AOC U2879VF - 28 Inch 4K UHD Monitor, 60Hz, 1ms, TN, AMD FreeSync, FlickerFree, (3840x2160 @ 60Hz, 300cd/m², HDMI/DP/VGA/DVI-D)

Product Information

Outside of the panel’s performance, the EW2880U continues to impress. It has a decent selection of ports: two HDMI 2.0 ports and a DP 1.4 port for video and a USB-C port capable of delivering 60W of power and carrying a video signal at the same time. Great for owners of modern MacBooks in particular. The stand, meanwhile, offers height adjustment plus a small amount of swivel and tilt – not spectacular but good enough for most people

Overdrive boost mode was the worst culprit, but with medium settings enabled I found it to be totally playable. Unfortunately, the on-screen display isn't particularly polished. The menu runs along the bottom of the screen, stretching across three-fourths of the enormous display. The basic options are easy to navigate, and give you the ability to adjust the luminance and color, and activate features like picture-in-picture mode. The MVA panel technology lessens the severity of the poor viewing angles and produces a good contrast ratio and peak brightness. It’s not as accurate as its predecessor, unfortunately, but is nonetheless a punchy and colourful display for office use. The 75Hz refresh rate and 4ms response time (G2G) won’t prove too off-putting for casual gamers, either.

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There were some issues with overdrive mode worth noting. I found inverse ghosting occurred increasingly as I moved up through the higher overdrive settings. While colorimeters are good for transmissive media – emitted light (such as displays), spectrophotometers are also good for reflective media (such as paper). So if you want to make sure that what you see on the display is also what you will see when it’s printed out, than opting for a spectrophotometer might be a better idea. However, these come at a considerably higher price point than monitor-only colorimeters. The BenQ EW2880U is a multipurpose 4K monitor with a comparatively low price tag. For the money, you’re getting a 28in IPS panel with a 60Hz refresh rate, a 5ms response time and AMD FreeSync support. The EW2280U performed well on test, producing 114% of the sRGB colour gamut with strong accuracy and achieving brightness and contrast results that lined up very neatly with BenQ’s claims (300cd/m² and 987:1 respectively). These final figures don’t exactly make for great HDR, but as the monitor has no official HDR certification this is only a small niggle The Philips 279C9 takes the formula established by other 4K monitors on this list and adds a couple of uncommon features into the mix for good measure. It does so at a fairly competitive price point, too, which is no mean feat given what’s on offer here. This 27in IPS monitor supports a rudimentary form of HDR: it’s not exactly going to blow your mind, but we noticed an improvement in colour vibrancy all the same. It also supports AMD FreeSync technology for reducing screen tearing when gaming. These things are noteworthy simply because they aren’t commonly found on office monitors; if you’re a casual gamer with a good rig that you’ve ended up reluctantly using very often for work, the 279C9 caters for you.

You’ve got plenty of room for cables here, which is great news: two HDMI 2.0 ports and one DP 1.4 port sit alongside a four-port USB-A 3.2 hub and a single upstream USB-C 3.0 port that provides up to 65W of power and can also carry a video signal (although in doing so, prevents use of the USB hub). This is partly dependent on personal taste, but usually monitors in the 27in–32in range are well suited to being placed on a desk and used for office work and after-hours gaming. You can go bigger, but you’ll obviously need to sit further away to comfortably view the entire panel. There are also a few unexpected options. There's the Bright Screen mode, which lets you highlight one quadrant of the panel when running it as a four-screen multi-monitor display, literally highlighting one of the four feeds. Unfortunately, it applies only to input coming from the PC, and can't be used to highlight one screen from among multiple sources. USB-C ports can also charge connected devices, with maximum power delivery ranging from 10W to 45W depending on the product. If you plan on connecting to your new screen via a Windows laptop or a MacBook with few to no USB-A ports, consider looking out for a monitor with a USB hub (with at least two USB-A ports) for mice, keyboards or external drives. Panel technology: IPS LCD is the most common form of panel technology. IPS monitors tend to have great colours and viewing angles, but contrast ratios and response times are often inferior to that of VA LCD panels.

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Note that you can bypass the OSD and use AOC's own i-menu instead – this is a software-based display control panel. Another interesting tool is Screen+ which can split your desktop into different panels and is essentially an improved version of Windows Snap. Early verdict Elsewhere in our tests, the 279C9 performed very well indeed, producing 97% of the sRGB colour gamut with a fantastically low Delta E of 0.3, so you can rest assured that colours are accurately represented in the sRGB space. Brightness tops out at around 380cd/m², which is more than good enough for even well-lit environments, although it falls a little shy of the 400cd/m² minimum required for that DisplayHDR 400 certification. The AOC U2790PQU is built on a premium IPS (In-Plain Switching) panel with native 4K resolution and 10-bit color depth. That means it has wide 178-degree off-center viewing, a crisp 163 ppi pixel density and consistent colors. The wide color gamut quoted at 108% sRGB guarantees its color accuracy. At 1,000:1, the static contrast ratio is good, although the brightness is a little low at 350 cd/m2.

This unassuming 27in panel is brimming with features that combine to create the most well-rounded 4K monitor we’ve ever tested. From a technical perspective, this is an IPS panel that refreshes at 75Hz. It performed well on test, producing 95% of the sRGB colour gamut with good accuracy; DCI-P3 reproduction was a little less than advertised but at 87% remains pretty good for a non-professional monitor.

All the basics for competitive gaming packed into a fantastic budget 4K gaming monitor, that wishes it was true HDR.

As 4K monitors with HDR tend to be at the pricier end of the market, they often come with higher DisplayHDR certifications, such as DisplayHDR 600, 800 or even 1,000. The number indicates the maximum brightness (in nits) of HDR content on the monitor in question, and generally, the higher the number, the better. If you want the absolute best HDR experience, then your monitor absolutely needs to have local dimming technology too, so make sure to look out for it in the specifications.