The AGON PRO PD49 is an aesthetically pleasing addition to the list of best gaming ultrawides.
- Manufacturer: AGON by AOC
- Model: AGON Pro PD49
- SKU: PD49
- Display Type: 49” QD OLED Gaming Monitor
- Resolution: DQHD 5120*1440p (32:9 Dual 1440p)
- Refresh rate: 240 Hz
- Price when reviewed: £1,199.99 at Scan UK (or £1,950 from Porsche!)
- Supplied by: AOC
AGON PRO PD49 Review
Overview
The AGON PRO PD49 is the newest Porsche Design collaboration and, true to form, this QD-OLED behemoth not only looks great but takes image quality to the next level. I’ve reviewed the PD27 and PD32M and been hands-on with most of the AOC AGON and Porsche Design collaborations, and it’s safe to say I’ve been suitably impressed. AOC has used these luxury collaborations to showcase their latest and greatest panel technology with great effect; Stunning styling is complemented by class-leading performance.
This gargantuan 49” display is equivalent to having two 27” 1440p panels alongside each other. An 1800R curve pulls the edges of the display towards you, creating a sweeping and immersive display. With native 10-bit colour and support for a wide array of gamuts, this is the first gaming display I’ve tested to support the D50 white point for the AdobeRGB and DCI-P3 colourspaces. Bolstered by a solid factory calibration this is already a great monitor for content creation and editing, however, if you calibrate the PD49 you can get picture accuracy approaching studio monitor levels.
A quirk to be aware of is that the gamma curve in the PD49’s native colourspace is S-shaped rather than linear. This gives it incredible contrast, but when viewing sRGB content, this crushes and obscures details in dark scenes and can blow out highlights. Switching the PD49 to the sRGB gamut rectifies this, but you lose a lot of saturation. I calibrated the native gamut to a gamma of 2.2 and it corrected the gamma curve perfectly, so I got superb contrast and rich colours without losing detail. I’d highly recommend picking up a colourimeter like the Spyder X if you want to experience the gorgeous expanded colour gamut across all of your content unimpeded. (This doesn’t affect HDR, as Windows, which uses Rec. 2020, loads a different display profile. The PD49 automatically switches to Rec. 2020 colourspace, so you don’t have to compromise and can still get an amazing image regardless of the content.)
Even if you don’t adjust the gamma this is a phenomenal-looking display. The gamut coverage and volume are up there with the highest we’ve ever measured, and everything I’ve watched and played looks fantastic. I’ve been using it with Nvidia’s RTX video enhancement, and it’s staggering how much more enjoyable it can make your content.
It’s not just pretty to look at. The PD49 has serious gaming prowess thanks to the lightning-fast responsiveness of the QD-OLED panel. Although serious competitive gamers generally lean towards 16:9 displays to minimise head/eye movement, if you want to pop a few heads the PD49 won’t let you down. Input latency is minimal and there is no visible ghosting.
In single-player games, the expansive peripheral view is amazing for heightening immersion, but I found that when playing more serious online matches it wasn’t always better. Being able to scour a wider area did help identify threats faster, with much better situational awareness, but the bigger movements and physical head turns to look around meant it took longer to recentre myself and lock onto my target. The more I played the less impact it had on my performance, though, so I imagine if you were using this monitor regularly you’d easily adapt.
I’m more into my single-player games anyway, though, and I played a wide range of games on the PD49, including the surprisingly addictive Dungeons of Hinterburg. It looked stunning on the expansive 49” display. Finding secret chests was a breeze as I spotted them in my periphery without having to turn, and the vibrant art style popped thanks to the huge gamut coverage and epic contrast. When it comes to cinematic games with epic vistas, the PD49 comes into its own. It’s easy to become nonchalant about the jaw-dropping scenery in games, but the PD49 opens your games up into breathtaking panoramas and I absolutely love it.
Racing games are also super immersive on this display. I tested F1 23 and loved having the full cockpit and mirrors in view, as well as gaining a genuine advantage by being able to see further into corners whilst racing. F1 23 isn’t the best-optimised game for 32:9, though, with significant stretching towards the edges (see picture). That being said, it enhances the feeling of speed, and if you don’t have space for a triple-screen racing setup, this is definitely the next best thing.
