AOC Graphic Pro U32U3CV monitor review: Recalibrate your expectations

As you can probably surmise from the name, the AOC Graphic Pro U32U3CV is a 32in monitor aimed at design professionals. With a 4K Nano IPS panel, guaranteed color accuracy, hardware calibration support, and oodles of connectivity, it ticks pretty much every box for a professional panel. The big news is that it costs less than £600.

The specifications on offer aren't going to rival models at twice the price, but AOC has opted for a solid middle ground. The Nano IPS panel offers a claimed 98% coverage of DCI-P3, 100% of sRGB and Rec 709, and it also comes with a slew of factory-calibrated color modes, including DCI-P3, Display P3, and Adobe RGB, including both D50 and D65 white points. AOC also promises a colour-accurate average Delta E of less than 2. So far, so impressive.

It's the Calman Ready certification, which is the big draw for professionals, however. If you're feeling the pinch after shelling out four figures on a Calman subscription, the AOC U32U3CV offers hardware calibration support for a fraction of the usual professional panels. In fact, it's so affordable that, for the price of one $1,199 Calman Studio subscription, you could buy two U32U3CV. It's a bona fide bargain, in other words.

AOC Graphic Pro U32U3CV monitor: Design & Features

AOC has put together a genuinely handsome package here. The black matte plastics of the panel do feel a tad cheap and hollow, but they contrast nicely with the brushed metal T-shaped base and unusual-looking stand. At this price, frankly, it's easy to forgive the more budget-conscious aspects of the build.

The stand works well, but we're not convinced that the T-shaped base is the best choice of design – it takes up a lot of space on the desk. It wouldn't look as good, but a smaller, less stylish design might be the more practical option. Quibbles aside, it keeps the monitor superbly stable even at its full 150mm extension, and the panel moves through its range of motion smoothly and easily. The slotted cutout in the stand does a decent job of guiding all of the cables neatly out of sight, too, even if it's not the neatest-looking cable management design we've ever seen. If you use all the connectivity, it doesn't do much to obscure the nest of cables exiting the panel.

And, talking of cables, there's a 1.8m DisplayPort cable, a 1.8m HDMI cable, and a 1.2m USB-C cable with an integrated USB-C/USB-A adapter included in the box. As usual, though, we wish manufacturers would supply longer USB-A cables. The 1.2 metre cables supplied are routinely too short to reach a desktop PC if it's positioned under the desk.

Connectivity is generous. It's great to find a USB-C input that accepts DisplayPort Alt inputs and provides 96W of power delivery, and a further two HDMI inputs are complemented by a single DisplayPort input. A second upstream USB-C connection at the rear handles the monitor's KVM functions – and it's nice to find PIP and PBP support, too.

What's more, you get an integrated USB 3.2 Gen 2 hub: there are two USB-A ports at the rear and two more USB-A ports on the left-hand flank alongside a USB-C connection and a 3.5mm headphone output. There's also a Gigabit Ethernet socket, but as usual, this is only available to one USB-connected computer at a time when using the KVM feature.

The Calman Ready certification is something of a coup for a monitor at this price, but bear in mind that the monitor is only one part of the overall package. Firstly, you'll need a version of Calman Ultimate to hand, and the yearly subscription costs alone are currently enough to buy you two AOC U32U3CV monitors. You'll also require a compatible colorimeter or spectrophotometer, and a hardware pattern generator would potentially yield improved accuracy. Add it all up, and the AOC monitor will be one of the cheaper items on your shopping list.

AOC Graphic Pro U32U3CV monitor: Display quality

Even if you haven't got a copy of Calman and all the assorted hardware to hand, the U32U3CV provides factory-calibrated modes for a wide range of color spaces. You can pick from sRGB, Rec. 709, Display P3, DCI P3, DCI-P3 (D50), Adobe RGB, Adobe RGB (D50), and Rec. 2020.

