AOC CQ32G4E Monitor Review - 1440p, 180Hz Gaming at 32-inches for $429 AUD

TweakTown's Rating: 89%

The Bottom Line

For its price, the CQ32G4E is one of the most versatile gaming monitors with a 32-inch panel size, 1440p resolution at a 180Hz, beating the likes of other similar options on the market.

Pros

• Price
• In-game performance
• Color capability

Cons

• Oversized feet (protrudes 7cm)
• No swivel
• No USB hub
• Requires some tuning

Should you buy it?

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Introduction & Specification Details and Close-up

AOC's CQ32G4E combines size, barebone specifications, and in-game performance but has a matching price sticker.

Coming in at $429, AOC has really stripped back all of the extra features many gaming monitors come with these days, only leaving the necessary components to create a gaming monitor aimed at competitive gamers or gamers that care about as little motion blur as possible, buttery smooth frames, and a crisp image. This VA panel comes with the following specifications: a 2560 x 1440p (QHD) resolution, 180Hz refresh rate, and a 0.5ms (MRPT) response time / 1ms (GtG) response time.

AOC has dropped other noteworthy gaming monitor features, such as a USB hub, stand ergonomics, and speakers, to reduce cost, bringing the CQ32G4E down to a competitive $429 AUD or $294 USD at the time of writing. Competing gaming monitors in this size, refresh rate, and resolution are priced at around $410 AUD, but the CQ32G4E beats them with its refresh rate of 180Hz, compared to the 165Hz on other offerings. It's clear at first glance that AOC's CQ32G4E is aimed at a competitive gamer, particularly one that requires clarity when in fast-motion games.

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Specifications

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Close-up

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Design

AOC has made some pretty extreme concessions when it comes to the physical design of the CQ32G4E, as the gaming monitor is simply as bland as it gets with it taking on the typical "gaming monitor" aesthetic with its hard black plastic shell and simple, clear AOC branding. The black plastic shell is strong and sturdy in the hand, leading me to conclude there aren't any obvious points of failure through design flaws or manufacturing faults.

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Moving to the bottom of the CQ32G4E, users will find five buttons and a power LED indicator. The buttons are nice and clicky, providing a satisfying feeling upon a press. However, the five-button layout isn't something I can get behind when multidirectional joysticks exist. AOC would have been better off placing a multidirectional joystick either next to the LED power indicator or directly underneath the AOC logo located in the center.

The back of the display features simple AOC branding on the right side of the VESA support shroud, which can be removed by simply placing a fingernail or, in my case, a flathead screwdriver in the tiny slit. AOC should have definitely made this slit bigger or rethought the design entirely as access to this region of the monitor wasn't plainly obvious and could have been made much easier. Keeping to the back of the display, AOC has outfitted the CQ32G4E with 2x HDMI 2.0 ports, 1x DisplayPort 1.4, and a 3.5mm headphone jack. It's good to see AOC equip the CQ32G4E with HDMI ports, as it means console gamers can take advantage of the size, refresh rate, and resolution of the gaming monitor.

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Moving to the stand, which is easily the worst thing about the CQ32G4E, and I don't say such things lightly. AOC made some extremely poor decisions with the design of this stand, and it, unfortunately, means the end consumer could suffer depending on their setup. The CQ32G4E's stand doesn't offer any height or swivel adjustments, only forward and back tilting. To add a poisonous cherry on top, the feet of the stand protrudes 7cm outward from the base of the monitor, meaning gamers that play on low sensitivity and have long slides on the mouse pad for better-aiming purposes run the chance of colliding their mouse with the right-hand foot of the stand. Users with limited desk space will particularly be prone to this problem.

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Luckily, the CQ32G4E comes with VESA mounting support, so I was able to solve this problem entirely by attaching it to one of my monitor arms. However, buyers should be aware of this problem with the CQ32G4E and any other gaming monitor that uses forked feet for a stand. It's clear that AOC made some major concessions with the physical design of the CQ32G4E, saving the cost of manufacturing for the performance.

Panel Breakdown

Typically, VA panels aren't fantastic for viewing angles (better than TN), but surprisingly, the CQ32G4E was better than anticipated, meaning it would be a fine option for viewing media content with more than one person or even some local multiplayer gaming. Additionally, with a VA panel, you get a high contrast ratio, which determines how well a display can showcase its blacks. A low contrast ratio means blacks will look grey.