Whilst all of the games that I tested managed to fill the entire display, there are a few kinks that need to be ironed out by developers. Some games place your UI at the edge of the screen, and it’s not always adapted for ultrawides. Managing inventory when it’s spread out so far across the screen can also be awkward (PUBG is a nightmare when you’re trying to loot quickly), some games have cutscenes that are rendered in 16:9, which can be jarring, and as in the case of F1, the skewed image isn’t perfect. Mods and/or .ini file tweaks can often be used to make adjustments, though. It’s a step up from plug-and-play consoles, but that’s why we love our PCs, right?
The huge screen can feel slightly wasted when you’re watching movies or TV shows, though, as you’ll get large black bars on either side of the video. It’s even worse when the content is created in 21:9 with baked-in black bars above and below the video, as it shrinks the video down to a tiny letterbox in the centre of the display. You can get browser extensions to correct this, but I don’t trust extensions from unknown devs. I’d like to see built-in support to zoom into the screen and compensate for this, but it’s a relatively niche requirement so I can understand it not being a consideration.
Monitor Image credit: Linus Tech Tips
For productivity, the PD49 naturally gives you loads of space to have multiple windows open and ample space for your workflow. I also connected two inputs to my GPU and ran the PD49 in PBP (Picture by Picture) mode, which lets you fullscreen apps, games or videos across half of the display and use it in place of a dual monitor setup. You can’t use HDR with PBP, which is a shame, as the DisplayHDR TrueBlack 400 is sublime, especially with Nvidia’s auto-HDR implementation, but that’s a minor inconvenience.
I had a couple of issues early in my testing, where I couldn’t get PBP to work properly (it was letterboxing each side of the display at weird resolutions), and DP over USB-C was limited to 3840×1080 @ 60 Hz. Everything in the settings seemed to be correct and I tried a few different cables. In the end, simply dipping into the menus and resetting the monitor solved the problems. I would note that this display had previously been with another reviewer who had made adjustments, so it’s possible I overlooked something they had changed – If you’re buying this monitor new then this likely won’t affect you, but it’s good to know it can be easily resolved.
The PD models always attract a price premium. With an MSRP of £1,950 when purchasing from the Porsche shop, this is an expensive display, however, numerous retailers have it listed for a more reasonable £1,199.99 – still not cheap, but it’s certainly justifiable. For creators, it’s worth this alone in comparison to studio monitors, which cost from the same to much, much more. For gamers, this is a stylish, more professional-looking alternative to gaming monitors like the beautiful but bold Evnia 49M2C8900 (an incredible alternative that we highly recommend).
Before we delve into the display analysis, a quick word on an understandable concern – OLED burn-in/image retention. OLED tech has evolved significantly in recent years, and thanks to features like pixel shift, static image dimming and the use of pixel refresh, you are far less likely to suffer the ill effects of prolonged use. That doesn’t mean it can’t happen, though. If you play the same game for thousands of hours and over prolonged periods, it’s certainly a risk. In this case, I’d highly recommend responding to the on-screen prompts and performing the pixel refresh every four hours, or at the end of each session at a minimum.
Design and build
Porsche Design understood the assignment; This is a very stylish monitor, providing a harmonious blend of form and function. If you find regular gaming monitors a bit extra, then the luxurious, more mature aesthetic of the PD49 should be right up your alley.
The vertical slats at the rear continue the design language brought forth by the aluminium stand, which descends towards the base before swooping outwards to form the robust tripod base holding this enormous display rock steady. Understandably, this stand takes up a lot of space on your desk, but despite the protrusion, the wide spacing between the legs minimises the impact the PD49 has on your gaming surface. The screen extends out further than most monitors, though, especially towards the edges where the 1800R curve swings the sides of the display out and domineers a huge amount of your desk.
You can tilt the display -3/+15 degrees, swivel +/- 20 degrees, and adjust the height by 130 mm. This is more common in larger displays nowadays, but still commendable. The height and tilt adjustment is the most significant, as it enables you to (with some mild contortion) cram your head underneath and save blindly searching for the right port when plugging in your cables.
