AOC U27V4EA 27″ 4K IPS Monitor Review

AOC is one of the biggest names in the world when it comes to monitors, from professional displays to budget models. From working in the office to gaming at home (or gaming at the office and working from home, I’m not your boss!), they’ve really got something for every budget and requirement you can think of. Today, however, I’m very excited by this monitor. It’s a 4K IPS panel, which is something that’ll get a big thumbs up from me right away. However, this one has been built to deliver both those technologies at a much more affordable price point. It’s a simple 27″ display, with a 60Hz refresh rate, a 4ms response time and honestly, that’s about the bulk of it. For a bit of working and gaming at home, you don’t need all the latest bleeding-edge features all the time. AOC certainly has more expensive models, such as the Porsche Design PD27 or the G-Line series, but can they still deliver on a more budget-friendly model?

Features & Specifications

For in-depth specifications please visit the official AOC U27V4EA product page here.

What AOC Had to Say

“The U27V4EA boasts a 3-sides frameless and flat 27” IPS display with UHD resolution, in a clean and minimal design. It features easy-on-the-eye technologies like Flicker-Free and Low Blue Light and Adaptive sync. With a 4K UHD resolution of 3840 x 2160 pixels – four times the resolution of a Full HD display – the monitor boasts a pixel density that delivers brilliantly sharp images with the finest details.”

IPS Panel

No matter if you are viewing photos, videos, a magazine layout in InDesign or playing your favourite game – we want your content to look excellent from whatever angle you are seeing it. That is why this display comes with an advanced IPS panel, which produces brilliant colours and offers wide viewing angles. This way, images always look excellent and accurate, regardless from which angle you – or your friends and co-workers sitting or standing next to you – are looking at the screen.

Adaptive Sync

Adaptive Sync aligns your monitor’s vertical refresh rate with the frame rate delivered by your GPU, making your gameplay and casual gaming experience even more fluid by eliminating stuttering, tearing and judder. This feature is also useful when enjoying videos and other visual media, for a smoother entertainment.

Speakers

Built-in speakers make it easy to catch up with family, friends and colleagues. For movies, music, games and more, you’ll enjoy quality audio without the hassle of connecting external speakers.

Flicker Free

AOC Flicker-Free Technology utilises a DC (Direct Current) backlight panel, reducing flickering light levels. With eye strain and fatigue absolutely minimized, feel free to enjoy those long, intense gaming sessions in comfort!

A Closer Look

This is a really minimalist monitor, and that’s something I really like about it. It’s almost all panel with a really minimal frame.

The bezel is really slim, and while this is a more affordable model (not to be confused with “cheap”), it certainly looks more premium due to this.

Of course, a slim design like this makes it well suited to multi-display setups. Given this size monitor and resolution would make an ideal second display, it’ll certainly add to the appeal.

There’s a slightly thicker edge at the bottom, but even that’s pretty slim compared to most other monitors.

There are some basic controls along the bottom, nothing fancy, but they’ll do just fine for the couple of times you need to tinker with the UI.

Around the back, it looks surprisingly slick and modern. The lines along the back look very stylish and if you did have this on an open desk setup, looking at the back of the monitor is hardly an eyesore. There’s a Kensington lock mount on one side and the ports on the other.

There’s a small recessed section here, allowing for all the usual ports. It’s not the most equipped I/O panel, but it’s got the basics.

I love how the stand bends and flows into the back of the monitor casing too; it’s a very clean way of mounting it.

As you can see, it’s not going to allow for height adjustment. However, there’s some wiggle room here. This allows you to tilt the monitor backwards a good amount.

As well as forward, but to a lesser degree.

At 27″ this is hardly a behemoth, but the advantage is that it only needs a small stand, which is unlikely to be a burden on your desktop space.

Performance

The first thing you’ll notice about this panel is that the picture is just awesome right out of the box! It may only be 27″, but that’s plenty for the majority of desktop users. Plus, at 4K, the pixel density is fantastic and gives you a LOT of fine detail that’ll really work great for gaming.

Albeit, at this resolution and panel size, I do recommend 150% scaling in Windows 10, as some elements may be a little small otherwise, but that’s no big deal as it’s easily resolved.

