Hello everyone it's SpawnPoiint and this is the brand's new 42-inch oled monitor from ASUS
it's called the ROG PG42UQ and i've been using it over the last month as my main monitor well today
i'm going to give you my updated thoughts on it including what i like dislike and whether this
could be the ultimate monitor i'll go over what it's like for gaming on as well as how it performs
as a productivity monitor i'll even compare it to its biggest competitor the LG C2 and which one i
would choose so this screen is actually using the same panel seen in the 42-inch LG C2 and we know
the C2 is already a great tv well what ASUS have done is they've taken that they've stripped it
down and then they've added their own features on top it's got all of the usual specs and features
you would expect including hdmi 2.1 vrr hdr 4k and up to 138 hertz but it's also got a display port a
custom heatsink and an anti-glare coating and the fact that it's an OLED means there are no dimming
zones as the pixels are all self-lit creating an almost perfect contrast and black levels
so spec wise this ticks most of the boxes for both work and play and from a gaming point of view this
thing is an absolute beast over the last few weeks i've played games like Warzone, Saints Row and
i've even completed the new The Last Of Us remake so plenty of time to test it out and see how it
performs it supports everything that you need including 4k vrr and 120hz so it's perfect for
the playstation 5 and the xbox series x it also has g-sync compatibility as well as one display
port and four hdmi ports where two of these are hdmi 2.1 but unfortunately there's no support for
e-arc which means you cannot actually send your audio back to your avr or your soundbar checking
the stats on both the playstation 5 and the Xbox Series X you can see it ticks everything on here
apart from dolby vision so you really are getting everything needed for both of these consoles
vrr or the variable refresh rate means the games run smoothly and there's no screen tearing or
stuttering while playing not all games support this natively but the games that do look great
and there's something awesome about playing story driven games on a screen this big it's
incredibly immersive pair that with some decent headphones and you're practically in the game
now for fps or fast paced games like Warzone or apex you might struggle if you're using a screen
this big sitting this close you'll either want to sit further back or reduce the overall screen size
i've used it fine for the last month but i can honestly say this is too big for my
normal Warzone sessions any other game is fine but i think 32 inch is still my preferred size
but some say size matters bigger is better and all that but is 42 inches too big for a monitor
well i think that depends on how you're using it if you didn't want to use the four 42 inches you
could either resize or reposition your windows or you could use the inbuilt aspect ratio controller
instead so at a click of a button you can toggle between 24, 27 and 34 inches and on top of that
you can even move the position of this boxed area and this will work on any connected device too
as it keeps a ratio the same it just changes the overall screen size and if you wondered
what resolution you get while playing in this mode well it's obviously not going to be 4k
as the pixels aren't there but the connected devices still recognize it as a 4k panel now this
is obviously marketed as a gaming focus monitor with the various gaming features and design but
it is still a monitor now what puts this monitor above say the lg tv equivalents like the c2 oled
is the fact that it comes with a display port i've hooked up my macbook pro to test it out and to
make the most of those 120hz capability i'm using one of these usbc to display port cables using the
hdmi port on my mac will actually limit me to just 60 hertz so over the last few weeks to really test
this out i've been running all of the usual tasks that i normally do on my ultrawide that's to see
if this is viable to use day to day that includes reading and writing documents checking emails and
editing videos firstly the size of this display is huge you can fit so much on here both vertically
and horizontally that you really don't need any more space than this you can snap multiple windows
whether that's a document on one side and a website on another or you could easily push it to
three and if you wonder what app i'm using to snap these windows across the screen this is called
magnet it's about seven pounds on the app store well last week i edited my entire youtube video
using this monitor and everything looked awesome being able to see my entire timeline in one view
was a huge advantage but not only that the text clarity is incredibly good it's hard to capture
on here but i was really impressed with how sharp the text looked even with that anti-glare coating
on top of that as i'm using the 120 hertz mode everything looks smooth and completely stutter
free whether that's scrolling through a timeline or document or just moving windows around the
screen it is silky smooth also the response i get from moving my mouse around the screen is
instant there's no noticeable delay now as this is a monitor rather than a tv it does mean it's got
one of the most useful features and that's wake from sleep so this means if you put the monitor
into standby mode it will wake as soon as you turn your pc or your laptop on it also has an auto
switcher so if you turn one device off and then another one on it'll automatically switch over
to the new porch again like a normal monitor would perform so we've covered gaming and productivity
but what if you wanted to do both at the same time well fortunately it does have an inbuilt
picture by picture or picture in picture mode this will let you run two inputs at exactly the same
time so i tested it with the playstation 5 and my macbook and it worked really well either by using
picture in picture and moving the image around the screen or the picture by picture mode where
the images are side by side i couldn't get hdr to work on the playstation 5 while using this mode so
i did have to disable that but otherwise it looked good the ps5 still recognized this mode as a 4k
120hz display so you could have a game running at the same time as viewing or reading a walkthrough
guide or if you wanted a windows pc and a macbook that would work as well so we already know it's
got the lg c2 oled panel underneath so you would assume it's identical in terms of picture quality
and performance well during my testing so far i would say it's 90 percent the same but there are a
few obvious differences now the color and vibrancy of the picture is incredible it's obviously it's
got an oled panel it's got the usual 98 color space 10-bit color and hdr 10. out of the box
the colors look accurate and as punchy as you'd expect from an oled so movies and games really do
look great on here it's also calibrated out of the box so there aren't really any settings to
tweak as such other than just the brightness and the contrast but one of the biggest selling points
