AOC debuts new ‘Graphic Pro’ lineup of professional monitors

KitGuru is out in Valencia, Spain, where AOC and Philips have just unveiled a whole bunch of new monitors. For the gamers out there, we will have a separate article detailing the latest and greatest, but first we need to discuss the new Graphic Pro series, AOC's first foray into the professional market.

Artem Khomenko, Head of Product Management at Philips Monitors and AOC Europe, announced the new Graphic Pro family as part of a press event in Valencia. We've known AOC as a gaming-focused brand for years, but Graphic Pro marks the company's first pivot to the professional market, and that starts with three monitors that comprise the U3 series.

 

The largest of these is the U32U3CV, featuring a 32in 4K panel, while there's two 27in models – the 4K U27U3CV and the QHD Q27U3CV.  All three share the same design language, with an elegant stand and impressively thin bezels, resulting in a Red Dot Design Award already. Aside from the looks, there's also plenty of features designed to keep pro users happy.

These include more typical offerings, such as KVM functionality, 4-port USB hubs and up to 96W power delivery from a single USB-C cable, but also a range of more advanced features, such as Calman Ready certification. This allows the screens to interface directly with Portrait Display's Calman software – the same software we use in our monitor reviews – meaning owners of a Calman Studio or Ultimate license can benefit from hardware calibration. Without hardware calibration users are limited to using ICC profiles, but with it, 1D/3D LUTs are now on offer, something which AOC claims can improve ‘colour accuracy immensely'.

AOC has also reworked its OSD system, so from a visual perspective, it's a lot cleaner and more ‘pro-grade' than what we are used to seeing on an AOC Gaming display. On top of that, there's a range of colour space modes on offer, designed to give users the best performance whether they are working in the sRGB space, or DCI-P3, Adobe RGB and so on.

In terms of the panels, the 4K models – U32U3CV and U27U3CV – are using Nano-IPS technology, while the QHD Q27U3CV is just ‘regular' IPS. During the presentation it was mentioned that the Q27U3CV offered a quantum dot layer which the other two models lack, though this will need confirmation as there is no mention of QD technology in the specs or press release that I was later sent. It would certainly seem odd to me for the cheapest and lowest-resolution of the three to offer a QD layer (which usually results in much wider colour gamut) but not the more premium 4K screens. Regardless, the whole U3 range is claimed to offer a deltaE of less than 2, presumably when using the sRGB mode, as well as 98% DCI-P3 coverage.

All three also come DisplayHDR 400 certified, which I have to say is a shame as it doesn't enable any real usage of HDR, which is getting more and more prevalent these days. After all, if you're a pro user, there's a good chance you at least want to consume HDR content, let alone make it, which I am not sure will be overly feasible on these screens given this limitation.

As for pricing, it's no surprise that the lowest-res option is the cheapest, with the Q27U3CV set to retail for €349, the U27U3CV will set you back €469 and the flagship U32U3CV is listed at €589 MSRP. I don't have any GBP figures at the time of writing, but availability is slated for June 2024.

You can learn more about AOC's Graphic Pro monitors, including full tech specs, HERE.

Discuss on our Facebook page HERE.

KitGuru says: Thanks to AOC and Philips for getting us over to their press event in Valencia, and stay tuned for plenty more gaming monitor coverage from the day!

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