The AGON PRO AG456UCZD is an outstanding gaming display and watching movies on it is God tier, but it’s not the jack of all trades you may require.
- Manufacturer: AGON by AOC
- Model: AGON PRO AG456UCZD
- Display Type: 45” W-OLED Gaming Monitor
- Resolution: UWQHD 3440*1440p (21:9 1440p)
- Refresh rate: 240 Hz
- Price when reviewed: from £1,049-£1,075 at numerous retailers
- Supplied by: AOC
AGON PRO AG456UCZD Review
Overview
It always helps to have a unique selling point when you unveil a new monitor, and for the AG456UCZD, its USP is big. Very, very big. With a 44.5” diagonal measurement, this gargantuan display is the equivalent of a 36” 16:9 monitor stretched out into an ultrawide layout, and it’s every bit as impressive as that sounds. Make no mistake, this thing eats up your desk space, but oh my God, it is worth it.
I’ve been using this monitor for over a month, and I’m utterly in love with it. I usually use dual 32” UHD monitors, so it’s safe to say I’m a fan of a larger display, but this kicks it up another level. The gamma curve is skewed towards a bright mid-range and the onboard settings only got close on each side of the preferred 2.2 curve, but this is a minor discrepancy that most won’t notice; I had to switch to Gamma 3, as the default gamma had slightly too much emphasis on a brighter mid-range.
This is picking faults because I have to, though, and forgivable, as the AG456UCZD does everything else so damn well. Lightning-fast response, almost non-existent motion blur and ultra-low latency make this a gamer’s dream. It’s also the best at-desk movie-watching monitor I’ve ever tested – I’ve had a couple of 42” monitors and even some 55” beasts in for testing, but they’re just on the wrong side of too big when you tip your chair back into chillax mode, as they tower above you. The 45” AG456UCZD, however, maintains a sensible centre point so you aren’t staring up at it, which makes it a much more comfortable viewing experience, and it fills your field of view. If I owned this monitor outright, I’d definitely invest in either a monitor arm, replacement stand or a deeper desk, as it protrudes out a long way and it can be hard to sit an optimal distance away.
Coming from a 49” OLED before this, I really appreciate that you still get the wrap-around effect from the epic 800R curve, but the additional height of this monitor makes it much more practical. It’s not just the form factor, though. The AG456UCZD has stunning colour and works exceptionally well in HDR, which bumps the average brightness up to around 400 cd/m², with <10% highlights of 575 cd/m², and small area (<3% screen) peaks of 1000 cd/m². This is a big jump from 295 cd/m² where SDR maxes out and makes for an impressive HDR effect.
One of the biggest complaints surrounding OLED is the lower brightness compared to LED displays, but when you can have brightness this high, that’s no longer a concern. The only downside is the lack of brightness control when using HDR, so it’s all or nothing. However, unless you are working on documents, which can be glaringly white (in which case you’d probably be better off in SDR mode anyway), you will likely want that boosted brightness. Most games and media aren’t super bright, so the perfect blacks of OLEDs give a greater perceived contrast level and make for an engrossing, dynamic and utterly immersive experience, especially when it’s dominating your view.
I’ve been playing a lot of Diablo IV recently, and the AG456UCZD is exactly what the doctor ordered. I may not have been pushing the full 240 Hz, but G-sync kept everything ticking along beautifully at about 100 fps with HDR and full ray tracing, and it looks sublime. The AG456UCZD retains all the gloriously macabre detail in the dark and dingy dungeons, whilst still displaying incredible super-bright effects as you cast your abilities. It’s the kind of thing a photo can’t capture, as this is all happening blur-free and jaw-droppingly huge right before your eyes; Essential when your Necro’s army of summoned minions is laying waste to the hordes of undead around you.
I’ve also watched a tonne of movies and TV shows on the AG456UCZD, and the experience is equally impressive. Native 21:9 movies look astoundingly good, but unlike the 49” displays I’ve recently reviewed, the black bars surrounding 16:9 content aren’t nearly as distracting. In the case of 16:9 content, you’re essentially watching on a 36” display, which is more than good enough for me! Throw in a bit of Nvidia RTX auto-HDR and upscaling, and even basic streamed content looks cinematic, rich and vibrant.