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These color capabilities definitely apply to gaming, and throughout my testing, I found the CQ32G4E did require some tuning straight out of the box. Despite AOC's decision to go with a five-button layout for its OSD options, I do like the simplicity of the settings themselves. Every option only feels like a few button presses away, which is great for easy navigation throughout the settings. Throughout my time testing the CQ32G4E, I found the Standard mode to produce the best picture overall for my personal taste. Additionally, I increased the brightness up to 90.

The CQ32G4E does come with HDR support, but unfortunately, it produced a worse image than SDR, resulting in me just turning it off and attempting to balance the settings to the best of my ability. It should be noted that there isn't a wrong way to balance OSD settings; simply juggle settings around until the image you see on the screen reaches a point where you can't make it look better. Each user will likely have different settings based on their environment, and some require more juggling than others. The CQ32G4E took me approximately five minutes to tweak; after that, image clarity and colors were extremely impressive for the price.

The CQ32G4E is marketed with 0.5ms MPRT response time, which for those that don't know stands for Moving Picture Response Time. MPRT is a technology specifically designed to reduce motion and is a measurement of how long a pixel is visible for. That number is limited by the refresh cycle and frametime, with the higher the MPRT number the longer a frame is visible.

During my time with the CQ32G4E I didn't notice any motion blur throughout my in-game testing, and would be comfortable recommending the CQ32G4E for competitive fast-paced games such as Apex Legends, Overwatch 2, and Counter Strike 2.

Performance

As with all of my gaming monitor reviews, I like to test the monitor I have under the spotlight in a variety of titles to see where it best performs. From here, I can identify the type of gamer that would get the most out of the highlighted monitor. I ran theCQ32G4E through the following titles over the course of a few weeks: Apex Legends, Overwatch 2, Age of Mythology: Retold, God of War, Red Dead Redemption 2, Cyberpunk 2077, Age of Empires IV, DOOM Eternal, and Black Myth: Wukong.

In all of the games that I tested on the CQ32G4E, I found none of them displayed any noticeable motion blur, choppy frames, ghosting, or overshooting.

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However, I was testing these games on the "Standard" response time mode, and after boosting it to the "Fastest" mode, I noticed some overshoot appeared. I should state that I don't believe this would be noticeable by anyone who wasn't looking for it, but with that being said, I would still recommend buyers of the CQ32G4E to set their response time to "Standard" for overall better picture quality.

With my NVIDIA RTX 4090, I was able to easily achieve the maximum the CQ32G4E could provide, 1440p at 180Hz, and I can say that across 32 inches, the experience was more than adequate in every game that I played. I believe the 32-inch size at a minimum of 1440p is the perfect size gaming monitor for a gamer that plays a wide variety of titles, as 32-inch is big enough for an immersive RPG title while also being small enough to get wrapped up in an FPS title.

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In a nutshell, 32-inch 1440p gaming monitors with a refresh rate of above 120Hz are what I'd consider the beginning of entering the sweet spot for gaming, and current prices mean gamers can do it without breaking the bank. The CQ32G4E has more than achieved that with its 180Hz refresh rate and the experience it provided me in each of the aforementioned titles. I can confidently say CQ32G4E's $429 price tag is proportionate to its gaming performance.

Final Thoughts

So, should you buy AOC'sCQ32G4E? That depends on your situation and what you are looking for in a gaming monitor.

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A gamer who should consider the CQ32G4E as a possible solution to their gaming setup won't be looking at spending lots of money on a gaming monitor but wants to be at 1440p with a high refresh rate. This gamer would presumably be focussed on competitive titles such as first-person-shooters that can take full advantage of the refresh rate headroom and response time technology, but also occasionally flexes into other slower titles such as RPGs where the full 32-inches can showcase graphically impressive environments and characters.

Ultimately, the CQ32G4E is a jack-of-all-trades master of none gaming monitor, as its size, color capabilities, refresh rate, and response time spread across its 32 inches make it a well-rounded gaming monitor that can tackle almost anything you can throw at it. Unfortunately, with all these great specifications there are the design concessions mentioned earlier, but if these aren't a problem and you are just after great performance at a reasonable price, you have now found yourself AOC's CQ32G4E.