Published: May 24, 2024 | Source: ASUS | Price: £1348.99 | Author: Tom Logan

ASUS ROG Swift PG32UCDM OLED Review

Conclusion

There is no denying that OLED technology is moving along at a pace. It is, however, still very much a new technology for PC monitors. Obviously there are a lot of caveats, but the glorious parts outweigh the minor negatives. So let’s cover the good bits first before we get to the forewarning part.

HDR still reminds us of the original HD days. Back when HD first appeared on the market a lot of products advertised themselves as HD-Ready. What they meant by that is they could perhaps do 480 or maybe 720i. Legit HD stuff took a little longer to appear, and cost a fortune. HDR is still in that stage. Tons of monitors are advertised as HDR. Very few have enough dynamic range to make a difference with HDR content. You have to spend a fortune to get an LED monitor that justifies it. OLED though has the kind of black levels and peak brightness that makes HDR a breeze. You might think you’ve seen HDR done well, but until you see it on an OLED panel such as the ROG Swift PG32UCDM then you haven’t seen it at all. Most of you are too young, but it reminds me of first seeing a 3DFX card. You just knew it was game changing.

Blacks and whites are great then. It’s the OLED tech’s forte. What you might not know is how good the colour accuracy is. Because each OLED is self-contained, the colours of which the PG32UCDM is capable are astounding. Richly saturated, crisp, accurate. It’s a joy. You will find yourself stopping often just to stare in wonderment. Everything pops. You know how you buy a new system or GPU and immediately try all your old stuff just to marvel at it? This does that times ten. You’ll be looking at old pictures. Rewatching movies. Just living the life. Hell, thanks to the 3rd Gen QD-OLED Panel even text looks crisp instead of the halo’d mess it was on earlier OLED panels.

Caveats

However, OLED tech isn’t flawless. The screen burn problem is still there. The Swift PG32UCDM has all the latest technologies that attempt to mitigate it. Pixel-shifting, where the whole screen shifts slightly now and again to stop pixels ‘sticking’. There is a 6 minute long pixel refresh a day that helps run them through their range of possibilities to further eliminate the chance of screen-burn. If none of that helps ASUS give you a generous 3 year, screen-burn inclusive warranty with the ROG Swift PG32UCDM.

But whereas televisions rarely have the same thing in the same place, PCs are different. You’ll want to get rid of any desktop icons. You’ll want to auto-hide your Windows task bar. Things that can have an affect upon your productivity, particularly if you like things arranged a certain way. Of course if you just use your PC to game a couple of hours a day, this won’t be an issue. For those of us who have our monitors on for hours each day with static content – writing reviews for example – it can be an issue of which to be aware.

Final Thoughts

Of course, the price is hardly cheap. But let’s look at that another way. If you want a 32″ 4K screen, you’re already paying a serious amount of cash. One that has this kind of insane refresh rate and complete lack of image ghosting? We don’t know of many at all and all are four figures. Add those specifications to the benefits of an ASUS ROG product and all the little extras you get from that, and you’ll be spending £1300. This way you spend that amount of money but get a 3rd Generation, Quantum-Dot OLED panel that does 240Hz. It’s actually good value, but clearly for the enthusiastic user, and thus wins our OC3D Enthusiast Award.