AOC Agon Pro AG456UCZD Review

The AOC Agon Pro AG456UCZD joins the ranks of OLED gaming monitors as one of its bigger challengers. It has a lot in common with a gargantuan Corsair Xeneon Flex 45WQHD240, albeit without the signature bendable panel of that model. What you get is a 45-inch, OLED ultrawide gaming monitor for $1,399. This might have sounded like a steal a couple years ago, but the OLED gaming monitor market is sizzling right now. So while the AG456UCZD’s detractors aren’t huge, it has to brace itself from some unimpeachably excellent alternatives, even if they’re not all fighting on the exact same footing.

AOC Agon Pro AG456UCZD – Design and Features

The AOC Agon Pro AG456UCZD is a true desk-domineering monitor. With its 45-inch panel, it stretches 39 inches wide and curves tightly forward. On a 48-inch-wide desk, it leaves little space for computer speakers on either side, though it includes speakers of its own. The stand is perhaps an even bigger issue. Shaped like a giant metal boomerang, the stand’s base sticks out a full foot. Setting the AOC Agon Pro AG456UCZD up straight forward, this would see the stand cut right into the mousing area of my two-foot-deep desk, and thus required rotating the stand to an odd angle. The monitor includes a VESA mounting accessory should you want to go that route, though its heft could present issues with many mounts.

From the stand on up, the AOC Agon Pro AG456UCZD shares many design similarities with the AOC Agon Pro AG276QZD I recently tested. The stand features a useful range of adjustments, including a surprising few degrees of rotation. It would have been a plus to see cable routing through the stand, but at least AOC includes a small cable hook on the back of the stand to help keep things tidy. It also built a headphone hanger into the stand, but the size of the display prevents it from being terribly useful.

The thin display panel shows off its looks by not including a large plastic backing on much of its rear. Instead, all of the extra electronics are housed in a smaller section on the back. This area features an angular design and RGB lighting that adds a bit of style but is still rather tame.

Since the main electronics are limited to the center of the rear, the joystick control for the monitor is only really accessible from under the display, and it’s even a little hard to find there. To make up for this, AOC includes a remote control. This provides convenient access to all the features and menus of the monitor, including quick control for volume and brightness.

The AOC Agon Pro AG456UCZD upgrades the USB offerings of its smaller sibling. It includes four USB-A ports on the left side, making them much easier to access than bottom or rear ports in many cases. Those ports can link to a system connected over USB-B or USB-C with a built-in KVM that can automatically toggle between hosts. That USB-C port is also great for laptop users, as it supports DisplayPort 1.4 and 90-watt power delivery.

A pair of HDMI ports will work with consoles or streaming devices, though they are limited to a 100Hz refresh rate at the monitor’s 3440×1440 resolution. To get the full 240Hz refresh rate at 3440×1440, you’ll want to use the full-size DisplayPort connection or USB-C.

Big Monitor, Big Desk

See more in our guide to the Best Gaming Desks.

Since this monitor is already taking up plenty of space on its own, it’s great to see that AOC has built the power supply into the unit. That wasn’t the case for AOC’s smaller OLED, which required an external power brick.

AOC Agon Pro AG456UCZD – Testing

While all of the recent OLED gaming monitors will share the commendable quality of having effectively infinite contrast, there is still plenty that sets them apart. Some of the differences are obvious, though plenty are subtle enough that only concrete measurements can suss them out. To that end, I’ve tested the AOC Agon Pro AG456UCZD with a SpyderX Elite colorimeter using the monitor’s default settings as well as a number of different adjustments to see how they improve, alter, or worsen the quality of the visuals.

Most OLED monitors deliver impressive color, and that’s the case for the AOC Agon Pro AG456UCZD as well. By default, it achieves 100% coverage of sRGB, 92% of AdobeRGB, and 96% of DCI-P3 color spaces. That said, the color isn’t terribly accurate. In fact, it’s a bit of a mess. Many colors see a deviation from the intended target, with a max dE of 13.76 and an average of 3.74. In other words, most of this inaccuracy will be perceptible. If you’re not creating content or a demanding media aficionado, it may not be a big deal.