In our tests, the AOC's Nano IPS panel reproduced 99.3% of sRGB, 93% of DCI-P3, and 86% of Adobe RGB. Those are very respectable figures for a £550 monitor.

We enabled the AOC's sRGB mode, and the results were a tad disappointing. The principal issue is that the white point is too warm at 5,948k. In our tests, whites and greyscales exhibited a clear yellowish tint. We recorded an average Delta E of 0.75 and a maximum of 3.81.

Contrast is fine for a standard IPS panel at 1,099:1, but it's miles behind the IPS Black panel in Dell's UltraSharp U2725QE, which soared over 2,000:1 in our recent review. Brightness reaches a sensible 178cd/m2 at default settings, and dialling it up to maximum sees it stop just short of AOC's claimed 400cdm/2 – our colorimeter measured it at 394cd/m2.

Moving over to the Display P3 mode saw a very similar performance. The average Delta E is a respectable 0.99, but the maximum peaks at 3.45, and the white point is similarly inaccurate. The result is that whites and greys have a noticeably yellowish tint compared to the other calibrated panels on our desk.

Thankfully, the U32U3CV has an ace up its sleeve. Connect the monitor to a laptop or PC running Calman Ultimate, and you can use the AutoCal feature to create calibrations for sRGB, Display P3, DCI P3, DCI P3 (D50), Adobe RGB, and Adobe RGB (D50) color profiles. Once done, you can swap between them in the OSD as required.

We calibrated the AOC for sRGB and Display P3 usage, and each calibration took around 15 minutes in total. The result, as you'd expect, is dramatically improved colour accuracy. For instance, after calibration, the sRGB mode dropped down to an average Delta E 0.7 with a maximum of 1.2. And crucially, the white point was now far closer to the 6,500k ideal at 6,600k. Our test images looked dramatically more natural as a result, with the greyish whites and greys replaced with a far more neutral balance.

HDR is on the cards, too, but given the DisplayHDR 400 certification, it's wise not to expect too much. The peak brightness of 434cd/m2 just isn't high enough to make HDR highlights really pop, and the result is that HDR content can look very dim. If you do want to make use of it, you'll need to do it in a darkened room to get the best effect – and even then, it's a far cry from the eye-popping HDR you'll see on QD-OLED or Mini LED screens.

Panel uniformity is pretty good for the money. There is a bit of a dim spot in the lower left corner where brightness drops by between 10 and 12%, but that aside the rest of the panel is fairly even. Any variances elsewhere stay in single figures, and that's pretty good going for a big monitor at this price.

Response times are fine, but the combination of a bog-standard 60Hz refresh rate and an IPS panel means that the U32U3CV isn't going to win any awards. Adaptive sync is present via the DisplayPort connection, and our AMD card reported a FreeSync range between 40Hz and 60Hz. There was some juddering towards the very lowest end of that range, though. In our testing, the best results for gaming were achieved with overdrive set to the lowest setting, as higher settings introduced unacceptable amounts of inverse ghosting.

AOC Graphic Pro U32U3CV monitor: Is it worth it?

The U32U3CV is a big monitor with big potential that retails for a relatively modest sum. It's just a terrible shame that the factory calibration is so mediocre – if the white point wasn't so consistently off beam, this is a monitor that would have had broader appeal for all buyers. For those who just want a good out-of-the-box performance and who don't want to dabble with calibration, rivals such as the BenQ MA320U remain the better buy.

This isn't to say that the U32U3CV is a failure – thanks to the presence of Calman support, it's anything but. Partner it with a top-notch colorimeter or spectrophotometer, a Calman license, and a regular calibration routine, and the U32U3CV will deliver a solid, color-accurate performance for the entire working life of the display. If your business would benefit from consistent, calibrated displays, but hasn't got the four-figure budget for money-no-object alternatives, then the AOC U32U3CV may be exactly what you've been looking for.

AOC Graphic Pro U32U3CV specifications