Asus is finally sharing more details about its upcoming ROG Swift PG27AQDP, which looks to earn a slot among the best gaming monitors. We first saw this monitor at the beginning of the year, where it stood out as the first OLED monitor ever to reach at 480Hz refresh rate at 1440p. Since originally showing it off, Asus has been quiet about the display — until now.
The PG27AQDP officially launched at Gamescom, and it’s arriving at a shockingly low price of $1,000. That’s not cheap for a gaming monitor, or even an OLED monitor, but it’s much lower than the competition. The Acer Predator X27U F3, which matches Asus’ display in terms of specs and is due out any week now, could cost as much as $1,600, Acer says. It’s possible Acer will make a last-minute pricing adjustment in the face of the PG27AQDP.
Regardless, it’s shocking to see Asus leading on price. We’ve seen monitors like the MSI MPG 321URX that undercut the competition, but Asus normally focuses on a premium class of gaming monitors. The PG27AQDP isn’t cut down to hit a more affordable price in any way — it’s the same premium ROG design we’ve seen on monitors like the ROG PG32UCDM.
Asus is using a WOLED panel from LG Display, and it claims the monitor can hit 1,300 nits of peak brightness. Asus has already achieved the brightest OLED we’ve ever tested with the ROG Swift PG34WCDM, so 1,300 nits isn’t out of the question. Given that this is an OLED panel, the display also has theoretically infinite contrast and a response time of 0.03ms.
The PG27AQDP also debuts Asus’ new OLED Care+, which is a suite of burn-in prevention features that is coming to all of Asus’ OLEDs. The features include pixel cleaning, a screen saver, pixel shifting, logo brightness adjustment, taskbar detection, border detection, and global dimming detection, and it’ll be available inside of Asus’ Display Widget Center. If you’re unfamiliar, Display Widget Center allows you to control your monitor’s on-screen display with your keyboard and mouse.
Asus hasn’t put a firm release date on the PG27AQDP yet, but the company tells me the monitor is launching soon. It should arrive in the next few months, possibly at the end of September or beginning of October.
Apple is less than a day away from launching its highly anticipated OLED MacBook Pro with a touch-sensitive screen. But it appears that the upgrade is going to cost a pretty penny. According to a report by Bloomberg, Apple is reportedly eyeing a starting price of $2,899 for the 14-inch MacBook Pro, while the 16-inch version could start at $3,399 in the US.
"At $2,899, the 14-inch model would mark the highest starting price for a new MacBook Pro model, surpassing the $2,799 Apple charged for a 17-inch version introduced in 2006," says the report. The report claims that Apple is targeting a minimum price hike of $400 for its upcoming redesigned 14-inch and 16-inch MacBook Pro models.
I've spent a good amount of time digging into the spec sheet of the new M6 MacBook Pro (14-inch), and for all intents and purposes, this is a classic Apple "chip and connectivity" refresh. It's not a full redesign. The chassis, Liquid Retina XDR panel, speakers, ports, and battery, all of them carry over unchanged.
However, the M6 brings more cores, stronger on-device AI, higher memory bandwidth on the larger configs, and modern wireless. Here’s the practical rundown of what actually improved, and whether those gains are worth your money.
Two new highly requested iCloud plugins just got added to ChatGPT, giving people who rely on Apple’s Mail and Calendar services a way to search emails, check appointments, and manage their schedules directly through the chatbot.
The integration is rolling out to all ChatGPT plans, including the free tier. You can access it on the web, desktop, and iOS.