not extremely dark) are actually indistinct from black and essentially blend into black. The contrast we recorded did fall slightly short of the claimed ‘3000:1’, at ~2500:1 or ~2200:1 following the adjustments made to our ‘Test Settings’.
The images below show pursuit photographs taken using the UFO Motion Test for ghosting, with the test running at its default speed of 960 pixels per second. Gamma tracking was quite good (although not perfect), but perhaps of more important note was the colour gamut of this monitor. As far as colour accuracy goes this is again limiting and is not something that a colorimeter could compensate for.
It is a wide gamut model that doesn’t offer reliable emulation of the Adobe RGB colour space, as it falls short in some regions and over-extends in others. This is the standard subpixel layout and is the one ‘expected’ by operating systems such as Microsoft Windows and Apple’s MacOS. Exactly the same process that is applied when any other resolution is displayed, regardless of how neatly it should divide into the native 3840 x 2160.
There were some beautifully solid yellows and blues, for example. Even screens with a native Adobe RGB gamut don’t always render it correctly. The blue block appeared deep blue throughout. It’s fair to say that most of the faster transitions on this monitor are a bit slower but some of the slowest transitions similar in speed to some of the best all-round VA performers.
Any setting not mentioned below was left at default. There are also some (high-contrast) transitions which give more extended trailing. The ‘strong’ setting ramped this up considerably, providing very obvious and very eye-catching inverse ghosting. The main focus of the screen, the central area, showed pretty much full saturation potential though. Colour gamut
Input lag was assessed for the U3277PWQU using a sensitive camera and a tool called SMTT 2.0. The skin tones of characters and various objects within the film are supposed to look quite muted in places, but this monitor didn’t really give them a very ‘pastel’ feel at all. Which was the first such screen? For those who wish to use the Adobe RGB colour space, which will be those who require accurate representation for photography or print-proofing and suchlike, the 91% coverage may be slightly limiting. And perceived gamma changes were also in effect due to the panel type, as we explore later. For our ‘Test Settings we set ‘Color Temp’ to ‘User’ and made various adjustments to the colour channels, to improve the white point and get rid of the cool tint. Perceived blur (pursuit photography) Is it a dwal breaker for a power user?
AOC pitches the U3277PWQU as a premium 4K display, one that sports an AMVA panel (rather than an IPS one).
There 100 x 100mm VESA holes centrally, to which the included stand mounts. As before, the top map shows the results under our ‘Test Settings’ and the second using the ‘Uniformity’ setting. Using this method, we calculated. Luminance uniformity table 'Test Settings' The AOC U3277PWQU monitor offers impressive connectivity and ergonomic options. The deviation between each quadrant and the 6500K (D65) daylight white has been assigned a DeltaE value, where a DeltaE <3 represents non-significant deviation that most users wouldn’t readily notice by eye. Competition at this price is almost non-existent – you won't find a more affordable 4K monitor of this size. Decent pixel responsiveness overall without overshoot, quite good considering the panel type. The ‘Overdrive’ setting did not affect the transitions where a white background was used, hence why it was only shown for ‘Off’. Although this depends on preferred viewing distance and eyesight.
The exception there is the ‘Uniformity’ setting, a uniformity compensation setting that we explore later on in the review. The colour gamut of the U3277PWQU (red triangle) was compared with the sRGB colour space (green triangle) and the Adobe RGB colour space (purple triangle) using our ‘Test Settings’. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases made using the below link. The blue-coloured port is USB 3.0, the yellow-coloured port is USB 3.0 with fast-charging and the black-coloured ports are USB 2.0. To reiterate some key points, we find the pixel density of 139.87 PPI (Pixels Per Inch) to be something of a sweet spot.