The panel does away with some of the more advanced features such as being curved, HDR, etc. However, it’s got the fundamentals right. It can deliver 350 nits of brightness, 83% of Adobe RGB, and 112% of sRGB. That’s not pro-monitor grade, but certainly pretty sweet for a work and gaming monitor, things are going to (and do) look great on this panel.

IPS means great colours and stability of the colours over a longer period of time. Plus, you get great viewing angles and black levels right out of the box too. The built-in profiles are easily switched too, but just setting the picture to warm1 will net great results for most users.

The 4ms response time isn’t eSports ready, but for kicking back playing some Elder Scrolls Online, and a bit of Forza Horizon, and a lot of Flight Simulator, I can’t say I had any issues really. Plus the 4K resolution and colour reproduction made all the games look stunning.

Just look at that view!

There are some built in speakers too, hardly enough for movie night, but for basic system noises and the occasional video on social media, they’ll get the job done.

Calibration

How Much Does it Cost?

While you can get more affordable 4K panels, they’ll typically be VA panels. Actually, AOC themselves have a few cheaper models which use more affordable panel technologies. However, for a little over £300, you’re getting a really fantastic quality monitor here. I know it’s not the biggest or most expensive 4K monitor ever. However, it offers performance beyond what I expected for this price range and represents outstanding value for money overall. I’m sure some may want a USB hub, RGB and all that jazz, but it’s not like AOC hasn’t already got plenty of monitors like that, albeit they cost a bit more too.

Overview

This is a really nice monitor that doesn’t rely on gimmicks or bonus features to make it stand out. It’s got a pretty simple design, but that’s actually what I love about it. It doesn’t look so dull that it’s destined for a poorly lit office, and it doesn’t look so “gamer” that it’ll look silly on a living room desk. It has a small (but stable) stand, a slim bezel that looks neat and tidy, and a really nice panel coating that doesn’t give any strong reflections, even in a well-lit room.

Calibration

Right out of the box, the stock performance on this AOC monitor was really surprising. Would I be using it to colour grade a movie? No, but it’s not designed for that level of accuracy. However, for your average gaming content creator or streamer, the colour levels are pretty damn good and actually better than expected. My Spyder5Elite calibration tool rated it at 4.5/5 for colour reproduction. However, reset the monitor to stock settings, then ensure that you enable Warm2 in the colour settings, then pick which suits your room better on Gamma1 or Gamma2, and I doubt you’ll ever need to change another thing.

While I didn’t perform a full calibration on the display, I didn’t really see the need. First of all, it’s unlikely the target customers for this monitor would do such a thing. Secondly, Anything below Delta-E 5.0 is good enough, Below 3.0 is fantastic and hard for the human eye to distinguish. This monitor averaged 1.28! Only the black at 2.92 and Cyan at 3.2 was above 1.7-ish. However, the monitor didn’t exhibit a blue hue, it’s really well set up from the factory.

Performance

The backlight performance was really impressive, no bright spots, no clouding, no torching to be found, really. The black levels are really inky, and at 350cdn, it’s easy to read the screen even on a sunny day. There’s no HDR, but the SDR performance is solid, so you’ll get no complaints from me. It doesn’t have FreeSync, but you do get Adaptive sync, which is always welcome. Furthermore, I found the monitor handled 24hz modes really well, which is great if you want to watch a lot of movie content on the display.

Colours look warm and natural and have a matte cinematic tone thanks to that anti-reflective coating on the panel. Overall, I really like how it looks, and it gives a natural look to games, movies, and white levels feel spot on.

It may not be curved, packed with RGB or FreeSync, although it does have Adaptive Sync. The stand could perhaps turn or pivot, but that’s hardly a deal-breaker, and I do like how the stand looks, plus it is VESA compatible anyway.

Should I Buy One?

AOC can easily impress when it comes to their high-end and much more expensive models, as can most brands actually. However, they seem to have hit their stride with their more affordable models. The out-of-the-box performance of this monitors panel is remarkable. For work, movies, gaming, a bit of photoshop, anything really, you couldn’t ask for a better panel at this price range. Highly recommended.