These include some red chevrons towards the sides, a vertical red stripe running down the centre of the stand neck and a red ring where the stand neck and base meet.
The rear of the monitor is mainly matte black plastic, with some dark red satin-finish plastic elements. It’s therefore a fairly compact design, which will be welcomed by some users with less deep desks who still wish to keep a decent distance between the screen and their eyes. The total depth of the monitor including stand is ~230mm (9.06 inches), with the screen sitting ~45mm (1.77 inches) back from the front edge of the stand. At lowest stand height the screen clears the desk by ~60mm (2.36 inches), with the top of the screen ~380mm (14.96 inches) above the desk. The stand offers the following adjustability tilt (3.5° forwards, 21.5° backwards), height (130mm or 5.12 inches), swivel (30° left and 30° right) and pivot (90° clockwise rotation into portrait). The reasonably robust and fully adjustable stand can be seen from this angle. The video below explores this menu system.įrom the side the screen is quite svelte ~10mm (0.39 inches) at thinnest point but lumping out towards the stand attachment point, centrally. This glows white when the monitor is on and amber when it enters a low power state (signal to the system is lost). A small forwards-facing power LED is also included in this region, to the right of the buttons. The OSD (On Screen Display) is controlled by pressable buttons beneath the right side of the bottom bezel. The screen itself is naturally dominant from the front, with a medium matte anti-glare screen surface. The bottom bezel is thicker, ~18mm (0.71 inches) with just a sliver of panel border. Including both elements the bezels are a svelte ~4.5mm (0.18 inches) at the top and sides.
This includes a very slender panel border around the image, blending in seamlessly with the rest of the screen, plus a sleek black plastic outer component. The monitor adopts a 3-sided borderless design – or ‘dual-stage’ as the less misleading term we prefer to use. In some regions such as North America this is silver matte plastic rather than the black matte plastic shown in the image (unless ‘/BK’ is included at the end of the model code). The stand base has an interesting design, with 2 longer front legs and 2 short rear legs. We found these well-blended overall and not eye-catching when just using the monitor normally, less eye-catching than they appear in press photos. Matte black plastics are used extensively, broken up by some dark metallic red plastic elements. The monitor adopts a homely style, with only a subtle hint of ‘gaming monitor’ look. Some of the key ‘talking points’ for this monitor have been highlighted in blue below, for your reading convenience. As usual, take such response times with a pinch of salt.
A 1ms MPRT (Moving Picture Response Time) is specified, with the monitor using its strobe backlight setting. This supports a 144Hz refresh rate and 8-bit colour. More specifically, it’s based around a Panda FFS (Fringe-Field Switching) IPS-type CELL* with a custom backlight solution. We test all of these features out and assess the performance of the monitor more generally, using out usual suite of ‘real-world’ tests. But some notable changes aside from just panel type include a more generous colour gamut and the use of a flat rather than curved screen. It isn’t designed to replace the C24G1, comparing IPS and VA panel types is a bit of an apples to oranges comparison. The AOC 24G2U (referred to as 24G2U/BK or 24G2/BK due to black plastic, or simply 24G2 in some regions) offers an alternative with IPS-type panel. The AOC C24G1 is a good example of a VA model that offered a nice mixture of image quality and responsiveness. So far the high refresh rate options have centred around either TN models, built for speed, or VA models offering strong contrast and some improvements in colour handling at the expense of responsiveness. Many gamers are comfortable with a screen size of around 24” and are seeking an affordable solution with a good mixture of image quality and responsiveness.