AOC 24G2SPU Review: Good Idea, Uneven Execution
Our full AOC 24G2SPU review after two weeks of testing: measured performance, battery figures, and whether it is worth £149.
Tom Halvorsen
The short version
The AOC 24G2SPU is AOC's 2022 entry in a crowded monitors market, and at £149 it is competing against some of the strongest hardware we have tested. After a fortnight of daily use, the headline is straightforward: it delivers 165Hz and a full ergonomic stand for £149.
The one-line answer: Buy it for 165Hz and a full ergonomic stand for £149. Think twice if this would bother you daily: 1080p at 24in is coarse for text-heavy work.
Design and build
There is nothing experimental here, which is mostly to the AOC 24G2SPU's credit. The detail worth calling out is that nothing else we tested under £200 included a height-adjustable stand. Against the rest of the monitors category it feels considered rather than novel.
Performance
Our testing runs the same suite on every device so figures stay comparable across years. The figure worth quoting is Response: 1ms MPRT. That places it mid-table at best for its price bracket.
| Specification | AOC 24G2SPU |
|---|---|
| Panel | 23.8in IPS, 1920x1080 |
| Refresh | 165Hz |
| Brightness | 250 nits |
| Contrast | 1000:1 |
| Ports | DP, 2x HDMI, 4x USB |
| Coverage | 99% sRGB |
| Response | 1ms MPRT |
How we tested
Every figure quoted above comes from the same protocol, run on every unit in this category. This one spent two weeks as the reviewer’s primary display, driven by both a laptop and a desktop. A calibrated X-Rite i1Display Pro, measurements taken after a thirty-minute warm-up in a room held at 120 lux.
| What we measure | How |
|---|---|
| Colour accuracy | Delta E across 24 ColorChecker patches, out of the box with no calibration, because that is how most panels are used. |
| Brightness uniformity | Nine-point grid, reported as the worst deviation from centre rather than the average. |
| Contrast | Full-screen black and white measured in a darkened room, with local dimming disabled. |
| Power delivery | A 16in laptop under sustained load, checking whether the panel holds charge or loses ground. |
| Text rendering | Subpixel inspection at 200% magnification, which is where OLED fringing shows. |
We deliberately do not report quoted contrast ratios that rely on local dimming, and any HDR400 badge.
The honest caveat: Panel lottery is real. Backlight bleed on our unit may not match yours.
What we liked
- 165Hz and a full ergonomic stand for £149
- A built-in USB hub at a price where that is unheard of
- SRGB coverage is genuinely accurate
Taken together, those strengths make it a natural fit for a second screen, or a first gaming monitor on a tight budget.
What we did not like
- 1080p at 24in is coarse for text-heavy work
- 250 nits is dim
- The plastics feel exactly like the price
None of these are dealbreakers on their own. Whether they matter depends entirely on how you intend to use it, which is why the section below matters more than the score.
How it compares
The closest alternatives on price are Gigabyte M27Q P and Asus ProArt PA279CRV. All three have been through the same tests, so the figures below are directly comparable rather than collected from different reviews.
| Model | Price | Our score | Standout | Weak point |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AOC 24G2SPU (this review) | £149 | 3 / 5 | 165Hz and a full ergonomic stand for £149 | 1080p at 24in is coarse for text-heavy work |
| Gigabyte M27Q P | £299 | 4 / 5 | 165Hz and USB-C charging under £300, which nothing else manages | The stand only tilts |
| Asus ProArt PA279CRV | £429 | 4 / 5 | 99% Adobe RGB at this price is unmatched | 60Hz |
The Gigabyte M27Q P scores higher at £299, so the AOC 24G2SPU has to win on 165Hz and a full ergonomic stand for £149 rather than on the total.
Is it worth the money?
At £149 the AOC 24G2SPU undercuts the category average of £591 by £442, against an average score of 3.8 out of 5 across the monitors we have tested. Its own 3 works out at roughly £50 per point. Paying above average for a below-average score only makes sense if a second screen, or a first gaming monitor on a tight budget describes you precisely.
If the budget is the binding constraint, the AOC 24G2SPU at £149 is the floor we would still recommend — below that the compromises stop being ones you can live with.
Two weeks in
Two weeks in, the figure that stopped mattering was panel — 23.8in IPS, 1920x1080 is more than adequate and you forget about it by the third day. What kept surfacing instead was that 1080p at 24in is coarse for text-heavy work, which is easy to shrug off in a spec comparison and harder to ignore at 6pm on a Friday. On the other side, nothing else we tested under £200 included a height-adjustable stand turns out to be the sort of detail you only appreciate after living with the alternative.
Who it suits
Buy the AOC 24G2SPU if you are a second screen, or a first gaming monitor on a tight budget. Skip it if this is something you would notice every day: 1080p at 24in is coarse for text-heavy work.
Buy it if:
- A second screen, or a first gaming monitor on a tight budget
- You want 165Hz and a full ergonomic stand for £149
- You value a built-in USB hub at a price where that is unheard of
Skip it if:
- You need 1080p at 24in is coarse for text-heavy work to be a solved problem
- The Gigabyte M27Q P at £299 already covers what you need
- You upgraded within the last two years — the gap is not worth the outlay
Verdict
Buy it for 165Hz and a full ergonomic stand for £149. Think twice if this would bother you daily: 1080p at 24in is coarse for text-heavy work.
Score: 3 / 5 · £149 at the time of writing.
Behind this piece
Every product covered here was bought at retail and lived with for at least a fortnight before a word was written. Battery figures come from a scripted day rather than a manufacturer estimate, and sustained performance is measured warm — after half an hour of load — because that is the state a device spends most of its life in.
Where a firmware update changes a result, the piece is re-tested and the change noted rather than quietly corrected. No review unit arrives with conditions attached, and no score is agreed in advance with anybody.
Where to go next
If you are weighing this against the rest of the monitors we have covered, the category archive lists every review in date order. The closest comparisons we have published are AOC 24G2SPU: Colours Look Wrong After Connecting a New Machine and AOC 24G2SPU: Flickering or Black Frames at High Refresh Rates.
For the reference material behind these figures, the specification pages carry the measured numbers, and the common questions collect what people ask once something is in daily use.
