AOC Gaming 27G4XE review: An unassuming gaming monitor at a superb price
The AOC 27G4XE is a simple Full HD 27in monitor that excels at its primary task of displaying fluid, colourful gameplay
Pros
- Excellent motion fidelity
- Superb value
- Surprisingly good HDR support
Cons
- The basic stand is rather wobbly
- Poor speakers
- Limited range of ports
The G4X series is AOC Gaming’s bread and butter line up of basic gaming monitors and consists of four 1,920 x 1,080 180Hz IPS models: the 24G4X and 27G4X, which are 24in and 27in monitors with ergonomic stands, and the 27G4XE and 24G4XE which are the same but ship with basic stands.
We have the AOC 27G4XE gaming monitor on test here, which comes with a simple clip-in with only tilt adjustment, costing £139.
AOC Gaming 27G4XE review: What do you get for your money?
At this sort of price, you don’t get fancy design, metal construction or LED light shows. Basic is the name of the game. The 27G4XE’s unassuming black plastic cabinet is a little creaky, but it looks modern thanks to slender 8mm bezels above and on each side of the display. The chin at the bottom of the frame is deeper at 20mm but that’s par for the monitor course.
If you want a gaming monitor that’s easy to move and doesn’t overwhelm your desk or gaming station the 27G4XE fits the bill nicely. At 420 x 141 x 614mm and 4.4kg (that’s with the stand, without it, we’re down to 3.6kg) it doesn’t dominate its surroundings and is easy to reposition.
The range – or rather lack thereof – of ports is where the 27G4XE’s budget status shows through most strongly. All you get are two HDMI 2.0 and one DisplayPort 1.4 video input and a 3.5m audio jack. It’s a shame the HDMI ports are not v2.1 to support the variable refresh rates on the latest consoles.
The stand is another part of the package ruthlessly engineered down to price. It’s a very simple affair with no adjustability beyond tilting between -5 and 18 degrees. It’s also not the most stable affair. When you use the row of menu buttons along the lower right edge of the cabinet, the whole assembly rocks from side to side.
Luckily, there is a 100 x 100mm VESA mount hidden under a circular blanking plate on the rear of the cabinet, which also covers the quick-release mount for the stand that ships with the 27G4X version.
At this point, I have to mention that the plastic release clip on the cabinet of my review unit broke when I tried to remove the stand leg, leaving me unable to get it back into the box. Given this and the wobble, I’d advise spending the extra £20 for the model with the conventional and fully adjustable stand unless you plan on attaching it to a VESA arm out of the box.
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AOC Gaming 27G4XE review: How good is the image quality?
The AOC 27G4XE comes with a Fast IPS (also known as Rapid IPS) panel, terms that infer the use of a thinner liquid crystal layer to achieve up to four times faster response time than a ‘normal’ IPS panel. There’s an element of marketing flannel in this as there’s no industry definition for Fast/Rapid IPS, but in the case of the AOC 27G4XE, it’s a boast that delivers in the real world.
For a cheap monitor, the motion handling of the 27G4XE is outstanding. Running the Blur Busters tests revealed a near-complete absence of ghosting and no visible lag or other visual unpleasantries. The phrase “OLED-like” to describe artefact-free motion on IPS gaming displays is overused but in this case it isn’t wholly inappropriate.
I’ve yet to encounter significantly better motion fidelity on IPS or VA gaming panels costing many times more than this cheap AOC. Playing fast-moving games like Apex Legends and Valorant on the AOC 27G4XE is a very pleasant experience.
If you want to improve the 27G4XE’s already impressive motion handling you can do so by switching on the Boost feature in the Overdrive menu which sharpens things up even more. This does come at the expense of screen brightness though, which is locked to a dim 55cd/m2, and adaptive sync, which is disabled.
The AOC Gaming 27G4XE doesn’t trip over when it comes to the display basics, either. There’s ample colour available with the display capable of reproducing 136.7% of the sRGB gamut, 94.2% of Adobe RGB and 96.9% DCI-P3. That’s with the panel in Native mode. Turn on the sRGB lock and it caps colour output, but average Delta E colour accuracy number settles down at a highly impressive 0.59 which is extraordinarily good for a cheap monitor like this.
I measured peak brightness at 314cd/m2 in SDR mode and 338cd/m2 in HDR mode. That’s more than adequate for general indoor use and certainly for the Stygian gloom in which many gamers lurk. The contrast ratio of 1,350:1 is good for a budget IPS panel too.
Given that the 27G4XE only has a conventional edge backlight, precluding any proper local area dimming HDR performance is rather good. The increased colour saturation resulted in a far more realistic gaming environment when playing Halo Infinite.
And, out of the box, the visual daylight temperature and gamma came out at 6,393K and 2.16 respectively – close enough to the ideals of 6.500K and 2.2 to not be worth worrying about.
The only slight failing with the 27G4XE’s display is when it comes to uniformity, with both brightness and colour being a little out of whack in the lower corners. You’ll not notice this with the naked eye but the colour variations could be an issue if you wanted to use the monitor for professional grading across the whole screen.
AOC Gaming 27G4XE: Are there any other features I should know about?
Given the price of the AOC Gaming 27G4XE I didn’t expect much in the way of extras and so it turned out. There is a pair of 2W speakers built into the cabinet but these offer slim returns, lacking bass and generating a rather brittle, wearisome sound. With a maximum volume output of 73.4dBA, as measured against a pink noise source at a 1m distance, they are not overly loud, either, but given the quality that’s just as well.
Buyers would be well-advised to buy a decent set of gaming-optimised PC speakers such as the excellent Steel Series Arena 3 system so the quality of what you hear matches the quality of what you see.
AOC has redesigned the OSD menu for its new monitors and the new layout is far easier to navigate compared to the old design – thanks to a more logical layout. My only gripe is that the on-screen icons for the five buttons that navigate the OSD are offset from the actual buttons below. What this means is that the OK icon is directly above the Power button, so I ended up switching the monitor off by accident more than once.
Rummage around in the menu and you’ll find all the expected gaming features like a black boost, smart cross-hair and frame rate counter. There is also the usual selection of game-specific colour settings and options to adjust the motion fidelity, however the basic performance is so good you really don’t need to use them.
AOC Gaming 27G4XE: Should I buy one?
The AOC 27G4 in either X or XE form recommends itself; for this price, you seldom get such a high level of motion handling and all-round image quality.
Granted, the 27G4XE has some failings. The speakers are poor, the superb budget stand is wobbly and, in the case of my review model, not terribly well made either. On the flip side, when it comes to the core competency of delivering colourful, fluid and crisp gameplay it does a very fine job. For the money, you can’t do better.
