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- AOC Graphic Pro U3 series: At a glance
- 1. Pro colours you can trust with proper calibration out of the box…
- 2. …and they're Calman Ready for when you need to recalibrate
- 3. The devil is in the details
- 4. One cable to turn your laptop into a complete workstation
- 5. Award-winning design that's both form and function
Creative folks can often be some of the most demanding customers when it comes to purchasing a monitor, as they often have strict requirements for how a screen should perform. However, lots of the top performers often come with quite a high price tag, which can be prohibitive for creatives who want something more affordable.
That’s where AOC’s Graphic Pro U3 series of screens comes in – available in two sizes, the 27-inch AOC Graphic Pro U27U3CV and the 31.5-inch AOC Graphic Pro U32U3CV, these are AOC’s latest and rather affordable choice for creatives who want an accurate and detailed 4K screen with strong ports and a price tag that won’t burn a hole in their wallet.
Read on to find out why these two AOC screens are an ideal fit if you’re a photographer, graphic designer, content creator or someone who simply wants a fantastic creative screen at a more affordable price point.
AOC Graphic Pro U3 series: At a glance
AOC Graphic Pro U27U3CV
27in Nano IPS | 3840 x 2160 (4K) | 10-bit (8-bit + FRC) | 98% DCI-P3, 100% sRGB, 100% Rec.709 | DeltaE < 2 (factory calibrated) | Calman Ready | USB-C 96W PD | DisplayHDR 400 | Red Dot Award 2023 | Best for: Focussed desks and close-distance workflows
£399 MSRP
AOC Graphic Pro U32U3CV
31.5in Nano IPS | 3840 x 2160 (4K) | 10-bit (8-bit + FRC) | 98% DCI-P3, 100% sRGB, 100% Rec.709 | DeltaE < 2 (factory calibrated) | Calman Ready | USB-C 96W PD | DisplayHDR 400 | Red Dot Award 2023 | Best for: Timeline work, larger canvases and multi-window editing
1. Pro colours you can trust with proper calibration out of the box…
For such important, colour-sensitive work as photo and video editing, it’s essential to have a screen that’s both accurate and has been properly calibrated out of the box so you don’t need to use any third-party tools, and can immediately get on with the work at hand.
To this end, both screens in AOC’s Graphic Pro U3 series have been subject to AOC’s stringent factory calibration process that results in a Delta E of less than 2 – in layman’s terms, that means every colour you see is accurate and true.
AOC also states that these screens offer immense colour accuracy, with 100% sRGB, 100% Rec.709 and 98% DCI-P3 gamut coverage, which essentially means that all colours, whether used in mainstream workloads or more colour-sensitive tasks, will be displayed virtually perfectly. It’s the kind of accuracy that’s usually reserved for far pricier screens, too.
2. …and they’re Calman Ready for when you need to recalibrate
As important as factory calibration is for immediate working, things can change as a monitor ages over its service life. To keep it as accurate as possible, the AOC Graphic Pro U3 series is Calman Ready.
This means both the Graphic Pro U27U3CV and Graphic Pro U32U3CV support Portrait Displays’ Calman software and the AutoCal hardware calibration workflow natively. If that sounds like gobbledygook, what it means is that you can connect a compatible colorimeter, run the software and have the monitor’s internal lookup tables for colour accuracy and calibration (1D and 3D LUTs) be updated directly.
This means fast and convenient recalibration that can potentially be used at scale, making these screens an ideal pairing for large-scale deployment in studios and therefore as strong a choice for IT buyers in procurement as for individual creatives.
3. The devil is in the details
Of course, colour accuracy is only one part of the story, and it also matters to have a screen that’s as sharp as a tack for creative workloads where fine detail is everything.
To this end, both the Graphic Pro U27U3CV and Graphic Pro U32U3CV feature 4K Nano IPS screens, providing excellent detail alongside the richer and more accurate colours associated with this specific panel type over other, more standard IPS screens.
Pixel density figures of 163ppi and 140ppi, respectively, also provide good fine detail retrieval for things such as text, and for occasions when you need to examine things such as compression artefacts in video or retouch images at a pixel level.
These AOC Graphic Pro screens also support 10-bit colour (using 8 bit + FRC), making them suitable for more advanced colour grading work for video editing by increasing the available dynamic range of colours. There is also support for VESA DisplayHDR400 for a little more punch, too.
4. One cable to turn your laptop into a complete workstation
Across both AOC Graphic Pro U3 monitors, the USB-C input is the most powerful of their vast array of ports, supporting both DisplayPort Alternate mode for outputting 4K video from a laptop and up to 96W power delivery for fast-charging the device while it’s in use. You’ll need a laptop that supports DisplayPort Alt, but that applies to most modern creative choices these days, and it means you can have one cable for power and video, reducing unsightly cable clutter.
Beyond the USB-C port, AOC has also kitted these two screens out with a wide range of ports, with two HDMI 2.0 ports and a DisplayPort 1.4 connection for display input, an extensive USB hub with four USB-A ports (which are also powered via the USB-C port) and even an RJ-45 jack for wired networking.
They even come with a built-in KVM switch, making them an ideal choice for power users – this lets you share one keyboard and mouse between two connected devices on the same monitor – that’s very handy for those with a docked work laptop and a high-performance workstation for editing. Picture-in-Picture and Picture-by-Picture modes also let you monitor a second source simultaneously, whether that’s a camera feed, a secondary machine or a reference file.
5. Award-winning design that’s both form and function
Of course, it’s important to have a monitor that looks as good as it performs, and the AOC Graphic Pro U3 series achieves this with a four-sided frameless construction with minimal bezels and a modern finish. The series also won a Red Dot Design award in 2023, if it’s any further indication of professional recognition.
Both screens also have a strong scope of adjustment so you can get properly comfortable, with means of pivot, swivel, tilt and height adjustment. They can also swing around into a portrait orientation if you’re using one as a second screen for long documents, code or even for web pages.
Both AOC Graphic Pro U3 monitors are available now. For full specifications and stockist information, visit the product pages at aoc.com/uk/monitors/u27u3cv (U27U3CV, £399) and aoc.com/uk/monitors/u32u3cv (U32U3CV, £499).
