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To test today, we are using a LaCie calibration gun along with specific software to accurately measure the readings. We analyse the 2D elements of the monitor via this test system featuring a reference Nvidia GTX780 Ti graphics card.
We measured Gamut out of the box and the AOC Q2963PM returned a reading of 2.19 which is very good. We manually adjusted the gamma to 1.8 and the panel returned a 1.78 result.
The Q2963PM incorporates an IPS panel which presents very rich colours and excellent grayscale performance. We used the DisplayMate 64 step Grayscale test and it was able to accurately reproduce them all.
The accuracy of the colours rated as excellent with no hue bias to the naked eye. Delving a little further we analysed the colours. Blues and Reds were almost perfect and there was only a little oversaturation with green output. In real world terms however this has little to no negative effect when viewing images.
Panel Linearity rated as excellent, with only slight deviation on the edges. Well above average in this class.
The SRGB colour gamut rated at 99 percent of the full range, after calibration we increased this to 99.1 percent. This is almost class leading for the price and an exceptional result.
Viewing angles of the panel were also impressive, thanks to the IPS technology. We did notice a minor drop in luminance when viewing from a top down angle. The Q2963PM is rated at 5 milliseconds (black to white) and in real world terms it was able to handle fast moving games without any artifacting or smearing.
Black Definition is well above average for this class, and viewing high definition blu ray discs was a pleasure with this panel. Even sci-fi films which feature a lot of dark space scenes looked great, which often is not the case on a screen at this price. Blacks are certainly very rich and deep and ideal for not only high definition media but for gaming. Our equipment returned a black reading of 0.31cd/m².
There was some pooling in the edges and far corners of the panel, but it is difficult to notice with the naked eye.
Contrast was however a little disappointing, we recorded a reading of around 690:1 after calibration which was quite a bit lower than AOC's claims of 1000:1. It didn't ruin the quality of the images when watching high definition movies, although the picture could look a little flat under specific circumstances.
White purity was good, if not excellent. The screen displayed pure white as a light grey but uniformity across the length of the panel was surprisingly good, especially considering the physical dimensions. Backlight bleeding was also minimised with only a little fluctuation in the corners, barely noticeable.
When gaming, the 2560×1080 resolution will obviously place additional demand on the graphics card, so it is important to factor this into the purchase, if you are primarily focusing on playing the latest Direct X 11 games. That said, many of the modern graphics cards from AMD and Nvidia (even sub £200 solutions) will be easily able to power this resolution in the latest games with high image quality settings.
It is worth pointing out that the AOC Q2963PM has a plethora of picture settings, including brightness, contrast, gamma and Eco mode. There are also Text, Internet, Game, Movie, Standard and Sports presets. There is also a Dynamic Colour Boost (DCB) which allows for blue, green and skin tone enhancements.
This is a very efficient screen, only demanding 33 watts under operation. In power saving mode, this dropped to 0.5 watts.
