We all know Porsche for its lineup of luxury vehicles, but it also exercises its design prowess with other products too — including electronics. Thus, the Porsche Design group has joined forces with AOC’s AGON team to create the PD32M, a 144Hz gaming monitor that sports a 4K MiniLED display with HDR 1400 capabilities, all wrapped in a slick chassis that’s as classy as a Taycan.
The new PD32M gaming monitor is a follow-up to the 2020 release of the PD27; also designed by Porsche and AOC. With this new model, the two companies seek to refine the intricacies of this unorthodox premium design with something that’s as functional as it is fashionable.
As the press release puts it, the design teams drew inspiration from the characteristics of “rigidity and robustness,” which is embodied in the display housing and sandblasted aluminum cast stand.
The monitor has also been designed to be as compact as it is sturdy, leading to its various curves and tapers. In addition to this, the team stresses the careful placement of internal components to improve flow with the overall external design, a lot of which has again been inspired by elements of Porsche’s sports cars.
Also like Porsche’s vivid light fixtures on its cars, the PD32M even features customizable RGB lightning as a vibrant strip across the top rear and sides of its rear plate.
For creators and gamers
The PD32M is clearly meant to be as much a show piece as it is a well-equipped tool. The display is an IPS panel capable of “reproducing 1.07 billion colors to display even subtle differences in hues.” Work that requires definitive color accuracy can also be accomplished with this monitor, as it is been outfitted to cover 97% of the DCI-P3 color space.
The aforementioned MiniLED tech found in the screen offers 1,152 dimming zones, capable of individually lighting depending on what’s happening on-screen. All of this combined with its HDR 1400 capability means that the PD32M is truly equipped to handle just about anything you can throw at it, offering vivid color, intense brightness (1,400 nits at its peak) and deep blacks for darker scenes.
‘Tis only for a few bars of gold
The rest of its spec sheet is just as impressive, sporting response times as low as 1ms, and support for Adaptive-Sync, thus making it capable of handling Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) content. The IO is also great, consisting of four USB 3.2 ports for accessories, one DisplayPort 1.4 plus two HDMI 2.1 ports, along with a USB-C port that can handle supported devices.
If you happen to have multiple display sources plugged in, they can even be viewed in Picture-by-Picture mode. Porsche and AOC also made sure not to skimp out on this monitor’s sound capabilities, outfitting the PD32M with dual 8W speakers that have been enhanced by the engineers at DTS.
All-in-all, the PD32M monitor from Porsche Design and AOC clearly has every kind of user in mind: gamers, graphic designers, photographers, videographers — the list goes on. That said, all of these physical and technical perks that it has to offer do come with an equally upscale pricetag of $1799.00 USD. It’s available to order now via the Porsche Design website (and with a $30 shipping fee to boot).
This isn’t AOC’s only MiniLED monitor for 2022. There’s also the AG274QGM, which isn’t as feature-robust as this, but still has a lot going for it. Nevertheless, if your budget is lower, but you still want something rich in features, then check out the Corsair Xeneon a $650 USD gaming monitor that sports a 1440p resolution, 165Hz refresh rate, along with FreeSync & G-Sync compatibility, and more.
