You should consider you monitor more seriously, why? Because its the main component that shows your output in color, sound, and even performance of your beloved PC. When you’re in a budget for a PC build, you might have to consider a monitor that is less than 10 thousand pesos and the AOC 24B1XH is one choice for this segment. For a 24″ monitor, what can it do now as compared to previous 24″ monitors? and is it worth the experience?
Design
Out of the box, the 24B1XH is a monitor that looks simply elegant with its triangular base stand and the frameless design. Making it an ideal monitor for multiple setups besides each other.
At only 14.3mm thin, the monitor is fairly portable as compared to previous generations with a hefty base stand. Even the back is even thin with only the bottom part being thicker for the attachment of the base stand and IO ports.
Weight is at 2.18kg without the stand, making it a bit heavy in expectation. But still portable as compared to most monitors of 2017. Unfortunately, at the back, there is no longer an option for VESA mounting due to the thin profile and bezels.
But we kinda understand this move as even other manufacturers opted a more portable monitor build than catering a VESA mount, most likely due to that a 24″ monitor isn’t really that ideal for multiple monitor usage and its better to make it portable in the table.
The stand mounts with a single screw with its own twist handle for easier install and dismantling. While the base stand looks elegant, you might think its thin for its size and that is exactly our concern. In the whole duration of our review, even touching the controls triggers wobbling to the stand that makes it wiggle. A concern that the stand isn’t durable but honestly just less secure since there isn’t any other part holding the stand than the single screw.
There is a power brick separated into the monitor, for us, this is better as its manageable in heat and reduces the weight of the monitor. Plus, having the adapter separately gives you flexibility in organizing the cables of the monitor.
User Interface / Navigation
The 24B1XH has tactile bottom buttons for quick navigation in menu, adjustments and even power.
The user interface is a simple 8-bit overlay to control settings such as the language, color, luminance, volume, placement and even pre-set such as picture boost.
Navigation is fairly easy, you need to select the specific control before you can adjust the settings.
Adjusting the colors and other settings are pretty straight forward, navigating through the number range gives significant difference per 10 counts. So like for brightness, you might want to venture every 5 difference to see a visible change.
Weird enough is that the 24B1XH has volume controls but we tried using the monitor as an audio out to no success. Upon research, there are two variants of this model, which is the 24B1XH with no speakers and 24B1XH with speakers and 3.5mm audio jack-output.
For the sake of this review, we will ignore the audio division but its still a bummer that the audio controls are in the monitor despite having no speakers.
Output
At FHD, the overall picture quality of the AOC 24B1XH is acceptable, colors are bouncy and temperature in default is acceptable. There is the option to boost the sharpness of details especially in the text when needed, we think you should activate this, especially when using Windows 10 with its annoying app compatibility issues.
The 24B1XH is an IPS panel monitor, colors are bouncy but not that accurate. Again, this is an entry-level monitor and if you’re into editing videos and photos as a profession then we think you should venture and invest into more expensive ones.
Color accuracy of this monitor is at 75%, good enough for the color range of office works today and even some video or gaming.
But in this case, a 24″ monitor is the right size for an office monitor in my opinion. The response is great and it’s nice to suddenly just move your monitor sideways to show to your workmate.
There are several presets for the monitor to play around the settings should you want to calibrate your preference. There are a movie, picture, user preference, and the standard, we choose the preference and making the temperature a little bit cooler.
Playing videos or previewing quick artworks are nice, we didn’t encounter any problems running the monitor both VGA and HDMI as the source. Though, we had a problem looking for an HDMI cable as it’s not included in the package, so that’s additional 150 pesos in your budget if you get this one.
Additionally, I especially like that the monitor didn’t eat up too much space at the base as its a triangular shape. Unlike with the ones with ASUS having a circular base stand that occupies space beneath.
Overall the AOC 24B1XH is available in the market for Php8,376, quite a weird SRP for a consumer electronic product but that’s exactly it. For us, the AOC 24B1XH has its shortcomings for a standard monitor but its quality in output didn’t disappoint. Plus being only 25W in power, we think office workers will like this monitor for power efficiency as well.
Advantages
- Display is standard
- Thin and light profile
- Bezels are thin including the chin
- Power efficient at 25W
Disadvantages
- Wobbly stand
- No Versa Mount due to its thin body
- Very basic interface and navigation keys
- No HDMI out of the box
- No Speakers compared to competitors