A final consideration is that for monitors of this size, 1440p can feel a bit limiting, especially if the screen is close to you. AOC lists the pixel density as 93.2 ppi, but by my calculations, this equals 83.8 ppi (pixels per inch), which is equivalent to a 27” 1080p display for context. I had no issues when gaming, but it can make text look less sharp and reading isn’t as comfortable as I’m used to. There’s also the huge curve to contend with. Again, it’s awesome for games and movies but not optimal for creative work. If you need your monitor for productivity as much as entertainment there are certainly better options; the AG456UCZD is a hyper-focussed gaming juggernaut, so make sure this plays a part in your buying decision.
Speaking of buying, how much should you expect to pay for this ginormous lump of gaming greatness? Well, it’s not cheap, per se, but it’s available from £1,049, and that’s a whole lot of monitor for the price, both figuratively and literally. This is a fully-featured flagship monitor, and it stacks up very nicely alongside the competition.
NOTE: Currently on sale at Amazon for £778.99, making this a no-brainer must-buy if you like what you see! (We do not earn money from items purchased from links, we just want you to get the best deals possible!)
Design and build
In terms of aesthetics, the AG456UCZD uses a similar design language to the AG276QZD. Business as usual at the front (aside from the extra width), this is a smart-looking monitor, with a subtle AGON logo in the middle of the bottom bezel, with a power indicator light below that slightly protrudes, as it also houses the IR receiver for the included remote. The bezels are evenly sized all around and suitably small. No complaints here.
At the rear, the AG456UCZD has a substantial component housing, that extends further than most due to a large cooling vent. I quite like the asymmetric pentagon design, especially with the RGB lighting that surrounds it. The RGB is brighter than previous AGON Light FX monitors I’ve reviewed, and it manages to produce a very subtle bias light behind the display, but don’t expect Evnia levels of ambience. The mixture of semi-gloss, matte textures, and contrasting blacks and greys gives the AG456UCZD an appealing look – it’s just a shame you’ll probably only ever see it when you first take it out of the box.
The stand is, as you’d expect, pretty damn big. I like that instead of being a tripod, it sits flush with your desk, which allows me to perch my keyboard on it to save some space. It could pose a problem if you’re using a smaller desk and make large movements with your mouse, though. The majority of the stand, bar a few accent pieces, is made of metal, so this is on the cusp of being a two-person job moving it into place depending on how strong you are. It’s very sturdy, though, and does a solid job of holding this weighty display steady.
You can tilt the display -3/+13 degrees, swivel +/- 15 degrees, and adjust the height by 100 mm. This is slightly less than some other larger displays I’ve tested but it should be sufficient to get it into the right zone for most users. If you’ve read my other reviews, you’ll know I like to use the full height and tilt to enable me to see where the ports are when plugging cables in, and I’m happy to report it’s still possible with this monitor – especially useful as the ports on this monitor are angled. A special mention goes to the USB-A inputs, which are on the left side of the rear housing and very easy to see and access. The downside is they are trickier to cable-manage, but I managed to loop them back up and over into the cable-management clip on the rear of the stand.
Connectivity and Supported Resolutions
The AGON AG456UCZD has a good selection of ports, though the inclusion of HDMI 2.0 rather than 2.1 feels like an unnecessary cost saving, especially as it restricts you to 100 Hz at full resolution: 2x HDMI 2.0, DisplayPort 1.4 and DP over USB-C (DP alt mode, upstream, up to 90W power delivery) inputs handle display connections for PCs, laptops and consoles, along with a 3.5mm audio out and a four-port USB 3.2 Gen1 hub which has 4 downstream USB-A ports, providing KVM support for users of multiple systems.
The AGON AG456UCZD supports the following optimum resolutions:
- HDMI 2.0: 3440*1440 @ 100 Hz
- DisplayPort 1.4: 3440*1440 @ 240 Hz
- DP over USB-C: 3440*1440 @ 240 Hz
- Console: 2560*1440 @ 120 Hz – Letterboxed
PC gamers and those with DP over USB-C laptop owners are well catered to, but if you rely on HDMI you may not be as happy with the restricted refresh rate. The AG456UCZD is Freesync Premium certified and also supports G-Sync, with an adaptive sync window that spans 48-240 Hz via DP and USB-C, 48-100 Hz via HDMI 2.0 (ultrawide), or 48-120 Hz on consoles – both methods of adaptive sync worked as intended.
