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As the company's first entry into the OLED market, the ASRock Phantom Gaming PGO32UFS is a very interesting monitor that does some things very well but has its fair share of weakness, too.
Starting with the good, by utilising LG's latest generation WOLED panel, this monitor delivers superb response times, infinite contrast and a very wide gamut, making it an excellent choice for gaming. Its HDR gets plenty bright too and is fairly accurate, while the matte coating will appeal to those who want to minimise reflections.
One of its biggest features is the ‘dual mode' functionality, where the screen can run at either 4K/240Hz or 1080p/480Hz. Having this versatility at the press of a button is a great inclusion, as you can have the crisp sharpness of 4K but quickly switch to 480Hz for the all-out motion clarity it provides. Personally speaking, I did find the 1080p resolution over the 32in panel size to look very soft and lacking detail, but there's no harm in having the option depending on the games you are playing.
There are a few clear areas for ASRock to improve though, the main one being factory calibration. It's really not that bad, being slightly green-ish and with gamma that's a bit high – but it seems bonkers to me that there's actually a setting that enables basically perfect gamma tracking (when using a manual colour balance) and it isn't enabled by default. It's one of those things which I think show's the company's relative inexperience in this market segment, as they've done the work to include the mode, but then buried it in the OSD where a lot of people may never find it.
The same goes for the OSD itself. It's fine, but it's slightly confusingly laid out at times, with an sRGB mode that seemingly does nothing positioned in one sub-menu, and another sRGB mode that actually clamps the gamut hidden away in another. There's only three anti-burn in features too, when other screens from the likes of ASUS and MSI offer several more. My final bone of contention is around the design and build quality, as this screen is very plasticky – we'd certainly expect better from something targeting this market segment.
That said, if you can find it in stock with a price more like £760, there's enough positives to make this screen worth buying. With other etailers listing it around £840-850, though, other 4K/240Hz QD-OLEDs do come into play. Hopefully ASRock will take our feedback on board and we'll see an even better OLED monitor from the company next time around.
We found the ASRock Phantom Gaming PGO32UFS for £764.99 from AWD-IT HERE, or £845.99 from OverclockersUK HERE.
Pros
- Very wide gamut.
- Effectively infinite contrast ratio.
- Very fast response times.
- Dual mode functionality offers either 4K/240Hz or 1080p/480Hz, with the latter offering exceptional motion clarity.
- HDR hits over 1200 nits.
- Decent sRGB emulation mode.
- 2x HDMI 2.1.
Cons
- Plasticky build is a let down.
- Factory calibration leaves a bit to be desired.
- OSD layout doesn't always make sense.
- Limited selection of anti-burn in features compared to the competition.
KitGuru says: It's a capable OLED monitor with a few quirks, but it's still worth buying.