At default, the contrast measures at infinite, with pitch black pixels alongside an SDR peak brightness of 268.5 nits. The monitor defaults to 90% brightness, though, which sees a max brightness reach around 190.4 nits. Since the monitor also defaults to a Warm color temperature setting, I also check brightness without this, and the default brightness rose to a comfortable 203.1 nits. With the anti-glare coating on the display, this is a reasonable level for office use as long as strong light sources aren’t hitting the screen. Sunlight will easily overwhelm it.

HDR performance is commendable, though. The monitor was able to reach 794 nits when displaying a 10% window, and on a monitor this big, that’s a large area. For the full screen, brightness is capped much lower, reaching only 154 nits. This was in the HDR Native mode, which shines brightest. Other HDR modes sat closer to 630-640 nits.

AOC Agon Pro AG456UCZD – Gaming and Performance

The AOC Agon Pro AG456UCZD is not an excellent all-around display, but it has a lot of love for gamers. The 45-inch panel that’s such a wonder for immersing yourself into games and movies alike could have been a boon for productivity as well. It certainly has the space for some major multi-tasking, and I’ve used a 34-inch ultrawide for work extensively to great success. But the 3440×1440 resolution is simply stretched too far at this level, resulting in softer detail. It also requires a lot more looking around, since things on one side of the screen are physically further from things on the other.

This monitor also suffers from the fringing seen on many of the early OLED gaming monitors from 2022 and early 2023. This issue can see thin lines of the wrong color appear on the edges of other pixels where two colors meet, such as the faint red and green lines that will appear on the sides of a yellow object displayed on a white background. Here in mid-2024, plenty of other OLED monitors have updated panels with different subpixels layouts that don’t suffer from this same fringing. Because the Agon Pro AG456UCZD’s pixels are especially stretched out, the fringing can’t hide underneath sheer pixel density either. Instead, it’s only further highlighted by the low pixel density.

Thankfully, these issues all but vanish in games. The fringing is much harder to spot in games and movies, and even the low pixel density hides itself well in the faster action of a game. While I worked, I noticed these issues, but when I sank in hour after hour in Helldivers 2, the display’s merits stood out more. The rich color and contrast brought Terminid and Automaton worlds to life, and the 240Hz refresh rate kept Overwatch 2 running super smooth. The display also benefits from the near-instant pixel response time of OLED to avoid ghosting, so that 240Hz goes even further in gameplay. All of these aspects pair with the extreme size of the display, which quite effectively wraps up my field of vision when sitting at arm’s length.

Some games still don’t play too nicely with ultrawide aspect ratios. As a result, they can look distorted toward the sides of the screen, stretching the visuals, as I saw in Helldivers 2. Others might limit what you can see vertically while stretching less pronouncedly on the horizontal axis, as Overwatch 2 does. Some games simply don’t allow for 21:9 aspect ratios. It’s hit or miss, but even in the games that don’t properly support 21:9, it can still prove impressive in spite of its awkward issues. The center of the display — where your focus is likely to be — also doesn’t run into these issues.

It’s a plus to see the AOC Agon Pro AG456UCZD include speakers, but they are not without issue. They can spit out enough sound to use in place of desktop speakers, but they sound pretty boxed in most of the time, like a loud speaker playing through a thin wall in the next room and resonating a bit inside their housing. The result is audio that’s distorted and overly skewed toward bass. It’s a little easier to accept for music, and it feels explosive enough in games like Helldivers 2, but listening to speech is rough and hard to discern because of that unnatural EQ.

Purchasing Guide

The AOC Agon Pro AG456UCZD is available from Amazon for $1399 and from B&H for $1499.

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