of an oled is the infinite blacks and that awesome contrast ratio but with the anti-glare coating on
this screen you will notice the blacks are more of a hazy dark gray instead of jet black comparing
this to a normal ips panel this is still very impressive but it's only when you compare it to
a normal glossy oled you do notice the difference it was actually when i went back to my lg c1 the
77 inch i've got here that is when i noticed just how flat the image looked in comparison on the rog
now another point i did touch on very briefly in my first impressions video is that the screen
doesn't suffer from abl or the auto brightness limiter and that's where the screen dims very
slightly when showing bright images like word documents then it pops back to full brightness
if you move your mouse or change the window i was actually really excited to test this out and see
it in action but unfortunately during my testing i just could not get this to work i enabled the
uniform brightness mode in the settings and i left the screen alone for a couple of minutes
but as soon as i moved or scrolled the screen it popped back to full brightness exactly the same
as the c2 and the g2 generally i'm actually really disappointed with the result of this now obviously
it's not quite as aggressive as the c2 in the g2 but it definitely still exists and it's something
that might annoy you as using as a monitor i've also noticed it is a very slight blue tint on
the outer edges and a warmer colour in the middle this is only noticeable on pure white screens and
as you move off center the color does shift now this is actually a known characteristic of oled
unfortunately so it's not limited to just this display but i still wanted to mention
anyway and one of the comments i often get when using an oled is concerns of burning but the rog
oled has been designed to combat that with their own large custom heatsink asus have taken their
experience with cooling motherboard and graphics card and applied that to the monitor obviously
i've only been using this for a month so it's impossible to see if the heatsink is doing its
job but the fact that the heatsink even exists is a positive sign it's also fanless as well
so there's no noise at all so poking out just under the monitor are two 10 watt harman kardon
speakers and above those is a 15 watt woofer most of the time while gaming i will use headphones as
pretty rare that i'll use the speakers but for productivity when you have a video playing or
some music in the background these are a lot more useful than i expected it means you don't need or
have to have external speakers or headphones on during the day sure they're not going to sound
as good or be as immersive as headphones or a dedicated soundbar but they are pretty good
i would put them on par with every other oled tv that i've used this year with a slight bump
in bass and clarity but here's a quick test to give you an idea of what they sound like
i mentioned this in my unboxing but the overall look and design of this monitor without a doubt
has a gaming vibe to it the rear design the metal feet even the red rog logo on the front there's
no denying this is aimed more towards gaming than a normal desktop monitor but it still looks
nice with the ultra thin bezels and frame and it looks sleek enough to not be an eyesore on your
desk also the tiltable stand is a great addition to have let's take a quick look at the menu on
this monitor so if you tap the five-way joystick underneath it will bring up this on-screen display
it doesn't look anything special but it is functional so you've got a few gaming focus
features like turning overclocking on to get that 138hz and enabling g-sync then in the game plus
area you can turn on an fps counter a crosshair or even add a sniper box and this creates a magnified
area in the center of your screen there's a visual mode where you can toggle between picture presets
and then under the image you can actually change the brightness and enable the uniform brightness
setting and this is also where the aspect ratio controller is the color space and color temp
can be adjusted along with the gamma option the different input selections the picture in picture
mode which we've covered already favorites lets you actually change the default button layout
for the joystick and finally we've got the system setup so there's things like the language settings
sound options and whether you want the rog logo to be on there's also different power settings
and the osd setup but as it is an oled there's also the usual screen protection settings like
pixel cleaning and other options in the settings it is pretty limited in terms of what you can do
here i mean there's no picture setting controls or adjustments like you would see on other oled tvs
as this is essentially already calibrated now i know a lot of you want me to cover this and
that's comparing this monitor to the lg c2 and i would say on a like for like comparison
the lg c2 oled is the only real competitor to this they are similar in size and offer
very similar features but there are a few areas that set them apart that could sway
you one way or another so the asus monitor comes with an anti-glare screen which dependent on your
setup could be an advantage it has a display port for connecting it to your pc and a custom
heatsink to help with keeping it brighter it also has that awesome aspect ratio controller
to change the screen size and then there's the fact that it acts like a monitor two so it will
auto switch on or off and go into standby and then there's the lg c2 so it has a glossy screen which
naturally means better contrast and black levels it has four hdmi 2.1 ports instead of just two
it also has all of the usual tv features and apps so if you wanted a tv and a monitor well you could
have both with this screen but finally the price so the pg42uq is currently 1400 pounds while the
42 inch c2 is actually currently £1000 up to about £1200 so that's a difference of £200-400 which
ultimately comes down to if you see value in the different features personally which might surprise
you i would just go for the lg c2 the money saving alone is a big one then there's the added
tv features more hdmi 2.1 ports and if you prefer a glossy oled screen well that's an easy choice
anyway and then it also has the game optimizer mode which is an awesome feature but if you want
an anti-glare screen to prevent reflections a display port a brighter panel with a heat sink
and an impressive aspect ratio controller the asus swift oled is hard to beat now my dream
spec right now if you were interested would be a 32 inch oled with a glossy screen speakers
heatsink and an integrated rgb lighting a bit like the philips hue monitors where it reacts to
what's on the screen but what about you does the asus pg42uq tick every box from a monitor or are
you leaning more towards something else instead and if you drop an oled monitor in the comments
i will give you a thumbs up for staying right till the end and if you did enjoy today's video
check out my nova pro video next as that covers my thoughts on the latest still series gaming
headset thanks for watching please like sub and follow me on instagram and twitter until next time