AOC Agon Pro AGP277QKDC Review

Design

• Angular design
• Convenient construction and stand adjustment
• Far-reaching port selection

AOC hasn’t moved the needle much with the Agon Pro AGP277QKDC’s looks and design against a lot of its other recent screens under the same banner. It’s a striking finish, that’s for sure, with an angular, flat stand that can be quite polarising, plus slim bezels around the 27-inch screen for a more modern touch.

This screen fits together without any need for tools, with the stand clipping into the rear of the screen, and the base screwing in from the underside. It’s easy to get this high-refresh-rate behemoth set up in a matter of minutes.

Stand adjustment is decent, too, with good scope for tilt, swivel and height adjustment. This AOC screen can also move into a portrait orientation with little effort if you need it to, plus it has a handy headphones hanger that pops out of the side.

When it comes to ports, this AOC is rather rich. You get a pair of HDMI 2.1 ports and a single DP 2.1 for display connectivity, and a solid USB hub, with a USB-B upstream port that breaks into three USB-As, plus a headphone jack.

You also get a high-power USB-C port with up to 65W of power delivery that supports DP Alt mode, plus there is support for more advanced features such as a built-in KVM switch, Picture in Picture and Picture by Picture modes.

Image Quality

• Immense motion handling
• Sublime contrast, black level and colour accuracy
• Solid, if unremarkable, brightness

AOC has opted for a tried-and-tested resolution and screen-size combo to pair with the zanily high refresh rate on offer, going for a 27-inch 1440p, or 2560×1440, resolution option. This section of the market is quite crowded as it is, and it is possible to get some great options in this space quite affordably, not least other OLED choices such as AOC’s own Agon Pro AG276QZD that wowed us previously. 

The big thing with the Agon Pro AGP277QKDC though is that 540Hz refresh rate. Normally, these OLED screens can come with 240Hz refresh rate options, and they’re already silky smooth and responsive as it is. I use a 240Hz screen every day as it is – the Philips Evnia 32M2N8900 – but I must admit that the difference between 240Hz and 540Hz was more noticeable than I thought.

It’s the same feeling I got when using Samsung’s Odyssey OLED G6 G60SF, with a refresh rate that’s almost too smooth for my own abilities. Oh, and if that’s not enough, this is a dual-mode monitor, so you can bump the refresh rate all the way up to 720Hz if you’re willing to sacrifice resolution down to 720p.

A lot of this is down to the way that refresh rate works. A 540Hz screen means 540frames are displayed per second, working out to a frame time of just 1.85 milliseconds. For reference, a 144Hz screen has 6.9ms of frame time, while a 240Hz screen has 4.1ms. I am simplifying things a little, but with such a low frame time, the input latency on-screen is severely reduced, meaning the time between a mouse movement or key actuation and it appearing on-screen is much faster.

Of course, the perceivable difference in input latency is subjective to who is using the panel, but in my estimation, the Agon Pro AGP277QKDC is easily one of the most responsive monitors I’ve used. The jump from 240Hz to 500Hz is certainly noticeable to a somewhat trained eye, although if you already have a 360Hz monitor, for instance, then you may feel less of a benefit. Indeed, you also need a PC capable of running those competitive titles at such high frame rates to benefit the most.

Combine this with a crisp and sharp tandem OLED screen, which we’ve seen become more common on laptops in recent years with the likes of the Asus ProArt P16 (4K Lumina Pro OLED) to yield increased brightness at a reduced power consumption, and you’ve got a stellar viewing experience as it is.

For reference, my colorimeter measured the Agon Pro AGP277QKDC as having the signature inky blacks and excellent contrast we’d expect from an OLED, with results of 0.01 and 7390:1 – all told, that means you’ve got a genuinely sublime 1440p gaming screen.

Being a 27-inch 1440p screen means it hits the sweet spot for resolution and screen size, and with high-end hardware in the right games, it’s pleasant to get close to the top end of the refresh rate.

This is especially the case in fast-paced eSports titles, such as my usual proving grounds of Counter-Strike 2, where this AOC screen felt immensely responsive due to that fantastic motion clarity and smoothness, plus in Dirt Rally 2.0 and Assetto Corsa when I wanted to give a bit of sim racing a go. The 1440p resolution means it’s going to get more out of beefier hardware than 4K, which is still especially hard to drive.

Moreover, its colour accuracy is excellent, with perfect 100% coverage of the sRGB gamut alongside 99% DCI-P3 and 91% Adobe RGB. This helps this AOC screen to be especially well-suited to both productivity and increasingly specialist workloads, such as photo or video editing, if you want to engage in that sort of thing across a more compact panel.

VRR support is plentiful, with the Agon Pro AGP277QKDC supporting AMD FreeSync Premium Pro and is also Nvidia G-Sync-compatible. This means that whatever GPU you’re using, you won’t experience any screen tearing or juddering for a smooth experience. HDR support comes with VESA DisplayHDR True Black 500, as opposed to the more advanced Dolby Vision found on rival screens.

As is typical with OLEDs, the only area where this screen isn’t as vibrant is with its peak SDR brightness against Mini LED and some high-end IPS options. My colorimeter measured a peak of 305.4 nits of brightness, which is right in line with AOC’s claimed 335-nit peak. As for HDR brightness, AOC says it can go as high as 1500 nits in supported content in a 1.5% window for impactful highlights.

Software and Features

• Feature-rich OSD
• Meagre speakers

The Agon Pro AGP277QKDC has a feature-rich OSD that’s easy to navigate and control with the joystick on the rear of the screen. Here you can fiddle with everything from the ambient RGB lighting on the rear of the panel to brightness, contrast, input selection and more. There are also two buttons that are preset for bringing up the input selection menu and enabling this monitor’s dual mode powers.

Delving further into the OSD reveals settings for the monitor’s genre-specific game modes, plus settings for picture in picture and picture by picture. You can also deal with any pixel shift, refresh and other OLED care settings to keep the W-OLED panel in tip-top condition.

AOC bundles a pair of 5W speakers with the Agon Pro AGP277QKDC, although they are standard fare for a monitor, carrying mostly mids at a fair old volume. For the competitive gaming use that this screen is designed for, you’re certainly better off with one of the best gaming headsets.

Should you buy it?