Gigabyte AORUS CO49DQ Review: An Enthusiast Gamer’s Dream but Don’t Discount its Productivity Chops!

When buying a gaming monitor, there are few things to consider, including the refresh rate, size, response time, viewing angles, type of panel, and HDR support. And given the expansion of the gaming industry, a lot of gaming monitors manage to tick these boxes without breaking the bank.

However, there is a class of gaming monitors that sit above the pile. These monitors are designed for hardcore gaming enthusiasts who don't follow the traditional blueprint. The category we are referring to is the premium 'ultra-wide' gaming monitors, ones that ditch the traditional IPS or VA panels for OLED displays.

And the Gigabyte AORUS CO49DQ is one such gaming monitor. At Rs 1,29,000, the AORUS CO49DQ is a 49-inch monstrosity that comes at the cost of a powerful gaming desktop. So let's take an in-depth look at the Gigabyte AORUS CO49DQ gaming monitor and find out whether it is worth the price.

Design

Starting off with the size, the AORUS CO49DQ features a 49-inch display in an ultrawide 32:9 aspect ratio. The length is the equivalent of two 27-inch screens being placed side by side. The panel also has an 1800R curve giving you an immersive experience. This super-wide 49-inch monitor was only a little taller than my 27-inch LG Ultragear gaming monitor.

Gigabyte's ultrawide gaming monitor can be mounted on the wall with a 100mm VESA mount in the back or attached to a sturdy stand that offers a 5/20 degrees tilt and a 30-degree swivel. It is relatively simple to fix the monitor to the stand and set it up. However, some difficulty may arise when removing the monitor out of the box, due to its super-wide form factor. It also weighs over 8 kilos.

Our advice would be to fix the stand first and then place the monitor onto the table. You also need to clear up some space due to its wide nature. The overall build quality of the AORUS CO49DQ does feel solid, while the monitor does look premium. However, the one downside is the fact that there are no LEDs here, despite it being a gaming monitor.

Ports & Accessories

All the ports on Gigabyte's ultrawide gaming monitor are located on the back, which include two HDMI 2.1 ports, a Displayport 1.4 port, a USB Type-C (Alternate Mode; Upstream port; Power Delivery up to 18W) port, two USB 3.0 Downstream ports, one USB 3.0 Upstream port, and a headphone jack.

The cables include a power cord, a USB-A/B cable, a DisplayPort cable, and an HDMI cable. The monitor does come with two built-in 5W speakers, although they are nothing to brag about. The speakers are more powerful than most gaming monitors, but they lack bass and aren't all that loud. I found it difficult listening to anything using the internal speakers when the fan was turned on.

Performance

The AORUS CO49DQ features a 49-inch QD-OLED panel with a DQHD (5,120 x 1,440 pixels) resolution. The screen boasts an impressive 144Hz refresh rate and a GTG response time of 0.03 seconds. It also offers 99% coverage of DCI-P3 color gamut and is VESA DisplayHDR True Black 400 certified.

The monitor also supports HDMI 2.1 (VRR and ALLM) as well as AMD FreeSync Premium Pro. The AORUS CO49DQ gaming monitor is tailor-made for gaming, offering an immersive experience with vibrant yet accurate colors and excellent viewing angles.

The display also boasts an impressive 1500000:1 contrast ratio and offers optimal levels of brightness for use indoors (Around 250 nits with SDR and 400 nits with HDR). While Gigabyte has added an anti-reflective coating to the screen, the display is quite reflective as well as a magnet for fingerprints.

Unfortunately, there's only a limited number of games that support the 32:9 aspect ratio, although we were able to test quite a few of them, including Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Forza Horizon 5, Overwatch 2, God of War: Ragnarök, and Horizon Zero Dawn: Forbidden West.

The monitors deep blacks and vibrant color reproduction makes picturesque open world games look amazing on CO49DQ and Forbidden West was no exception. Moreover, I was able to leverage the wider field of view to my advantage in several games, including Call of Duty. Additionally, the monitor also improves details in darker areas of the scene.

Features

The features of the CO49DQ can be accessed through the On-Screen Display (OSD). To open it, you can push the button on the bottom of the display. This will bring up three options, OLED Care, Game Assistant, and Settings. The OSD features can also be accessed through the Gigabyte Control Center software. Now, let's dive into some of these features.

First up is OLED Care! This gives you access to several options to prevent image burn-in. We used the 'Standard' option here, which uses an AI-based algorithm to minimize the risks of burn-in issues to automatically protect the screen with little-to-no manual effort. However, you can monitor and adjust features manually through 'Care+'.

Game Assist on the AORUS ultrawide gaming monitor lets you access timers, refresh rate indicator, aiming points, and more. Additionally, the Game Assist also has a dashboard option that displays fan speed and temperature for your components, if you are using a Gigabyte motherboard.

Finally, we've reached the Settings option, which gives you access to all the amazing features of the AORUS CO49DQ gaming monitor. The AORUS CO49DQ features 10 different Picture modes that can be selected based on whether you are gaming or working. Furthermore, several customizations can be made within each Picture mode if you prefer calibrating your screen manually.

Yes, the AORUS CO49DQ is primarily designed for gaming but it also doubles as a productive workhorse with several PIP and PBP options to view two sources at once. The 32:9 aspect ratio of the AORUS CO49DQ allows you to run multiple apps on the screen simultaneously. We only tested running three apps simultaneously but there's enough space to fit a third one in there.

While using the monitor to work, I had my research material from Chrome on one side and MS Word on the other, while also managing to fit a tiny window for Teams in the middle. Not only is this super-convenient but it also helps boost productivity as you don't find yourself alt-tabbing every 5 minutes.

But beyond multiple apps, the AORUS CO49DQ can also run two PCs simultaneously on the left and right halves of the monitor. Another noteworthy feature of the AORUS CO49DQ is its KVM switch that has a full set of options to connect a single keyboard and mouse to multiple systems.

Pricing

With a starting price of Rs 1.2 lakh, the Gigabyte AORUS CO49DQ Ultrawide gaming monitor doesn't come cheap. However, this is a one-of-a-kind gaming monitor with only a couple of alternatives. Its closest competitor, the

Samsung Odyssey OLED G9 comes in at Rs 1.6 lakh. Most other 49-inch ultrawide gaming monitors in India were equipped with LCD screens, nowhere close to matching the color reproduction of an OLED panel.

Verdict

I haven't reviewed a lot of monitors, which made this experience absolutely game changing. To be honest, there aren't any gaming monitors I could find in this price segment that offered this much. You are definitely getting your money's worth with the combination of the ultrawide screen, OLED display, DQHD resolution, VRR support, and the tons of customization options.

While I did feel like the 144Hz refresh rate does hold this monitor back a bit, gaming on it was still butter-smooth and the colors reproduction was second to none. The one drawback arises while watching content on the screen as platforms don't support the 32:9 aspect ratio. It wouldn't recommend it for console gaming as well.

That being said, it doesn't get any better than this for the enthusiast gamer in search of the best visual experience. But beyond gaming, I also find this form factor appealing to avid multitaskers, particularly video editors, streamers, graphic designers, etc.