The cost upgrading to a 4K monitor continues to fall thanks to releases like these two new displays from AOC. Designed primarily for home and office use, U27B3A and U27B3AF boast strong specs at surprisingly affordable prices.
While AOC is releasing two monitors as part of its new B3 series, there’s only major difference between them. U27B3AF arrives with a height-adjustable stand, allowing 110mm of travel. Meanwhile, UB27B3A forgoes any adjustability in exchange for a lower price. That said, both support from -5° to +20° tilt, and most importantly, a 100x100mm VESA mount.
In terms of performance, neither naturally break any records given their price. However, their value appears high, making for potentially excellent choices for office and casual users. Both sport a 27in IPS panel, with a native resolution of 3,840×2,160 and 60Hz refresh rate. At this size, you’re getting 163 pixels per inch (PPI), making for crisp visuals. While this spec naturally makes for crisp visuals across all sorts of content, it will particularly aid any text-heavy workloads.
As with any respectable office display, we also find Flicker-Free WLED backlights alongside an antiglare treatment. This is complemented by a typical 1,000:1 contrast ratio, 350nits of brightness, and a 4ms grey-to-grey (GtG) response time. Lastly, though less important on productivity-oriented models, we have support for Adaptive Sync too.
There’s a decent port selection to be had, including two HDMI 2.0 inputs and a single DisplayPort 1.4. Each monitor comes with a set of 2W speakers, but a 3.5mm headphone out is thankfully available too. Sadly, AOC hasn’t included a KVM switch or picture-in-picture/picture-by-picture modes. However, these seem like smart trade-offs given their price.
U27B3AF arrives with an asking price of £199.99 and arrives June 2024. Similarly, U27B3A will arrive simultaneously albeit with a slightly lower cost of £189.99. This makes some of the cheapest around, potentially making them a proper bargain.