AOC B2 AG493UCX2 computer monitor 124.5 cm (49") 5120 x 1440 pixels Quad HD LED Black Red

Author: Karl

Rating: 4

Review: I was eyeing up the Samsung Odyssey G9 and G9 Neo, but as both were well over £1k and didn't offer half of the features this screen offered I went for the more value/money proposition of the AG493UXC2. A colleague of mine also has the previous gen AG493UCX and was happy with it. I must say, moving from a dual monitor setup to a large 49" display takes some getting used to, mainly due to having to keep things windowed instead of maximised on the screen. Thankfully PowerToys Fancy Zones is invaluable, but it still takes some getting used to. The screen is great, I haven't been able to get it to run at 165Hz, 120Hz seems to be my limit, might be hardware of my laptop, although it's a gaming laptop with an RTX2070, so you'd think that would be enough. Even tried a mini DP to DP cable, but still only topped out at 120Hz. Could be the cable I'm using isn't up to par to carry that kind of signal, not sure. As I'm not a gamer it's not much of a concern and I imagine 120Hz would be plenty (assuming I can actually run a game at 5120x1440 with that high frame rate on an RTX 2070). The KVM feature is great, as long as you're prepared to run one device on USB-C, and the other you need to use a USB-A to USB-B cable plugged into the USB upstream port, speaking of which, I didn't get that cable in the box, I did get European power, UK power, DP, HDMI and USB-C cables. I like the brightness of the screen, the colours seem accurate, and for me the DPI is perfect for running at 100% DPI at full res sitting 1m away. The cons of this monitor are mostly around the firmware and OSD of the monitor. Some things I have taken for granted on my old monitors just seem to be lacking on this monitor, such as: - When I shutdown my laptops and leave them plugged into the screen, the monitor doesn't go in to standby, it seems to go round a loop of switch off, then switch back on, try to find a live feed, says "no signal" then switches off, then it repeats this over and over. I have to physically put it into standby using the remote, just like I would a TV. - The Volume on the monitor goes from 0-100, but it doesn't seem to work like that, instead it feels like 0 is silent, 1 is 50% volume and then 1-100 is gradual increase from 50% to 100% volume. - Switching sources takes ages, so if your monitor is currently off and you previously had DP selected as your input (for example), you connect your running laptop/computer to the USB-C or one of the HDMI, then switch the monitor, it will try DP first as that was the last source selected, it was think about it for a bit, go to No signal, turn off, back on, then try another source. This can take close to 20 seconds to finally show you the screen. - If you want to manually select source on the remote, or using the monitor controls, if there is no signal currently on screen, then you can't get the source menu to display, or any of the monitor menu's. Advice is to make sure you leave the monitor in auto source selection, otherwise you could get stuck on a source and not be able to switch to another if there is no signal on that source as you can't display the menus to pick a new source. - The curve is good, but I wish it was slightly more aggressive. The curve is 1800R, which would be great if I sat 1.8m away from the screen, but in reality I sit 1m away, so in hindsight perhaps the more expensive Samsung's would've been better. Even at 1800R I find that any content at the edges of the screen start to become difficult to read and I feel I want to pull the monitor round more, but that could just be personal preference as I tend to work with screen split into 3 sections with the middle section being the widest at 1920x1440. This does mean, email and web browser are at the edges. It's a shame the screen isn't 5760x1440 as then I could have equivalent of 3 1920 wide monitors, instead the left and right areas are 1600x1440. I like this monitor, and when I bought it the price was suitably affordable at £799. I don't think I would pay any more for it knowing what I now know. The monitor would be 5 stars if they could sort out the rubbish firmware. I don't even think they offer firmware updates, so unfortunately I'm stuck with what I have, but at least most of it I can work around.

Author: Karl

Rating: 4

Review: I was eyeing up the Samsung Odyssey G9 and G9 Neo, but as both were well over £1k and didn't offer half of the features this screen offered I went for the more value/money proposition of the AG493UXC2. A colleague of mine also has the previous gen AG493UCX and was happy with it. I must say, moving from a dual monitor setup to a large 49" display takes some getting used to, mainly due to having to keep things windowed instead of maximised on the screen. Thankfully PowerToys Fancy Zones is invaluable, but it still takes some getting used to. The screen is great, I haven't been able to get it to run at 165Hz, 120Hz seems to be my limit, might be hardware of my laptop, although it's a gaming laptop with an RTX2070, so you'd think that would be enough. Even tried a mini DP to DP cable, but still only topped out at 120Hz. Could be the cable I'm using isn't up to par to carry that kind of signal, not sure. As I'm not a gamer it's not much of a concern and I imagine 120Hz would be plenty (assuming I can actually run a game at 5120x1440 with that high frame rate on an RTX 2070). The KVM feature is great, as long as you're prepared to run one device on USB-C, and the other you need to use a USB-A to USB-B cable plugged into the USB upstream port, speaking of which, I didn't get that cable in the box, I did get European power, UK power, DP, HDMI and USB-C cables. I like the brightness of the screen, the colours seem accurate, and for me the DPI is perfect for running at 100% DPI at full res sitting 1m away. The cons of this monitor are mostly around the firmware and OSD of the monitor. Some things I have taken for granted on my old monitors just seem to be lacking on this monitor, such as: - When I shutdown my laptops and leave them plugged into the screen, the monitor doesn't go in to standby, it seems to go round a loop of switch off, then switch back on, try to find a live feed, says "no signal" then switches off, then it repeats this over and over. I have to physically put it into standby using the remote, just like I would a TV. - The Volume on the monitor goes from 0-100, but it doesn't seem to work like that, instead it feels like 0 is silent, 1 is 50% volume and then 1-100 is gradual increase from 50% to 100% volume. - Switching sources takes ages, so if your monitor is currently off and you previously had DP selected as your input (for example), you connect your running laptop/computer to the USB-C or one of the HDMI, then switch the monitor, it will try DP first as that was the last source selected, it was think about it for a bit, go to No signal, turn off, back on, then try another source. This can take close to 20 seconds to finally show you the screen. - If you want to manually select source on the remote, or using the monitor controls, if there is no signal currently on screen, then you can't get the source menu to display, or any of the monitor menu's. Advice is to make sure you leave the monitor in auto source selection, otherwise you could get stuck on a source and not be able to switch to another if there is no signal on that source as you can't display the menus to pick a new source. - The curve is good, but I wish it was slightly more aggressive. The curve is 1800R, which would be great if I sat 1.8m away from the screen, but in reality I sit 1m away, so in hindsight perhaps the more expensive Samsung's would've been better. Even at 1800R I find that any content at the edges of the screen start to become difficult to read and I feel I want to pull the monitor round more, but that could just be personal preference as I tend to work with screen split into 3 sections with the middle section being the widest at 1920x1440. This does mean, email and web browser are at the edges. It's a shame the screen isn't 5760x1440 as then I could have equivalent of 3 1920 wide monitors, instead the left and right areas are 1600x1440. I like this monitor, and when I bought it the price was suitably affordable at £799. I don't think I would pay any more for it knowing what I now know. The monitor would be 5 stars if they could sort out the rubbish firmware. I don't even think they offer firmware updates, so unfortunately I'm stuck with what I have, but at least most of it I can work around.