In my testing, I had to enter the monitor’s settings and change the display scaling each time I switched to my Xbox Series X, which is slightly inconvenient, but manageable. Unfortunately, as soon as you switch to HDR, the image is stretched out to full screen and you can’t access the setting to change the ratio. In short, yes, you can use this display for both PC and consoles, but it’s not ideally adapted for all platforms and I’d suggest possibly seeking an alternative if you spend a lot of time console gaming, too. (As a final test I plugged in an Xbox One X, but the image ratio adjustment was greyed out, rendering it unusable.)
The AG456UCZD has an integrated USB hub providing KVM functionality. If you’re using USB-C with a laptop, you can charge your device at up to 90 W in SDR modes, but the power delivery is lowered at higher brightness levels, reduced again if you are drawing power to your USB devices, and lowered further or even paused when HDR is enabled. This is not sufficient to keep a gaming laptop running at full tilt, but if you’re doing work and just need to maintain a charge on your laptop, this works as it should, and should keep a relatively power-hungry work laptop at a constant battery level.
Display quality
I’ve tested a lot of OLED monitors now and have yet to find a bad one. The tech is perfect for gamers, with the insanely fast panel response, incredible colour and unreal contrast. It combines everything great from TN, IPS, FALS and VA panels, and amplifies it to the next level. The gamma settings sit on either side of the ideal 2.2, but this is finding faults for the sake of it. There’s also the lower pixel density to contend with, but this was only apparent when reading walls of text up close. Sat at a reasonable distance this is a beautifully sharp display, even coming from the 2160p monitors I usually use.
Panel response
The W-OLED panel in the AG456UCZD represents everything good about OLED monitors. Near instantaneous pixel response, super-fast grey-to-grey transitions and low latency give games a snappy and responsive feel, whilst keeping fast-moving objects and scenes crisp and clear. If you’ve never tried OLED you’re in for a treat, and obviously, IYKYK.
I ran all of my usual suite of blur tests and found nothing untoward to report back. Upwards of 180 Hz blur is non-existent, and even dropping down to 60-100 Hz is still far smoother than even the best LCD displays can manage. OLED panels are so similar and consistent that I’d need to invest in some serious hardware to tell the difference; at that point, it’s purely semantics as they are already as good as my eyes can detect. Seriously, you need OLED in your life.
Brightness, contrast and colour
Using the out-of-the-box settings (default is 90% brightness), I measured a peak of 182.8 cd/m². Pushing it up to 100% saw a huge rise up to 285.6 cd/m². This brightness is consistent with current OLED tech, and suitable for most rooms, but you can always switch to HDR for some added oomph (up to 575 cd/m² to be precise). Although the inconsistent way the AG456UCZD ramps up the brightness is unusual, it’s consistent with all of the other AOC OLEDs I’ve used which follow a similar curve. This lack of increments at higher levels could make it trickier to dial into a specific brightness, but this isn’t the kind of monitor you’d use for the work that requires accurate studio matching of displays anyway.
OLED’s self-illuminating pixels can completely switch off, which effectively gives these displays infinite contrast (reported as such by DisplayCal). Everything looks better with perfect blacks and subtle dark tones that aren’t washed out by the backlight passing through.
The default warm temperature preset had a 5900K white point, which is warmer than the ideal 6500K. The normal preset was much closer, and looked closer to pure white on my test.
Out-of-the-box colour accuracy was excellent on the AG456UCZD, with a DeltaE of 0.79 (maximum 2.13). Anything less than 2.0 is considered imperceptible to the naked eye, so the AG456UCZD falls well within that range and is suitable for colour-critical work. As always, I calibrated the display, and the accuracy improved to a DeltaE of just 0.37; there was a subtle yet noticeable difference to my eye, but post-calibration this would now be considered suitable for light colour grading and content creation.
The gamma with the default setting (Gamma 1) is too high, making everything look almost washed out and grey-tinged. I found Gamma 3 to be the closest to the 2.2 curve, giving much better image quality and consistency. As the picture below shows, it does meander along the line with a lightening of tone at around the 25% brightness mark. This results in slightly more brightness in darker scenes, but not distractingly so (and actually quite helpful on Diablo IV), and you still get the true blacks at the lowest range. The calibrated results were much closer to the target, though there was a slight movement off the curve.
