Gigabyte AORUS FO48U for £799 from Currys
OLED displays provide unparalleled contrast ratios to offer inky blacks as well as vivid colours, adding up to an impactful HDR experience that far outstrips what you’d expect to find on a gaming monitor at this price point. Best of all, there are no ‘zones’ to the backlight - every pixel is self-emissive, so you can get areas of brilliant light surrounded by perfect blacks - the effect is incredible. Another big benefit of a display like the FO48U is its screen size. 48 inches is up there with some of the best gaming TVs out there, especially considering, for a time, this was the smallest size you could get an OLED display in. It gives you loads of real estate to game or do content creation on, and can work on a larger desk or on a TV stand. Digital Foundry’s Richard Leadbetter uses a 48-inch OLED at his desk for editing videos and playing games, and it can definitely work even if it takes a bit of getting used to! At heart, the FO48U is just an unusually large gaming monitor, and its support for up to 144Hz refresh rate makes it an excellent choice for PC gamers, although the standout inclusion of HDMI 2.1 means it’s an inspired one for console gaming on PS5 or Xbox Series X too. That higher refresh rate should bring with it smoother motion, and the fact there’s also room for HDMI Forum VRR, AMD FreeSync and Nvidia G-Sync will eliminate any juddering or tearing for a smoother experience on basically all modern platforms. There are also other creature comforts on offer, including an FPS counter, and a Black Equaliser, which can adjust the gamma to make it easier to spot people hiding in the shadows - especially handy for FPS games. Much like Gigabyte’s M-Series monitors, the FO48U also has a KVM switch, which is useful if you’re using the monitor with two separate systems. At the flick of a switch, all of your inputs, as well as the display itself, will move over from one system to another. The only issue with OLEDs like this is that they don’t tend to get all too bright, compared to their Mini LED or QLED competitors, so if you want to use this TV/monitor in a very bright room, another option might be better. Likewise, the monitor also employs countermeasures against permanent image retention that means small sections of the screen can get much brighter than the whole screen at once, which doesn’t affect HDR performance but may be a noticeable difference to a more standard LED monitor. However, these are minor drawbacks that are more than made up for by the incredible image quality you’ll get thanks to the OLED screen. If you’ve been waiting to grab a powerful and large HDMI 2.1 display to pair with your consoles or a PC, this FO48U OLED from Gigabyte at under £800 is an absolute steal.
