When comparing Planar Helium PCT2785 vs AOC AGON AG271QX, the Slant community recommends AOC AGON AG271QX for most people. In the question“What are the best monitors?” AOC AGON AG271QX is ranked 10th while Planar Helium PCT2785 is ranked 30th. The most important reason people chose AOC AGON AG271QX is:
One neat feature of the AOC AG271QX is a headset hanger which is situated near the monitor’s audio output.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Decent black levels, good contrast ratio
The black levels are respectively low at 0.16cd/m², which helps the contrast ratio achieve 1100:1 which is much lower than the advertised 5000:1, but still quite good.
Pro Pretty fast response times make the system feel quick
The response time is 12ms, which isn't lightning fast, but it's still quick enough to make the system feel more responsive than cheaper monitors. While not fast enough for high-level gaming, this monitor won't make your system feel slow or unresponsive.
Pro 'Massive tablet' design is unique, and versitile
It really does look like a massive tablet with a kickstand - but that's not a bad thing. There's no stand visible, leaving the front looking very clean. The stand can angle anywhere from 15-70 degrees which allows for flexible use, or it can be folded in and used flat on the desk or even mounted using the VESA mounting holes.
Pro Built-in speakers, webcam, and mic
This monitor has many peripherals built-in, and unless you use them heavily they will do the job just fine. Unless you feel the need for dedicated hardware, the built-in stereo speakers work well enough, and the webcam and mic are acceptable quality for occasional recreational use (for business calls or other uses where quality is important, you'll want to upgrade to dedicated hardware).
Pro Has a headset hanger
One neat feature of the AOC AG271QX is a headset hanger which is situated near the monitor’s audio output.
Pro Has a metal stand
Unlike many other gaming monitors that are built purely from plastics, the AOC AG271QX does have some eye-catching and rigid metal parts. For example, the entire stand of the monitor is made from aluminum, which is an infrequent feature at the given price point.
Pro Well-handled motion
This monitor doesn't have any problems with ghosting or motion blur since they're kept under control by the aid of the panel's fast pixel response time and high native refresh rate.
As the monitor's pixels can change their colors fast enough to eliminate even the tiniest trails from fast-moving objects, the AOC AG271QX doesn't suffer from motion blur and ghosting. Such rapid color transition is possible because of the monitor's full pixel response time of 1 ms.
Additionally, the overall motion looks smooth and fluid because of the display's 144 Hz refresh rate, which ensure that the image updates every seven milliseconds.
Pro Decent responsiveness
The AOC AG271QX offers responsive and lag-free gaming experience as its input lag of 5.2 ms is on par with the majority of competitors in its price range.
Input lag corresponds to the delay needed by a monitor to process a single frame generated by a computer's graphics card. It can have a substantial impact on the overall gaming experience.
Pro Adjustable stand
Adjustability-wise, the AOC AG271QX has everything sorted as the monitor offers tilt, swivel, height, and even pivot adjustments which you can use to get the best viewing angles out of this panel.
Pro Features FreeSync
FreeSync eliminates stutter and vertical tearing as it allows the monitor to adjust its refresh rate to match the framerate of your graphics card.
The AOC AG271QX supports FreeSync in the 48-144 Hz range.
FreeSync works only with AMD's Radeon graphics cards.
Pro Fair picture quality
Featuring decent contrast ratio, high peak brightness, exceptional color accuracy, and excellent gamma response, the AOC AG271QX offers better picture quality than the majority of other gaming monitors in this price range.
While the monitor's dark scenes are not the top-notch, it does an outstanding job of reproducing images with vivid and consistent colors as well as some beautiful intermediate tones. Dark scenes look good thanks to the monitor's contrast ratio of 1040:1. Colors pop and appear luminous because of the monitor's peak brightness of 350 nits. Color inaccuracies are virtually unnoticeable to the human eye thanks to the average color error dE of 1.31. Mid-tones look lifelike because of the monitor's near-perfect gamma of 2.18.
Additionally, this QHD monitor displays sharper and more saturated scenes compared to its 27-inch FHD competitors, because it has 42% higher pixel density.
Pro Good for gaming
The AOC AGON AG271QX is an excellent choice for gamers at this price point because it offers high responsiveness and fantastic motion handling capabilities while keeping its picture quality to very high standards.
Pro Can fight glare
The AOC AG271QX does an excellent job in bright rooms, where the monitor's peak brightness of 350 nits allows it can deal with glare and heavy reflections.
Cons
Con Disappointing color accuracy
The MVA panel (multi-domain vertical alignment: in-between of TN and IPS technologies) doesn't reproduce colors very accurately. It scores just 82% of the sRGB color gamut, while other panels offer high 80s and even above 90%. This display's weakest points are with the green and cyan shades, while reds and blues appeared just fine.
Con Dim display
The display doesn't get very bright - at just 172cd/m² this panel is very dim. Many monitors can achieve 300cd/m² or higher brightnesses.
Con Takes much more power than similar monitors
Without using the ECO mode, this monitor requires about 50 watts to power it. This is double than other monitors. There are different levels of ECO modes, however these dim the display and barely get down to the power level of other monitors when they are all enabled.
Con Unintuitive OSD menu
The monitor's on-screen display menu is messy and unintuitive.
Con Bad for cable management
The AOC AG271QX does not have any cable-management related features that are usually offered even by some lower-grade monitors.
Con Needs a brief calibration
To get the most from the monitor's picture quality, you'll need to do a short calibration procedure. The procedure is well-documented, and all the key parameters and ICC profiles are available on the Internet.
Con Requires high-end hardware
This QHD monitor will put more strain on your graphics card compared to a regular FHD monitor simply because it has 42% more pixels to run.
Some user tests revealed that running a game at the QHD resolution causes 30-40% FPS drop, compared to the FHD resolution.
Con Has an external PSU
Finding the right place for the monitor's power supply brick might cause you some inconvenience, especially if you are going to mount the monitor on a wall.