AOC CQ27G2X Gaming Monitor Review - QHD 180Hz paired with great value

TweakTown's Rating: 92%

The Bottom Line

AOC's CQ27G2X is a versatile 27-inch gaming monitor that has great color accuracy, a buttery smooth refresh rate, and all for a great price.

Pros

• + Deep blacks
• + Price
• + Image quality
• + Accurate color

Cons

• - Connectivity options
• - Could be viewed as aesthetically boring

Should you buy it?

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Introduction & Specification Details and Close-up

There are plenty of budget gaming monitors on the market, but which one do you choose? That all depends on what you are after; image clarity, fast refresh rates, or a big resolution.

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Suppose you are shopping on a budget and are using your gaming monitor for a variety of different games and tasks. In that case, it's typically best to opt for a monitor that is great in all of the specifications above but not the best in any specific one. AOC's CQ27G2X could certainly be a contender for this position as the company's latest gaming monitor that has released in Australia and New Zealand has been competitively priced at $350AUD, or $230 USD.

At the time of writing, the CQ27G2X doesn't appear to be available in the US, but if it does and launches around the $250 mark, it's certainly a monitor you want to keep on a list of potential upgrades, considering what it's packing. The CQ27G2X has a resolution of 2560 x 1440, a 180Hz refresh rate, 1ms GtG response time, and incredible color accuracy for its price. The 27-inch display is clearly aimed at gamers who are after the specification sweet spot and don't mind trading aesthetics to get there if it means they pay a lower price.

Specifications

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Close-up

AOC CQ27G2 Gaming Monitor

	Today	Yesterday	7 days ago	30 days ago
	$249.99	$249.99	$249.99	$258.93	Buy
* Prices last scanned on 9/15/2024 at 3:26 pm CDT - prices may not be accurate, click links above for the latest price. We may earn an affiliate commission from any sales.

Design

The physical design of the CQ27G2X looks exactly the same as the CQ27G2, with the only difference between the two AOC monitors being the refresh rate (144Hz on the CQ27G2 versus 180Hz on the CQ27G2X) and improvements to the color gamut on the CQ27G2X. Other than that, both of these monitors are essentially the same, especially when it comes to their physical design. It's plain to see that AOC was looking to spend most of the cost of the CQ27G2X on its components rather than the physical aesthetic of the monitor, as the QHD display is housed in a hard black plastic shell that features red accent lines on the back running inwards toward the center.

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The red accent lines are a theme of the monitor as they are also present running down the middle of the stand, which features a hole for cable management in its lower third. The feet of the stand are my least favorite design for gaming monitor feet as they require an unnecessary amount of desk space. The forked feet result in a buyer who doesn't have a lot of desk real estate running the chance of slamming their mouse into one of the feet. Luckily, the CQ27G2X wasn't a bad offender in this regard, but the issue didn't present itself zero times, either.

Moving to the front of the monitor. The front base plastic features a nice red trim, and the connectivity options are on the right side of the display. At the base of the monitor are five small buttons, each enabling a user quick access to their respective feature. The OSD button controls are quite small and may be difficult to locate at first, which leads me to suggest AOC increase their size for users who aren't familiar with OSD controls. The buttons from left to right: Display Input cycling, down arrow, up arrow, options, and power. I will discuss the OSD experience in the panel breakdown section of the review.

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The CQ27G2X is a curved monitor, but you wouldn't notice it at first glance or even after using it for an hour. The curve on the CQ27G2X is so subtle that it's arguably unnoticeable and not worth mentioning. However, for those who really don't like curved displays, you should know the CQ27G2X has a 1500R curvature.

Moving to back the of the monitor, AOC has stripped the CQ27G2X of any unnecessary connectivity options that would have increased the price of the monitor, as the CQ27G2X only comes equipped with two HDMI 2.0 ports, a single DisplayPort 1.2, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. There are no USB ports of any kind on the CQ27G2X, nor a USB-C port for PD charging. I would have liked to see a USB-C charging port on the CQ27G2X as it would have really provided gamers with a lot of value, considering the overall price.

Panel Breakdown

The CQ27G2X is a VA panel, which is now considered to be old-school panel technology that has been replaced by the adoption of IPS and OLED panels. While that is certainly true, it doesn't mean VA panels are completely obsolete, as they are still able to produce great image quality, awesome contrast, and accurate colors. The CQ27G2X panel is an example of that, as the panel provides particularly great color accuracy for its price.

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Throughout my testing I didn't encounter any problems with the display, it provided rich, accurate colors that were combined with an extremely smooth 180Hz refresh rate. The panel provides color coverage of 124% of sRGB, and black text on white background is perfectly clear, making the CQ27G2X viable for word processing tasks and light content creation.

The OSD options found on the CQ27G2X may need some work as I am not a fan of the paginated layout. Additionally, the OSD could be cleaned up in a way that makes the text easier to read. There is no reason to have difficult to read text within your display options.

Performance

As with all of my gaming monitor reviews I test the display under the microscope in a variety of different games to see where it best performs. The following titles were played on the CQ27G2X for various amounts of hours. Apex Legends, Overwatch 2, Cyberpunk 2077, God of War, Senua's Saga: Hellblade II, Age of Empires IV, DOOM Eternal, Elden Ring, and Red Dead Redemption 2.

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Throughout my testing, I didn't notice any screen tearing, image quality degradation, or ghosting. The CQ27G2X knocked it out of the park with every game that I tested on it. I particularly enjoyed the first-person-shooter titles as they enabled me to take advantage of that 180Hz refresh rate, and thanks to the 27-inch size, I was really able to lock in with full immersion. RPG titles still played very well, with colors and blacks looking particularly good in titles such as Cyberpunk 2077, Elden Ring, and Age of Empires IV.

Final Thoughts

As I mentioned at the beginning of the review there are so many different QHD variants on the market, and the one you should buy really comes down to a few things: how much are you willing to spend and what you are mostly going to be doing with the monitor. Do you flex between light work based operations such as word processing tasks, video/image editing, and gaming? Also what games to do you play?

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27-inch gaming monitors are a great middle ground as they are big enough for RPG games where you want as big of a screen as possible for full immersion and small enough that you can lock in with FPS titles. The CQ27G2X really hits the nail on the head in being a jack of all trades for a great price, providing fantastic color accuracy, buttery smooth refresh rates, responsiveness, and color depth that I believe would be good enough for light content creation.

If AOC's goal was to make a gaming monitor that is great at doing everything above average but isn't particularly fantastic at a few different things, all for a reasonable price of about $250 - they have achieved that as the CQ27G2X. For its price, it's difficult to find any downsides for the CQ27G2X; perhaps there could be cases made for the lack of connectivity options. But we are talking about a sub $250 QHD gaming monitor that comes with a 180Hz refresh rate and great image quality. What more can you ask for?