AMAZING 240Hz GAMING MONITOR – AOC 24G2ZU Review
|You’ve probably heard of AOC’s best selling 24G2U monitor by now, and you’ll know why it’s so damn popular, offering not only a stunning 144Hz IPS panel, but at an insanely low price tag. But what if 144Hz just isn’t enough for you? What if you care more about speed and less about colours? Well, this will be perfect for you. This is the AOC 24G2ZU, and it’s an IPS 240Hz monster that frankly is incredible, and a decent value too. Let me show you around.
If you were hoping for a 24” 240Hz IPS panel like we’ve started seeing with the larger 27” 1440p displays like the Aorus FI27Q-X (review in the cards), I’m happy to say it is! It’s stunning, lightning fast and while it’s not the best IPS panel I’ve seen, for a gaming monitor it’s perfectly fine.
The ZU ticks all the right boxes, with overdrive set to ‘Strong’ it’s lightning fast and while there is the absolute slightest hint of ghosting that you might catch if you’ve got a 1000FPS camera lying around, in games it’s pretty flawless. Input lag is also a strong suit with my time sleuth reporting just 1.2ms of latency over HDMI, and the NVIDIA LDAT tool reporting an average of just 24ms of total system or click to photon latency while playing CSGO, which matches the Asus PG259QNR which is a 360Hz monster. Just make sure the low latency mode is enabled, because without it the latency goes from 1.2ms to over 16ms… Yeah, not great.
All those results translate into a fantastic gaming experience. It’s smooth and responsive, and thanks to the panel being so fast it’s remarkably easy to find and click on heads in game. As with most 240Hz gaming monitors I can’t say that the higher refresh rate truly made my experience significantly better, but what I do know is I had a brilliant time playing on it and on the whole I was just a little bit more accurate and confident in my shots. I’m no esports pro – I think that’s abundantly clear – but if even I can feel confident playing on this, imagine what someone with some actual talent could do!
You do also have adaptive sync support to keep things tear free, and a selection of other ‘gamer’ settings in the menu you can fiddle with to your liking. Specifically with the overdrive settings, I found very little overshoot even on strong so I would be setting it to that and leaving it there personally.
If you want to do something other than exclusively game on it though, I wouldn’t say it’s a bad shout. Sure, the TN panel isn’t as colour accurate as a nice IPS panel, my SpyderX reported 100% coverage of the sRGB spectrum, and around 75% of both AdobeRGB and DCI P3 which is certainly plenty for the average gamer and at a push a bit of gameplay editing.
Content consumption on it is fine too, the viewing angles are actually pretty decent and reasonably bright with a peak of 350 nits, and a good anti-glare coating if you are in a brighter environment.
Styling wise AOC are sticking with the red accents, both on the bottom chinbar at the front and across the back although aren’t putting any distracting LEDs back there so that’s a plus. The stand’s footprint is fairly large, although it’s nice and stable and offers the full range of adjustments from tilt, swivel, height and rotation to put it in portrait mode too. I/O wise you’ve got two HDMI ports and on DisplayPort, plus a 4 port USB 3 hub with the yellow one being a charging port.
So, all this must come at a hefty price tag right? Well, not really. This ZU model is currently listed for £270, although it is out of stock, or you can buy what should be a slightly cheaper model without the adjustable stand or USB hub, the ZE model, for a little less. For a 240Hz monitor, and a crazy fast one like this, that’s a rather good price. I can’t say I’d be picking one up myself, but if you are after a lightning fast gaming monitor for esports gaming I am happy to give this a strong recommendation.