Why you can trust Tom's Hardware Our expert reviewers spend hours testing and comparing products and services so you can choose the best for you. Find out more about how we test.
OSD Setup & Calibration
The C4008VU8 sticks to AOC’s tried-and-true menu strip which appears at the bottom of the screen and covers almost its full width. Navigation is very easy with the joystick, which changes fields and selects with a press. It feels high-end with solid feedback and a complete lack of play. This is the way all monitors should be.
The Luminance menu features six picture modes plus a seventh that turns on a uniformity compensation option. Standard is the default and renders the monitor’s full DCI-P3 color gamut. If you’re looking for the sRGB gamut, it’s found in the Color Setup menu with the color temp presets. You'll also find three gamma presets, dynamic contrast, and three overdrive settings. The medium option is the best with minimal ghosting and noticeable motion blur reduction.
The Image Setup menu is only available for analog VGA signals. It lets you tweak the clock, phase, sharpness, and picture position.
Color Setup starts with four temperature presets plus a user mode. The latter has a single-point adjustment with sliders that start at center range. In our tests, we couldn’t improve upon the C4008VU8’s out-of-box grayscale tracking. It’s decent with or without calibration but not quite in professional monitor territory. This menu also has DCB modes that alter color in green, sky, and flesh tones. Finally, there is a low blue light setting with weak, medium, and strong options. It can be used to reduce eye fatigue during long work sessions.
This monitor boasts AOC’s trademark Picture Boost menu, with its ability to highlight a specific area of the image. You can alter the frame size and position, then adjust brightness and contrast within it independent of the surrounding picture.
OSD setup has 16 language choices, timeout up to 120 seconds, menu position, and transparency. You can set a one-hour break reminder if you wish. For compatibility with older video cards, there is a DP 1.1 option. And the HDMI 2.0 port can be set to version 1.4 if needed for certain Blu-ray players.
The C4008VU8 is a perfect display for PIP and PBP. You can view up to four sources at once thanks to the wide variety of inputs. The PIP window can be sized and moved to any corner of the screen. You can also control which source receives audio support.
The Extra menu has an input selector, off timer (up to 24 hours), aspect ratio control, DDC/CI toggle, and a factory reset.
Calibration
Calibrating the C4008VU8 required us to make a few compromises. In Standard mode, grayscale tracking and gamma are quite good except for the brightest parts of the image, which look a little blue. Reducing the contrast control helps with that. Adjusting the RGB sliders produces a slightly different look but no improvement in error levels. We don’t recommend the uniformity compensation, because it cuts brightness and contrast by about half. And our sample didn’t need improvement, it aced our field tests. Also, the only way to reduce the color gamut to sRGB is by selecting the preset of the same name in the color temp menu. Unfortunately, that makes the white point visibly red. We recommend either using the Standard mode with a 10-click reduction in contrast, or performing a full calibration. The resulting numbers are about the same. And you’ll be viewing all content in the DCI-P3 gamut, which is more saturated than sRGB. Here are the settings we came up with.
| AOC C4008VU8 Calibration Settings | |
|---|---|
| Eco Mode | Standard |
| Brightness 200cd/m2 | 91 |
| Brightness 120cd/m2 | 36 |
| Brightness 100cd/m2 | 23 |
| Brightness 80cd/m2 | 10 |
| Contrast | 40 |
| Gamma | 1 |
| Color Temp User | Red 50, Green 53, Blue 52 |
MORE: Best Gaming Monitors
MORE: Best Professional Monitors
MORE: How We Test Monitors
MORE: How To Choose A Monitor
MORE: All Monitor Content