The panel is very slim, flanking a substantial PCB/input housing. As such, the typical joystick location at the rear-right would be almost impossible to reach, so the centralised control, on the underside right in the middle of the panel, is a godsend. There’s no remote included with the PD49, which is disappointing, as I loved the chrome-ringed Porsche centre console-inspired remote of the PD32M.
There’s a bit of RGB included, but it’s concealed in the PD and AGON logos at the rear, so depending on your setup you’re not likely to see and appreciate it. Still, is it even a gaming monitor if it doesn’t have RGB these days?
Connectivity and Supported Resolutions
The AGON PD49 has an outstanding selection of ports: 2x HDMI 2.1, 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 PD49 supports the following optimum resolutions:
HDMI 2.1: 5120*1440 @ 240 Hz
DisplayPort 1.4: 5120*1440 @ 240 Hz
DP over USB-C: 5120*1440 @ 240 Hz
Console: 2560*1440 @ 120 Hz – Letterboxed or PbP
I love that the full refresh rate is available regardless of connection type, meaning no compromises have to be made. The PD49 is Freesync Premium certified and also supports G-Sync, with an adaptive sync window that spans 48-240 Hz via FreeSync and G-Sync, across all inputs. Consoles can also be connected, running at 1440p/120 Hz, albeit within a split-screen or letterboxed view.
The integrated USB hub is a given these days, but it’s always appreciated, especially when the KVM switching is effective. If you’re using USB-C, 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 designed to keep a gaming laptop running, though. If you’re doing work and just need to maintain a charge on your laptop, this works exactly as intended, keeping my relatively power-hungry work laptop at a constant battery level.
PIP and PBP are supported, and the PBP scaling was perfect after I reset the monitor (as mentioned earlier). I apologise, as I neglected to test the PIP mode, as I spent so much time using PBP which is incredibly useful if you’re used to running dual displays.
Display Analysis
Simply stunning. The PD49 provides options above and beyond pretty much any other gaming monitor. It supports numerous colour gamuts within settings – Display-P3, DCI-P3/(D50), AdobeRGB/(D50), NTSC, Rec. 2020/709, and sRGB colourspaces – and brightness can be adjusted in all of these modes. This is a content creator’s dream.
The PD49 has the largest sRGB gamut coverage by volume that we’ve ever tested, maximising sRGB, DCI-P3 and AdobeRGB. This gives this monitor an astounding range of hues, from the subtlest pastels to the most vibrant neons, all rendered in magnificently saturated colours.
At 300 cd/m², the brightness is low by normal LED standards, but OLEDs always seem brighter because of the true blacks of their individually lit pixels. The semi-glossy screen, with its effective anti-glare coating, does a good job of minimising reflections. However, as we often find with curved screens, direct lighting falling on the screen from lamps or windows can create a distracting vertical stripe of diffused light across the screen, so some consideration of the location of your lighting is required.
While making my preliminary adjustments before calibration, I only needed to adjust the red to 48. As I mentioned previously, in sRGB mode the gamma curve was perfect, and colour accuracy was excellent, but you lose that stunning vibrancy when clamped to sRGB. I prefer the native gamut setting, but unfortunately, you encounter black crush and blown-out highlights, along with (still good) but less accurate colour. That said, if you have access to a calibration tool, it goes from alright to amazing in a matter of minutes.
Panel response
The QD OLED panel in the PD49 is lightning-fast. GtG transitions can be measured in single-digit milliseconds or lower. As such, you don’t get overdrive settings, as it simply doesn’t need it. Running the BlurBusters suite of tests, the performance is flawless, even when you crank the test speed to the max. No ghosting, no blur, no problem! It’s as expected for a premium OLED, to be honest, but it will always be impressive to me.
Brightness, contrast and colour
Using the native settings at 100% brightness, we measured a peak of 305 cd/m², which is what we’d expect of an OLED panel. It’s more than enough for my needs, and the perceived brightness is far greater because of the inky blacks and lack of light bleed that can wash out dark scenes on LED panels.
