Conclusion

Final Words & Verdict

The Asus ROG Swift PG42UQ 42″ OLED is luminous in many ways but it ain't perfect though. The second you power up the monitor, your eyebrows will frown upwards as the image quality is downright spectacular. OLED is OLED, which means perfect blacks, and superb contrast. In its factory default configuration, color temp and gamma were a bit high, but the nays are stopping there.  The panel delivers as promised, nice HDR levels with proper color gamuts and at 120 Hz (138 Hz OC DP) in Ultra HD with GSYNC compatibility as well. In terms of everyday use, the PG42UQ  is a screen suitable for most jobs. Very big, but fine when you create a bit of distance as you could pass on Windows DPI scaling. The visuals on, say a particular website is practically life-size, and browsing is a lot of fun. Seating distance is essential to work comfortably with a 42-inch display. You can sit 1 meter away, but moving your head will make it difficult to take in that complete image.  The gameplay is another story. Once you've tried an HDR game on the PG42UQ, you'll find yourself collecting them like stamps; the contrast and color of this monitor are addictive. With its deep tones and dark shadow areas, Battlefield V appeared greater than ever in HDR. 120 Hz was plenty quick and responsive for our casual talents. No screen tearing was noted throughout the competitive gaming portion of our evaluation, primarily because to the VRR (Variable refresh rate) capabilities that this monitor possesses. The PG42UQ supports both NVIDIA G-Sync and AMD FreeSync. Thus adaptive sync may be enabled regardless of whether you're using team green or team red. Testing F1 2022 in HDR resulted in a deep, rich, and extremely sharp display. No LCD can compete with the PG42UQ optical quality. However, OLED and SDR games also benefit massively from the contrast ratios and black levels.  The PG42UQ is well suited for HDR and extended color palettes, although it also shines in older SDR titles like The Witcher III. We've played this game on various screens, and it always looks better with more color but not too saturated. The Asus ROG Swift PG42UQ 42″ OLED also has proper sound quality.The Harman-based 10W speakers did not disappoint. 

That peak HDR value at 800-900 Nits might not impress you. However, the pure blacks the screen offers make it so much better. The downside, especially in desktop mode, is that you'll see the screen dimming as it redistributes brightness all over the panel. If you have a white square on the screen the size of a stamp, then white is bright, however, if you enlarge that or zoom screen wide that same post stamp over your screen, it'll get dimmer, greyer. That's the biggest weak spot of the monitor. For the rest, in gaming, we doubt you'd ever notice it. Regarding gaming, DCS is supported; make sure you have a compatible graphics card. OLEDs have near-instant pixel response, the combination of panel and refresh rate minimizes ghosting from quick movement. The panel also uses sub-pixel rendering to make text appear sharper than rival OLEDs, making a significant difference for desktop usage.

Also, many people forget this when purchasing a monitor, but rendering games at ultra HD requires a costly graphics card! Above an example of an RTX 3080, we assume that in supported titles, you'll enable raytracing and DLSS.  Our generic advice is that up-top 32" you are better off sticking to 2560x1440 (WQHD) for several reasons, budget reasoning included.

HDMI and DP

There are 1x DisplayPort 1.4 (with DSC), 2x HDMI 2.1, and 2x HDMI 2.0 connections available for connectivity, the HDMI 2.1 ports support 4K 120Hz and 444 chroma from contemporary consoles at full 48Gbps speed (where supported). HDMI-VRR and ALLM are also supported by the HDMI 2.1 ports.

Concluding

This monitor will bring a smile to your face once you hit power on; the colors just drip off your screen. Combined with a standard 120 Hz refresh rate and fast response time. The 42in ROG Swift OLED PG42UQ is a proper, gaming-grade display with higher refresh rates than any competitor, adaptive sync technology to play nicely with games consoles as well as PC graphics cards. ASUS beefed-up internal cooling to help the panel survive peak HDR brightness without. But yeah, the elephant in the room remains a potential burn-in; ASUS deals well with it by keeping the monitor cool enough and adding protections. We're not sure what the future will bring on this front, though. When we base our image quality conclusion on contrast, color saturation, color accuracy, and resolution, an OLED screen will always win over an LCD panel. However, some people include maximum brightness in that preference list. There LCD has an advantage. Furthermore, LCD has no concerns with image retention. This makes it ideal for gaming and computing, which produce a lot of static content on the screen. The panel includes an adaptive 120Hz refresh rate and Auto low latency mode (ALLM) for console gamers, but PC gamers can overclock to 138Hz when connected through DisplayPort. Demanding FPS players will appreciate the improvement on the OLED gaming monitor front, and sure few rivals can equal it in terms of speed. Support for FreeSync and G-Sync eliminates screen tearing. The PG42UQ has an advertised response time of 0.1 milliseconds, making it immune to unpleasant screen abnormalities such as ghosting and smearing. Another consideration in any gaming monitor selection is speed and connections. There are two console and future graphics card-friendly HDMI 2.1 ports, DisplayPort 1.4 (rare on OLED TVs of this size), two HDMI 2.0s for PC gaming, and a few additional USB3 ports and a 3.5mm headphone port. If you play console games, the PG42UQ  runs at the maximum speed of the Xbox Series X and S, as well as the PlayStation 5, 120 Hz. It also supports Adaptive-Sync and HDR. PC gamers can enjoy even higher framerates. We need to talk audio.  The frame houses a respectable set of speakers. Two Harman-tuned 10W drivers are coupled with a 15W woofer to deliver more forceful sound than the speakers on most desktop monitors. They sounded clear, and the volume got fairly loud, despite the fact that we weren't listening in a controlled atmosphere. We're expecting "decent TV" audio, not anything that will render your sound bar or PC speakers obsolete.

If you've concluded that an OLED display is right for you and gaming is your main priority, Then the 42in ROG Swift OLED PG42UQ is an excellent pick. Input lag is minimal enough for all but the most talented gamers, and the PG42UQ is superb among gaming monitors regarding image quality. Little else available looks as beautiful as this, with its outstanding contrast, richly saturated color, and professional-level precision. Overall, this is a wonderful monitor, with vibrant colors and deep, dark blacks flowing from the screen's surface. Aside from the superb HDR display for a monitor and the still unique combination of 4k and 138 Hz on OLED, the image quality of the PG42UQX is very good; it can be tweaked/setup to get it perfect. It is color calibrated rather well at default mode (racing) with a Delta close to one in superb color spaces. Yeah, it's lovely for sub-1500 bucks

Final pricing just arrived; the 42-inch model can be purchased for $1,299, the 48-inch model is likely to cost around $1,499.

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