AOC AGON Pro AG344UXM 21:9 MiniLED 170Hz Gaming Monitor Review

How Much Does it Cost?

Let’s not beat around the bush, the AOC AGON Pro AG344UXM 21:9 MiniLED 170Hz Gaming Monitor is £999.99, and that’s a lot. However, considering it’s one of the best monitors I’ve reviewed, and that it’s far from the most expensive I’ve reviewed, it’s relatively good value for money. The MiniLED technology is amazing, but clearly, it adds a lot of hardware, complexity, additional power delivery, cooling hardware and more to the display, and this all impacts the price significantly. But when you can pay the same for an edge-lit ultrawide that doesn’t have it, well, the price isn’t really that bad at all.

Overview

I love this monitor, but I want to get something right out of the way first. I wouldn’t buy one myself, despite it being one of the best I’ve ever tested. Firstly, I am so used to a curved monitor and this monitor is flat, it looks weird to me now, but I’m sure I’d adjust sooner or later to a flat display again. it’s also really thick and heavy, and while I have my monitors mounted on a gas lift arm, I wouldn’t be able to push it as close to the wall as my own slimmer ultrawide monitor. Small details I know, but certainly they’re things to consider.

There’s obviously the price too, it’s damn expensive, and you can get a shockingly decent ultrawide gaming monitor, such as the AOC Gaming CU34G2X for £340 these days, barely a third of the price. So why pay triple that price for the AOC AGON AG344UXM? Well, there are plenty of reasons, so let’s get into it!

Firstly, the backlight. It’s not quite OLED per-pixel tech, but with over 1000 zones of backlight, it can get surprisingly close for movies and gaming. You can get a peak brightness of 1000 nits in HDR mode and 600 nits in SDR mode, which is more than enough to make you go “wow!” and this is backed up by some truly exceptional colour reproduction. The cheaperCU34G2X I reviewed had a Delta-E of 3.69 for colour accuracy, and a gamut of 99% sRGB, 82% AdobeRGB and 85% DCI-P3, while the newer AG344UXM does 100, 92, 99% respectively with a Delta-E of 1. That may not sound much, but it’s a significant improvement in colour accuracy and reproduction. There are reds, greens and blues on this monitor you’ve likely never seen represented on a display outside of a decent modern cinema.

The panel is stunning in other respects too, with IPS technology, a 3440 x 1440 resolution, 1ms response time. So when it comes to gaming, not only do the colours look good, but everything is sharp to look at, silky smooth when there’s a lot of motion, and honest, it’s just a joy to use.

Should I Buy One?

This is obviously only going to appeal to the enthusiasts with deep pockets, and you have to take your media, be that games, movies or whatever really, to invest this amount of money in a display to enjoy it. However, if you really care about colour accuracy and just like to be visually wowed, then hey, this is going to get the job done. Of course, it’s tuned for gaming, and it doesn’t disappoint there, but it’s also heavily set up for creatives, with the wide panel offering added productivity, while the colour reproduction makes it well suited to content creation too. I just wish it was a bit slimmer and was curved too, but hey, for this level of tech under £1000, I’m extremely impressed with it!