Our darkroom test results show the contrast peaking at over 240,000:1, but that’s a tricky one to quantify. It should more accurately be described as infinite contrast, but I’m throwing this out there for context – a premium IPS panel scores around 1500:1, and VA panels can reach around 4000:1. Displays with local dimming can come closer, but even with over 2000 dimming zones they generally reach around 30-40,000:1, and that comes with haloing around pixels. Haloing that’s non-existent on the PD49 with 7,372,800 individually lit pixels.
The default warm temperature preset had a 6300K white point, which is close enough to the ideal 6500K if you don’t have calibration equipment. Colour accuracy was good in the PD49’s default guise, too, with a DeltaE of 1.05 in sRGB. However, when we calibrated the PD49, the accuracy improved to a DeltaE of just 0.15, further reinforcing this monitor’s suitability for colour-critical work.
Image: colour accuracy – native colour gamut / post calibration
The gamma with the default setting (Gamma 1) and using the native gamut fluctuated significantly on either side of the 2.2 curve (darker in appearance from 0-50%, slightly higher from 50-100%). Setting the PD49 to sRGB mode was bang on, but at the expense of losing a lot of saturation. Calibrated, however, this is a stunning display – I feel like I’m saying this a lot, but get a colourimeter and calibrate this display if you want to extract every ounce of performance!
Image: measured display gamma – native colour gamut / post calibration
Gamut coverage and HDR
Colour saturation and gamut coverage are phenomenal. This monitor has almost full coverage of the DCI-P3 and AdobeRGB colourspaces, with a volume that can produce colours in excess of all of them. HDR colours are immense, but it also benefits sRGB content, with a vibrancy that has to be seen to be believed.
The panel in the PD49 has native 10-bit colour depth, allowing it to display up to 1.07 billion shades of colour. Gamut coverage* is among the best we’ve tested, equalling the performance of the outstanding Evnia 49M2C8900.
- sRGB 100% coverage – 175.8% volume
- AdobeRGB 97.8% coverage – 121.1% volume
- DCI-P3 98.1% coverage – 124.5% 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.
The AGON PD49 is a brilliant HDR display. This is a DisplayHDR True Black 400 certified panel; to achieve TB400 certification a display must be able to create a pitch-black image (down to 0.0005 cd/m²), and the brightness response must also be insanely fast – as we saw in our GtG tets, this is one of the PD49’s strong suits.
I’ve been using the PD49 in HDR all the time, thanks to the excellent Nvidia RTX Video Enhancement HDR. It simply makes everything you see look so much better, as well as bumping up the average peak brightness across larger swathes of screen to over 400 cd/m². Combine this with the deep blacks and you’ve got a panel with a wow factor that regular LED can’t come close to.
Viewing angles and uniformity
For such a big monitor, the consistency across the full screen is exemplary, 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 (even if you’ll want to be dead centre, because of the curve). Make no mistake, this is a massively impressive achievement even on a smaller display, never mind a 49″ DQHD monitor.
Sound quality
For the price, I expected better from the PD49’s modest 8Wx2 stereo speaker arrangement. The sound is overly sharp and lacking in bass. You get good width due to the spacing of the speakers, and the volume goes pretty high without major distortion, but it’s not pleasant to listen to. For light gaming or TV shows it works well enough, I suppose, but for audio on a grander scale that demands presence and depth of sound, it’s severely lacking.
Summary
The AOC AGON PD49 is everything we expect of these Porsche Design collaborations. Porsche’s asking price of £1,950 is a tough pill to swallow, especially in the face of stiff competition, but at the more reasonable price of £1,199 that is showing up, it becomes an easy recommendation. The HDR performance is outstanding, it’s one of the most vibrant displays we’ve tested so far, and for content creators, it’s a highly desirable alternative to a studio monitor thanks to the huge gamut coverage and support for all the major colourspaces. I wish the native gamut gamma was closer to the 2.2 curve, as it wouldn’t require additional calibration – you can switch to sRGB mode and have accurate gamma, but you lose so much saturation.
We’re gamers, though, and the PD49 barely puts a foot wrong. It’s super-responsive and the expansive screen is amazing for displaying jaw-dropping panoramas. It takes some getting used to playing in a 32:9 format, but once you’re used to double-wide displays it’s hard to go back.
Another Porsche Design collab, and another winner in my book!
