Gigabyte Aorus CO49DQ 49-inch Gaming Monitor - Review

The Gigabyte Aorus CO49DQ isn’t just any old ultra-wide monitor. It is a 49-inch curved monitor with a QD-OLED panel, 5120x1440 resolution (32:9 aspect ratio), 144 Hz refresh rate and 99% coverage of DCI-P3 colour gamut. The Aorus CO49DQ also comes with a VESA DisplayHDR True Black 400 certification and, most importantly, a rated 0.03 ms response time. If all this technical jargon seems unfamiliar, all you need to know is whether ultra-wide or not, the Aorus CO49DQ is one of the best gaming displays you can buy today.

At the same time, is the monitor worth spending your money? Let's check out the answer to this question and more in our Gigabyte Aorus CO49DQ QD-OLED gaming monitor review here.

Gigabyte Aorus CO49DQ Specifications and Design

According to the product listing, the 49-inch panel is as wide as two 27” displays placed side by side, and the resolution matches that of two 2K displays placed side-by-side. Connectivity includes 2x HDMI 2.1, 1x HDMI 1.4, 1x USB Type-C with a DP alt-mode and 18W USB PD support, and two USB-A ports rated at USB 3.0 speed. You can check all the other specifications of the Aorus CO49DQ in the table below.

The Aorus CO49DQ monitor is loooong, about as wide as a 55-inch TV, but not very tall (about as tall as a 27-inch monitor, in fact). The stand is quite sturdy and well-designed, as it needs to be to handle such a wide display. My only complaint about the design department is that the cable management system is decent but less effective than the designs I have seen on rival monitors.

Monitor Performance

As with most OLEDs, the Gigabyte Aorus CO49DQ's colour accuracy was a bit off out of the box, tending slightly towards green with oversaturated reds. This is fairly easy to fix, given that the monitor offers plenty of control in the On-Screen-Display (OSD) interface. After calibrating with an i1Display Pro Plus colorimeter, the overall colour accuracy and white balance ended up near perfect, which is a testament to the quality of the panel.

Brightness is a bit low at 266 nits as the outer coating of the monitor is very reflective, but being an OLED, contrast is basically infinite. (The colorimeter I used couldn’t detect perfect black, so it reported a black level of 0.0010 cd/m^2 in the image above). Gigabyte says that the monitor is certified for HDR400, i.e., it can hit 400 nits in HDR mode, though I did notice that the lights were noticeably brighter when viewing HDR content.

Two things to remember are that the monitor’s surface coating is very reflective and a fingerprint magnet.

I think the most underrated feature of this monitor is its USB hub, which also has a KVM switch. I prefer wired peripherals (because I don’t want to spend a lot of money on heavy, wireless peripherals with soldered batteries when wired ones are cheaper, lighter, and better) and the sheer convenience of switching between my Mac and PC at the press of a button while continuing to use the same peripherals can’t be overstated.

Living With an Ultra-Wide

That’s the boring stuff. The monitor looks good, is well-designed, and performs well per colorimeter panel tests. Now, What is it like to game on? In a word, brilliant!

If you have never played on an ultra-wide monitor, I can guarantee you are missing out. I tried everything from racing games and flight sims to boomer shooters and Helldivers 2 (For democracy!). The games were fun and incredibly immersive, but I did run into a couple of hiccups.

The first hiccup is, of course, the fact that not all games support a 32:9 aspect ratio. The HUD and UI elements don’t scale properly, leaving you more frustrated than excited. Thankfully, you don’t need to play in ultra-wide and can just play in a regular 16:9 mode in unsupported games. The monitor will black out the sides, leaving you with, effectively, a 27” 2K monitor to play on. Even if you’re not getting the full 32:9 experience, you are playing on a QD-OLED display with inky blacks and infinite contrast.

The second issue was that I got motion sickness playing boomer shooters in 32:9, specifically Doom-style boomer shooters—and I mean the 1993 version of Doom, not the 2016 remake. Just be aware that this can be an issue for some people. Of course, neither of these issues is unique to the Gigabyte monitor and will apply to whatever 32:9 monitor you choose to buy.

Racing and flight sims felt a lot more immersive. In Automobilista 2, the field of view was so wide that I could almost see the passenger-side window. This is much more realistic and natural than the more restrictive view on a 16:9 screen. That said, one frustration with that ultra-wide aspect ratio I had was that I couldn’t see the dials behind the steering wheel. While I loved playing Sims on the ultra-wide, I think I will stick with large TVs as they give you the screen size and vertical real estate you would need for the right balance.

A Productivity Must-Have

Strangely enough, I found that I enjoyed the Aorus more as a productivity monitor than as a gaming one. While I play games for a couple of hours a day, I spend 8+ hours working, and this monitor is ideal for work. Sure, you could use double and triple monitors, but managing those monitors can be a real pain. They force you to isolate workspaces and deal with bezels, and of course, the Apple Silicon-powered Macs don’t all support triple monitor setups (but they do support a 5120x1440 resolution).

I loved having all my work scattered across my field of view and being able to move files around seamlessly. It felt like I received a noticeable boost to my productivity, and I actually enjoyed working on the monitor just as much as I did gaming. This boost was especially noticeable when using tools like Blender and Motion.

Gigabyte Aorus CO49DQ Pricing and Value for Money

The CO49DQ is available at around Rs 1.2 lakh at various retailers. It is expensive for a monitor, but remember that this fast OLED panel has an unusual aspect ratio. If you are looking for something like this, there simply aren’t many options in this category. Given the price, this monitor is certainly not for the average user, but if you have that kind of money to spare, I simply can’t recommend this monitor enough. I would buy it today if I had the cash to spare.