AOC 24P3CW review: Fully loaded

AOC’s new P3 range of 24in Full HD and 27in QHD IPS monitors offers something for most home and office users. The entry-level machines are the two QW models, namely the 24P3QW and Q27P3QW, which feature a 2MP webcam with Windows Hello support and two 2W speakers. Next up are the CV monitors, the 24P3CV and the Q27P3CV, which lack a webcam but have a four-port USB hub. Finally, there are the two CW models, the 24P3CW and the Q27P3CW, which are equipped with 5MP webcams, a brace of 5W speakers and a four-port USB hub.

Prices range from £229 for the 24P3QW and 24P3CV to £349 for the Q27P3CW. Sitting on my desk today is the 24P3CW, which will set you back £260 (the 27in version is an extra £90). That looks like pretty good value for a monitor with a USB hub and a 1080p webcam.

AOC 24P3CW review: What do you get for your money?

The design of this new P3 range is nothing to get excited about. AOC describes the design as “3-sided frameless”, which in real terms means the bezels at the sides and top are 6mm wide, while the chin below the display is 25mm deep. Other than that it’s a generic monitor with an angular black plastic frame and a quick-release stand attachment on the back that hides a 100 x 100mm VESA bracket. 

The 24P3CW is more adjustable than some of the similarly priced competition, with a 180-degree pivot in both directions, 5 degrees of forward and 35 degrees of backward tilt and 150mm of height adjustability. At 225 x 195mm the pedestal isn’t overly large, and at 5.4kg when assembled, the 24P3CW is as light as you would expect for a 24in monitor.

One design feature I like concerns the buttons that let you navigate the menu system. All five are on the front of the monitor below the right-hand corner of the panel. The right-most is a standby switch (there’s a proper power-off button by the power socket on the back); the left-most cycles between the signal input options; the next left toggles the microphone, and the next left again opens a volume slider. The middle three buttons also act as up/down and next/select. It’s all very straightforward and, because you can actually see the buttons, you seldom press the wrong one.

Rummage around in the settings and you’ll find a Game menu with some features to keep occasional gamers happy, including adaptive sync, a frame rate counter, three levels of overdrive (I found the Medium setting was the optimum setting for keeping ghosting under control without any overly deleterious side effects) and a shadow level control to make lurkers in the shadows easier to see. I would actually question how much use a Game menu is in a monitor like this, but like the BFG in Doom, it’s better to have it and not need it than the other way around.

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AOC 24P3CW review: What type of connections does it have?

The P3CW has one of the widest ranges of ports I’ve seen on a sub-£300 monitor. For AV input you get HDMI 1.4 and DisplayPort 1.2 connectors as well as a USB 3.2 Gen 2 Type-C port, while for output you get another DisplayPort 1.2 connector and four USB-A 3.2 Gen 1 ports (two are positioned around the back and two are on the left edge of the cabinet). There’s also an RJ45 Gigabit Ethernet LAN port and a 3.5mm audio output to round things off.

The upstream Type-C port supports PD charging up to 65W, while one of the Type-A ports is listed as a Fast (7.5W) Charger. Strangely the 7.5W port is one of the ones on the rear of the P3CW, rather than on the side where it would be easier to plug in a cable to charge your phone or tablet. 

There’s no KVM switch – though I wasn’t expecting to find one at this price point – but the P3CW still offers plenty of opportunity to run multiple monitors and connect numerous peripherals without ending up with a spaghetti nightmare of cables on your desk.

AOC 24P3CW review: How good is the image quality?

Running our usual gamut – no pun intended – of tests with an i1Display colorimeter and DisplayCal it quickly became apparent that the P3CW’s display is actually rather good and has no significant weak spots.

The P3CW has five colour presets; sRGB, Cool, Warm, Normal and User. Maximum brightness is only achievable in Warm or User when the panel puts out 398cd/m². Move the panel into sRGB mode and the maximum brightness is capped at an indicated 80%, which actually equates to 238cd/m² when measured with a colorimeter. The contrast ratio in Warm is 996:1 and 972:1 in sRGB, with the level of black luminescence registering as 0.42cd/m² in the former and 0.38cd/m² in the latter. This is par for the course with an IPS panel.

Gamut coverage is good for a monitor in this price bracket with 99.3% sRGB, 76.2% DCI-P3 and 87.2% Adobe RGB. Even more impressive was the out-of-the-box Delta E colour accuracy vs sRGB which was an excellent 1.05, meaning it’s nigh on perfect even to the eye of a trained professional.

The display brightness was impressively uniform, too: eight of the nine zones tested fell within recommended tolerance while the ninth, at the top left, only just crossed the line into within nominal tolerance by the smallest of margins. An uncalibrated Gamma figure of 2.19 rounds out a very decent set of numbers for the P3CW.

AOC 24P3CW review: Are there any other features I should know about?

The P3CW may have two 5W speakers but, as I anticipated, they’re pretty lacklustre. Maximum volume isn’t too shabby at 75.1dB(A) but there’s an almost total lack of bass, which makes anything other incoming voice calls sound very tinny and tiresome. Play music back through them and you’ll be reaching for your headphones in short order.

The webcam exceeded my expectations. The camera itself is mounted in a rotating housing that can be moved from pointing directly at the ceiling to pointing to the Earth’s core (in effect shutting the camera down since it’s looking straight at the top of the monitor frame). No matter how high your chair is or even if you’re standing up the camera should be able to find you somewhere between those two extremes.

Video can be captured at a maximum of 1080p 30fps and still images snapped at a maximum resolution of 2,592 x 1,944. The end products are sharp and not too noisy even in quite low light.

Colour registration was a bit out: the drab olive fleece I was wearing looked bright green on camera to the extent that the person I was talking to asked if it was new – and then if I had repainted the office! Still, the overall quality is a match for the webcams in most laptops I’ve encountered recently. It also supports Windows Hello IR facial recognition, which is very handy if, like me, you keep your laptop shut when hooked up to your monitor.

The microphone array is perfectly serviceable just as long as you’re in a quiet environment. Nobody you’re talking to will mistake the P3CW’s mics for the latest word in noise-cancelling microphone arrays, but they do the job.

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AOC 24P3CW review: Should I buy it?

It’s hard not to be impressed by the 24P3CW for the price. As a basic display it’s more than serviceable thanks to a bright, colourful and accurate panel with all the little extras we’ve come to expect, such as a 75Hz refresh rate and some handy gaming features for the casual gamer. It’s well made and adaptable, too, with a 90 degree pivot and a wide range of adjustability. The OSD menu system is easy to use thanks to those front-facing controls. The 1080p webcam and USB hub are what seal the deal, though, because they add genuinely useful functionality to the new AOC.

For the money, it’s a bit of a steal.