AOC announces what could be the cheapest OLED gaming monitors yet

You just gotta love a bright, contrasty, juicy OLED gaming monitor, right? Affirmative, but then there's the sordid matter of money. The new LG UltraGear 32GS95UE is amazing. But it costs $1,400. Ouch. Which is why a pair of new OLED panels just announced by AOC are particularly good news.

AOC has form when it comes to offering conspicuous value. Enter, therefore, new 27-inch 1440p and 32-inch 4K OLED gaming monitors from the brand. As far as we can see, they don't break any new ground, technologically. What they do achieve is the lowest price points we've ever seen, at least in terms of MSRP or recommend pricing, for such displays.

The 27-inch comes in at £650 in the UK, while the 32 incher is £740. The latter looks like conspicuously good value when you compare it to the LG mentioned above. While we have occasionally seen 27-inch OLEDs lower than those prices, those are sale prices rather than MSRP.

For now, we don't have US pricing, though we have put the question to AOC. As things stand we'd expect similar figures in dollars. Right now, the cheapest 32-inch 4K OLED is the MSI MAG 321UPX, which typically goes for about $900 and is identical to the MSI MPG 321URX we reviewed earlier in the year, save for lower power output over its USB-C interface. 

So, how has AOC pulled this off? Part of the explanation is no doubt maturity in terms of the 4K Samsung QD-OLED panel AOC is using. It's bound to have come down in price a little.

However, the AOC Agon Pro AG326UD, as the 32-inch 4K model is known, also only runs at 165 Hz compared to the 240 Hz that's the norm for other 4K 32 inchers running the QD-OLED panel, including the MSI and LG models mentioned above.

Yes, that's a downgrade. But then how often are you achieving 240 fps in the latest games at 4K? 165 Hz is a decently high frame rate in most contexts. For 4K, we'd argue it's plenty.

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