Gamut coverage and HDR
Colour saturation and gamut coverage are excellent. This monitor has very high coverage of the DCI-P3 and high coverage of the AdobeRGB colourspaces, with impressive but not excessive volume. HDR colours are wonderfully saturated and vivid, and SDR images also benefit from the unclamped native gamut, benefitting all of your content. For those who don’t want too much colour or want to experience sRGB content the way it was intended, the sRGB display setting clamps the gamut effectively, though it goes too far, restricting the AG456UCZD to 92% of the sRGB gamut, which gave me flashbacks to the undersaturated look of cheap 2015 monitors. It also greys out all of the luminance and colour settings (like gamma and colour temp), so even though brightness can still be adjusted, if you prefer regular sRGB there are better monitors that will suit your needs.
The panel in the AG456UCZD has native 10-bit colour depth, allowing it to display up to 1.07 billion shades of colour.
- sRGB 100% coverage – 149.7% volume
- AdobeRGB 88.3% coverage – 103.1% volume
- DCI-P3 96.0% coverage – 106.0% volume
*Coverage refers to how much of the specified area of the gamut is covered, whilst volume includes any colour that extends beyond the defined gamut.
This is an outstanding HDR display. The AGON AG456UCZD is a DisplayHDR True Black 400 certified panel, and for roughly 90% of my time using this panel, I’ve been in HDR mode, including all of my regular desktop work. You get a much higher peak brightness of 575 cd/m² on SDR content, with peaks of 1000 in proper HDR content. It’s made all the more brilliant with Nvidia RTX Video Enhancement HDR, too, bringing the HDR wow factor to all of your content. I’ve tested 1600-nit FALD displays and, while the highlights are impressive, the haloing around small light sources is distracting. You get none of that here, just inky blacks with pinpricks of exceptionally bright pixels gleaming pristinely on the display. If you love HDR, you’ll love this monitor.
There are several HDR modes to try out, but DisplayHDR is the best, no contest. All of the other presets oversaturate colours or negatively affect the balance of brightness, whilst DisplayHDR looks natural and displays deeply detailed dark scenes and dazzling highlights.
Viewing angles and uniformity
For such a big monitor, the consistency across the full screen is very good, with only minor variations in colour accuracy and luminance uniformity. The off-angle performance is also outstanding, with the image retaining contrast, saturation and accuracy from the most extreme of angles (though you’ll need to be dead centre, because of the curve). The extreme curve also makes this monitor less ideal if you share your display with other viewers. Anyone too far off-centre will get a highly compromised view.
Sound quality
The speakers in the AG456UCZD are better than most, producing a warm sound with ample volume to fill a room without distortion. The 2x 8W stereo speakers lack a bit of bass punch, which is to be expected, but I was pleasantly surprised by the quality. It may not be good enough to replace my regular bookshelf bangers, but it makes for a decent stop-gap until you can upgrade or for those moments when you don’t want your headphones on.
Summary
OLED monitors are undoubtedly the kings of gaming, and the AG456UCZD is a perfect example of why. It does everything not just well, but brilliantly. The AGON AG456UCZD has a small amount of competition from rivals but manages to undercut all of them on price without sacrificing quality. Brand allegiances aside, there’s no reason to choose one of the others over this display, aside from maybe the Xeneon Flex and its bendable screen, but you can expect to pay another £200+ for the privilege.
I’ve tested a few smaller OLEDs in various form factors and sizes, but this 44.5” behemoth is perfect for me. Yes, she’s a big girl, but the advantages outweigh almost any negative I can think of. If you need a flat screen for editing purposes or increased resolution so you can cram more data on your screen then I’d recommend looking elsewhere, but if your primary desire is to be entertained by the best games, blockbuster movies and TV shows, this monitor is, dare I say it, almost perfect. Falling into the aforementioned camp of needing more resolution for productivity, I’d still hold out for a 2160p variant of this monitor, but if I absolutely had to get a new monitor right now, this would be the one.
Finally, the lack of HDMI 2.1 is slightly disappointing, as is the incompatibility with consoles due to screen ratio adjustment not always working as intended. This could be a dealbreaker depending on your needs, so it’s important to highlight. Aside from this, the AG456UCZD could be just the giant screen monitor you’ve been waiting for.
