Asus’ ROG Swift OLED PG42UQ is a heavy and large 42-inch OLED screen in 16: 9 aspect ratio. That is, it is huge compared to other screens we have tested, where 32 inches is considered large. But there’s also a 48-inch, if you plan on sitting a little further away than a typical desktop setup. Console users who play from the sofa or their gaming chair may soon want the 48-inch. But for normal computer use, 42 inches is actually quite substantial.
The panel is a WOLED type from LG Display, where the large W stands for White. This is the same type of panel that we find in most OLED TVs and offers fantastic picture quality for TV and movie content. We have also had great gaming experiences with such TVs, so it is high time that dedicated gaming monitors are equipped with this technology.
WOLED with RGB-OLED
In short, white sub pixels are used here, which are divided into red, green and blue through a color filter. A fourth white subpixel can only be white, to recover some of the light lost through the color filter. The advantage is perfect black, because each pixel is its light.
Black OLED screen for gaming
The Alienware AW3423DW is the first gaming monitor with QD-OLED. What could be better than perfect black level? A good deal, it turns out.
WOLED technology is also much cheaper than RGB-OLED, where each subpixel also has its own color and therefore does not need a color filter. The filter steals some brightness and color reproduction is not up to par with RGB-OLED. But compared to LCD panels, WOLED provides spectacular images.
Asus also has an RGB-OLED screen in the range, it’s called PA32DC and is a 32-inch monitor from the ProArt series, for video and image processing and other creative uses. It also costs 2.5 times more than the gaming screen at hand, just to put things in perspective.
Limited desk stand
Mounted on the supplied table stand, the screen can be tilted slightly up or down, but it is not possible to adjust the height or rotate it. You can also just forget to turn it upright. For more flexibility, you need to purchase a new holder. Unfortunately, the space between the fixing screws is larger than most monitor stands (VESA 300 × 300) support, it’s worth knowing if you’re buying a new stand.
Knotty USB HUB
The display can function as a USB HUB, with four USB connectors of the faster version 3.2. I like monitors with extra connections, but the problem is poor accessibility. They sit at the back, all but one. It is located on the underside in the front and as the screen cannot be raised, this is also difficult to access.
The menu lever at the bottom of the logo at the front is also not a joy spreading device, but luckily it comes with a remote control.
Flicker-free image
The PG42UQ’s screen frequency can be overclocked to 138Hz, or simply choose 120Hz from the video card. There are faster gaming monitors out there, but the experience is that this is enough for a flicker-free image with smooth movements.
The screen supports G-Sync for a flicker-free image with variable frequency. It also has HDR, for an extra touch in high light conditions and a large color space. The OLED has a slightly limited brightness compared to the LCD, but around 450 nits (cd / m2) is still quite on par with most monitors. According to Asus, it reaches up to 900 nits in tiny areas of the screen at a time, when viewing HDR content.
Fantastic gaming experience
While there are gaming monitors with higher frame rates, 120-138Hz is enough to provide a smooth feel when panning in first-person games such as Infinite halo or driving a racing car Strength Horizon 5.
Colors are exemplary in the sRGB picture mode, pre-calibrated with great precision for a gaming monitor (1.43 Delta E in color space and 2.23 on grayscale). The relatively high deviation on grayscale is worse in darker shadow areas, where color deviations don’t seem to matter much anyway, so this screen can be used for image processing.
The picture really pops up, with perfect black levels! Colors, contrast, everything fits! And the matte surface resists dust and smudges to a greater extent than the glossy OLED screens we’re used to from the TV world. Here you get much less glare from the room than if the screen was blank.
The PG42UQ is not yet our first choice for office work, as the WOLED pixel structure means text doesn’t feel completely sharp, plus the problem that light dims with static and bright backgrounds over time. If you sit and work with word processing, or read a lot on websites with a white, static background, the screen will gradually get darker and darker. The solution is to switch to other content and then go back. In any case, it is not optimal.
The screen performs best if you select “uniform brightness” in the screen menu, as it keeps the same brightness when you change the size of the white windows. Then the brightness across the screen also drops to around 100 nits, which is not good for gaming, but which is much more comfortable on the eyes when reading and writing, and which can also be recommended for marathon games.
Conclusion
The Asus ROG Swift OLED PG42UQ is an OLED screen with perfect black level, bright colors and a very smooth image motion reader, making it an exceptionally good gaming screen. 42 inches is also an almost perfect screen size for desktop gaming. Here you can sit close to the screen and fill the field of view, but still without having to turn your head to see what’s happening on the screen at all times.
It has some flaws, among other things the text is not as sharp as on LCD screens. At the same time, the light dims as you write or read text against a static white background, so it’s not entirely optimal for text work. But the colors are accurate enough that you can use it for image processing.
But it’s for gaming that this monitor really thrives, and this is clearly the best gaming monitor we’ve tested so far!
