to scam but in turn lower the official Amazon price...

[GER_T4IGA]

7 hours ago, Celmor said:

Well, looks like I gave the Amazon(.de) product page a look at the exactly right time, it was offered for 637,48 EUR directly from Amazon now as I promptly therefore reserved the next available unit (it was 700 EUR yesterday), even tracker sites didn't update the price that fast.

I think Amazons automatic system dropped the price that radically because there was a market place offer for about 430 EUR, of-course with the usual untrustworthy 'E-Mail me before buying' Disclaimer (with inserted apostrophes to make that phrase harder to find by Amazon).

 

Edit: Aaaand (a few hours later) it already went up in price again to the normal 700 EUR.

Gotta love the market place idiots who try to scam but in turn lower the official Amazon price...

What are those "e-mail me before"? I have seen them too an wondered ...

Also how does the market place thing work?

[GER_T4IGA]

23 hours ago, Praesi said:

27" IPS 144Hz Gsync.

So I asked you from what you switched to what and you basically answered with "Yes.". You should not answer an either-or-type question with that. Otherwise expect me to be confused.
Was that a from 60Hz to 144Hz+G-Sync switch? If so then have you ever tried to see if you can detect if G-Sync is on or not with an ABX and maybe a friend helping you? I don't believe that you, as in you specifically, can feel the difference between G- and Non-Sync assuming you switched from a 60Hz to 144G-Sync and I would think the same of anybody else in your position. It is nothing personal

[Praesi]

33 minutes ago, GER_T4IGA said:

So I asked you from what you switched to what and you basically answered with "Yes.". You should not answer an either-or-type question with that. Otherwise expect me to be confused.
Was that a from 60Hz to 144Hz+G-Sync switch? If so then have you ever tried to see if you can detect if G-Sync is on or not with an ABX and maybe a friend helping you? I don't believe that you, as in you specifically, can feel the difference between G- and Non-Sync assuming you switched from a 60Hz to 144G-Sync and I would think the same of anybody else in your position. It is nothing personal

I noticed the termination of tearing. Thats all that matters  ?

And yes 60hz tn to 144hz ips gsync.

[Celmor]

15 hours ago, GER_T4IGA said:

What are those "e-mail me before"? I have seen them too an wondered ...

Also how does the market place thing work?

Anyone can place their product to sell on Amazon Marketplace but I would think they have to give Amazon a proportion when selling.

The thing you would have to watch out for 'Ships from and sold by Amazon ...' is officially/directly sold by Amazon with all their advantages, anything else written there and it's a takeaway that someone else is selling that product with all the disadvantages that come with that: The market place seller has to manage the purchase, shipping Amazon won't give much support for those purchases, those that even wrote that typical phrase there 'E-Mail be before Purchase' are non-legit or non-serious offers, they often are a lot cheaper compared to official listings and in that they hope they get someone to purchase (it was not easy to get to the official listing instead of the market place offer when searching just for the product on Amazon). You can also tell that Amazon doesn't like this type of scam because try tried to insert apostrophes at random places to circumvent automated phrase matching. These market place merchants are notorious on community platforms (like mydealz.de (German)) for complicating price comparison and generally being not reputable.

Often these market place offers are pretty hidden on Amazon (you'd have to click on '18 new from EUR 283,00' (compared to 700 EUR Amazons price)), but every now and then they get their own product page through either being reputable or the Amazon-sold product being not available.

I haven't tried to purchase from those yet  but I would bet that they are gonna try to cheat/scam you in some way, if you are lucky and actually receive a product I wouldn't count on the product being as advertised (new, right product, un-damaged...).

[Celmor]

Just received mine, sadly has 2 dead pixels (diagonally beside each other, at the top left region of the panel).

Maybe I contact Amazon support, try to return it and get a new one as, as you said, it has "Pixelfehlerklasse" of 1 (I'm German too).

My model has no visible back light bleed that's visible to the eye, at least at day and 100% brightness.

[NovusBal]

Neat.

 

Also waiting for a LTT review on this. This monitor is somewhat of an oddball, being around £100-£200 cheaper than the alternatives with the same specification. That's a pretty big savings for what your giving up, which seems to only be the OSD features.

[Celmor]

Tried another one, again 2 dead pixels (one of them stuck) and discoloring/back-light bleed along the corners