Why, exactly, is the Gigabyte Aorus FO48U so cheap? It’s currently $800 on Newegg which isn’t exactly loose change. But next to comparable OLED gaming monitors, it’s an absolute steal.
Take the BenQ Mobiuz EX480UZ. It’s pretty much a dead ringer for this Gigabyte beast. 48-inch LG OLED panel? Yup. 4K resolution? Uh-huh. 120Hz refresh? Affirmative. 0.1ms response? You betcha.
It even has an identical 135,000:1 contrast ratio rating and 98% DCI-P3 coverage. And yet the BenQ will hurt you to the tune of $1,500. And even that’s after a price drop from $1,800.
Now, you might think the Gigabyte cuts some corners to hit that price tag. But nope. It has DisplayPort 1.4 and HDMI 2.1, just like the BenQ. Where things almost get silly is that the Gigabyte even matches the BenQ with its USB-C port with power delivery.
That excellent connectivity also makes this monitor a great deal compared to various OLED TVs. LG’s own 48-inch C2 TV goes for around $1,050. We have no idea how Gigabyte can buy in panels from LG and undercut in.
Sure, you lose the TV functionality with the Gigabyte if you care about that. But you can add that right back in for relative pennies with a 4K HDMI dongle.
Try adding USB-C with power delivery to an OLED TV. Correct, it’s not gonna happen.
If that makes this sound like the monitor deal to end all monitor deals, albeit the outright cost remains pretty high, there are a few issues to consider. As an LG-based OLED monitor, full-screen brightness is poor. You’re looking at something in the region of 150 nits.
Then there are the related questions of ergonomics and pixel density. At 48 inches, this thing is really too big for normal desktop usage. 4K stretched over 48 inches also makes for awfully pedestrian pixel density when viewed at normal monitor-like distances.
Sit further away, some will say, to which we’d respond, just get a smaller display and sit in a normal position. Buying something big and then making it effectively smaller by putting it in the distance to fix the pixel density is an obvious nonsense.
Anyway, that digression aside, if you’re in the market for this class of display, this is undeniably a red-hot steal of a deal.
