AOC brings some much needed finesse to the
big monitor market
The last AOC display I reviewed, with a
built-in iPhone dock, didn't impress me. The limitations of that design were
soon erased when I took delivery of the new AOC d2757Ph and its Film-type
Patterned Retarder (FPR) 3D technology.
AOC
d2757Ph 27" 3D Monitor
This is a very stylish design, where the
panel frame is hidden from view by an edge-to-edge outer surface. It's also
remarkably thin (10.6mm) and has the sort of elegant lines that I'd normally
associate with very expensive brands.
A classy exterior isn't often a guarantee
of the quality within, but powering this screen up, I couldn't help but marvel
at how crisp and colourful a display that AOC can make these days.
On paper, the specification of the d2757Ph
speaks volumes about the market that AOC imagines it will conquer. Its
27", panel corner to corner, has a natural resolution of 1080p and offers
three inputs, two of which are HDMI, and the other is VGA. That's an unusual
combination, and points to a mix of gaming and movie watching objectives.
Support for 3D technology fits that profile, and AOC has included the passive
variety.
This
is a very stylish design, where the panel frame is hidden from view by an edge-to-edge
outer surface
Passive 3D uses cheap polarized glasses,
and AOC provides two pairs, one ordinary and another that's designed to clip
onto prescription spectacles.
The caveat with 'passive' over 'active' 3D
from a PC perspective is that NVidia's 3D Vision mode doesn't support it.
Previously AOC provided an OEM version of TriDef 3D software with its passive
screens, but not this time. Here you simply hit a touch button on the bevel to
flick into a pseudo-3D mode with whatever is happening on screen.
In testing, I discovered that the ideal
viewing position is directly centred at between 5ft to 6ft away from the
monitor. This generates a subtle, but hardly dramatic version of the depth
effect that we're all familiar with. The problem is that it's trying to
interpret depth from each still image, and that's never going to compare well
with software calculated results.
Passive vs. Active 3D
There are two types of 3D available,
generally referred to as 'passive' and 'active'. An active system uses
expensive glasses that have LCD shutters that close and open to each eye
synchronising with different images being displayed on screen. Passive glasses
use polarised lenses and filter out one of two overlaid images shown at once to
each eye. The downside of the passive mode is that by definition the image is
half the resolution to each eye, creating a slight loss of quality. But it
doesn't suffer the 'flickering' that some people experience with active
glasses, and it's much cheaper to implement. The 3D effect is the same in both
instances, as that's normally created in the source material.
3D
isn't a strong point of this design, but I'd suggest that screen clarity and
colour saturation certainly are.
I hope that some bright spark will work out
how to enable this for proper Nvidia 3D Vision support, and then the depth
impression could be markedly better on this hardware.
3D isn't a strong point of this design, but
I'd suggest that screen clarity and colour saturation certainly are. The IPS
panel gives excellent 178/178 viewing angles, and unlike some of this type, I
wasn't aware of excessive smearing when games or movies deliver rapid movement.
That's good, because it's typically a weakness of IPS designs over conventional
TN panels.
How could AOC have made it better? The lack
of a VESA mounting point is one annoyance, and the screen surface is very
glossy, resulting in some reflection issues. The mounting problem does have an
interesting aside, which is the angled bottom screen edge that allows for the
foot to be removed, and the screen to sit flush with the desk. I've not seen
this done before, and it works rather well.
Gamers
might want a faster refresh rate and active 3D, but for most other users this
is a very fine and large display that's not painfully priced.
Overall, given the low price, you get
plenty for your money. It's ideal for a children's bedroom, where they might
want to watch videos from a distance or play console games with the same screen
as they use for their PC.
Gamers might want a faster refresh rate and
active 3D, but for most other users this is a very fine and large display
that's not painfully priced. It's also worth noting that it has a warranty
period of three years, including an on-site exchange service.
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Details
·
Price: $419
·
Manufacturer: AOC
·
Website: www.aoc-europe.com
·
Required spec: PC with VGA or HDMI outputs or
a media device with HDMI output
Ratings
·
Quality: 8
·
Value: 8
·
Overall: 8
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