8+FRC. This meant that some shades appeared slightly lighter than they should – but this was hardly noticeable given the heavy saturation imposed by the colour gamut. Gamma tracking was quite good (although not perfect), but perhaps of more important note was the colour gamut of this monitor. Rather than a non-functional UC mode and a useless sRGB emulation mode, we would much prefer to have seen something functional and useful like a Low Blue Light (LBL) setting. Generally, games will not have textures or particle effects which universally take full advantage of the resolution (that would be graphically very taxing), but there are usually some stand-out textures that look really appealing. Note that the object runs across the screen from left to right. The red block appeared a rich red centrally and near the top, but a pink hue near the bottom and side edges of the screen. As noted in the BenQ review linked to in the previous paragraph, this excellent pixel density works really nicely for gaming. The results here indicate a moderate viewing angle dependency to the gamma curve of the monitor, fairly typical for a VA panel. Tom's Hardware is part of Future US Inc, an international media group and leading digital publisher. Again, the monitor is represented by the red triangle and the sRGB colour space by the green triangle. The AOC U3277PWQU VA panel monitor offers a quick response time of 4ms with gray to gray pixel transition. They’re both built to generate 100% of the sRGB color gamut range, though the U3277PWQU panel also claims to cover 95% of NTSC, the American TV standard. So whilst this model does have some weaknesses in pixel responsiveness, it really isn’t bad as far as VA models goes and is actually one of the better models out there in that respect. The bold marker-pen type outline remained to a large extent, however. This provides a 241 cd/m² luminance adjustment range with a good range of useful values. You can see here that the colour space is restricted massively using this emulation mode. This is a factory-tuned uniformity compensation setting which is designed to enhance uniformity at the expense of contrast (as supported by our previous findings). This makes use of the full native gamut of the monitor, which as you can see is rather wide. The desert sands showcased a good palette of browns, but they tended towards a redder hue than was intended. It has a smaller 27-inch sibling, the U2777PQWU, which costs marginally less, making the bigger model the better value-for-money option. The 32” screen size at 3840 x 2160 provides a practically identical experience to this 31.5” 3840 x 2160 screen. This was again not ‘smoke-like’ as it would appear on some VA models, but it did stand out compared to the other transitions which were faster. Although ‘high contrast transitions’ were actually somewhat faster than on most VA models, there were some weaknesses here similar to what was shown earlier with the UFO Motion Test analysis. Viewing angles
Moreover, it has full ergonomic support and extensive connectivity. The bold marker-pen type outline remained to a large extent, however. Thanks to digital cinema and Ultra HD Blu-ray, larger color gamuts are slowly and steadily taking their place in the landscape. The slight grain of the screen surface masked this a bit as well. Dirt Rally was also displayed with pleasing contrast overall. The use of a VA panel helped compliment this experience, with strong contrast that helped bring out extra definition and maintain a superior atmosphere in dark scenes compared to competing models with other panel types.
The bright blues and reds of lightsabers were particularly striking, more so due to the strong contrast of the monitor and the fact they were often shown in darker surroundings. What is also interesting is that results with the dark cyan background, which usually show even more pronounced trailing on VA panels, were very similar to the medium cyan backgrounds Hence they weren’t included in this comparison. The red hue on some brown shades was also evident, making some of the dusty khaki colours look slightly Martian in appearance. Here you can see more extensive trailing behind the red UFO body, although it’s still reasonably faint in this instance. The loss of detail (‘black crush’) in the centre of the screen was also more pronounced than it could have been. As far as this test goes, the monitor has really done surprisingly well for a VA panel – but it’s important to consider a broader range of pixel transitions both in terms of shades used and speeds of transition. To reiterate some key points, we find the pixel density of 139.87 PPI (Pixels Per Inch) to be something of a sweet spot. Using the ‘Weak’ setting introduced a bit of overshoot (inverse ghosting) which is visible as a dirty trail behind the UFO body and an inverted ‘halo’ trail behind the red body. The middle row of the test (medium cyan background) was used primarily, with one additional photograph taken with a white background.
Darker shades on this contour map indicate higher deviation from 6500K than lighter shades. Rather than some transitions being noticeably fast and some noticeably slow, the vast majority of transitions were reasonably fast. We also reduced the brightness significantly. The level of detail in darker areas was largely as it should be, although there was a degree of ‘black crush’ towards the central area of the screen. Still, we much prefer manual control of the backlight brightness and feel that dimming or brightening the entire screen based on average image brightness is a compromise at best. While it meets those numbers properly, there is no adjustment capability. This pink hue shifted alongside head movement. Colour in games and movies
Under our ‘Test Settings’, the luminance uniformity was variable, quite poor overall. You might be looking to run the monitor at a lower resolution, for example 1920 x 1080 (Full HD), either to make a game much less demanding graphically or because you are forced to do so when using a games console. There were some very lush and eye-catching deep greens, in the forested regions for example. Whilst a lighter screen surface could have been preferable in terms of vibrancy preservation as well, that really isn’t something this model needed any help with. The monitor attained such strong saturation before the final block, that the last 4-6 blocks simply blended into a heavily saturated mass. Although subjective, the native gamut of the monitor is likely to be more appealing for that than the sRGB emulation mode. Where there were dark objects (such as a dark-painted vehicle) against a lighter background (such as bright sky) there was a slightly extended trail. There is also an ‘sRGB’ emulation mode of this monitor, which is shown in the diagram below.