Thoughts on AOC Q2770PQU? Or Asus PB278Q?

I'm looking to get a 27" IPS LED monitor for my birthday in December.
I looked at the Korean ones, and they all seemed to have their drawbacks. The Qnix multi-input 27" matte screen did look nice, but it was barely cheaper than a name brand model off Amazon.

The AOC 27" model looks nice, has good reviews on Amazon.
I also looked at the Asus ASUS PB278Q, which has similar specs and roughly the same price.

My main uses of my machine are doing stuff for work, surfing the web, Adobe Lightroom for processing photos from my Olympus OM-D, and casual gaming (mainly Diablo 3 and Skyrim). So insane response times are obviously not my concern.

Either one I get, I plan on color calibrating with something like the Datacolor Spyder4Pro.

Thoughts?
Would like to keep the price around $450.

I own the PB278Q and do a little bit of photo editing on it in addition to gaming...I really like the monitor and I don't think you can go wrong for the price.

AOC, no contest. The PB278Q uses 2 panels and the only way to differentiate is by checking the manufacturing date located on a sticker on the back of the monitor:

1.) PLS with 240hz LED PWM Dimming (Side Effects), good colours and black depth, but significantly more ghosting vs. similarly priced and superior competitors (AOC and BenQ BL2710PT)
2.) PWM Free AHVA Panel which matches the speed of competitors, but has worse colours and lighter blacks vs. competitors. The colour accuracy is awful when the colour controls are unlocked and the contrast drops from 750:1 to around 550:1.

Spyder colorimeters are inaccurate and should not be purchased over the X-Rite Colormunkie (150$) and i1 display pro (250$).

NCX said:

AOC, not contest. The PB278Q uses 2 panels and the only way to differentiate is by checking the manufacturing date located on a sticker on the back of the monitor:

1.) PLS with 240hz LED PWM Dimming (Side Effects), good colours and black depth, but significantly more ghosting vs. similarly priced and superior competitors (AOC and BenQ BL2710PT)
2.) PWM Free AHVA Panel which matches the speed of competitors, but has worse colours and lighter blacks vs. competitors. The colour accuracy is awful when the colour controls are unlocked and the contrast drops from 750:1 to around 550:1.

Spyder colorimeters are inaccurate and should not be purchased over the X-Rite Colormunkie (150$) and i1 display pro (250$).

Click to expand...

Those two examples. Are you refering to the Asus screen? What screen uses the PWM Free AHVA panel?

dj christian said:

Those two examples. Are you refering to the Asus screen? What screen uses the PWM Free AHVA panel?

Click to expand...

Yeah, the Asus PB278Q can come with either a PLS panel or AHVA panel. Both suck, disregard the monitor entirely.

I'll third that: My new Asus has the PWM free panel and it's freaking awful. I have a BenQ and AOC on the way, hopefully those are much better!

I have the PB278Q with PLS panel, and I can't really complain about this one.

The colors and black level is pretty darn good. The only problem I have with it is that it's too bright, and below 40% of brightness you can see PWM if you are sensitive to it. Above that you won't notice it at all.

The ghost problem isn't that bad, just need to get the monitor settings right, then you won't have anything to complain.

This is probably one of the best monitor I have used for both professional and gaming combine.