My subjective opinion/review about MSI MAG251RX. (Top1 240Hz IPS for sure)

[Chief Blur Buster]

LOL, To be blunt, that looks like blue sky with clouds to me. OLED black screen test looks like the tv is literally off. Dead pitch black everywhere, totally uniform. (I'd take a pic, but thats not what this thread or even forum is about)

OLED has that attribute. That said, OLED also has problems with panel lottery effects that ceates non-uniform banding effects that has thousands of complaints on Google.

I have visited enough conventions, production displays, and prototype displays that the venn diagram of OLED and multithousand-count high-end FALD LCD, overlaps. (local dimming backlights that uses several thousands LEDs). Also I've seen those Pansonic/HiSense "Dual Cell" double-layer LCDs that are defacto million-pixel FALD. I have seen local-dimmed FALD that is superior to OLED in many aspects, including one FALD LCD that had banding-free. I have also seen some LCDs that had better color gamut than some OLEDs. There are pros/cons of each respective tech.

I do not expect OLED/MicroLED to completely replace LCD until past the 2030s, I daresay the 2040s. OLED/MicroLED will slowly become more and more popular, but LCD has enough technological improvement. Today's bottom barrel $500 LCD gaming monitors are not representative of the best-color multithousand-dollar LCD displays *and* OLED displays I've seen.

Some niggly elements such as the Talbot-Plateau law is less of a barrier with LCD (outsourced light) than OLED (tiny pixels). The Talbot-Plateau theorem is the reason why the 10,000 nit display that I saw, is an LCD display, not an OLED display. That's also delicious nit headroom that could keep strobed HDR (e.g. 1000 nits at 1/10th persistence).

[Joel D]

The camera amplify the uniformity so what you're seeing isnt what one can see through the naked eye unless its the backlight bleed. Which is extremely distracting if its on the top bezel. If it was more on the corners, i wouldve kept it. Any BLB near the middle especially on the top bezel is a big no no.

My replacement is coming tomorrow fyi

Ahh, ok got it. Yea maybe the picture is making it look worse. And that's awesome ! Let us know how the new one makes out.

1200:1 contrast is the best among all of IPS. U dont wanna watch a movie in it? Then get a VA and enjoy your pixel smearing. Ive watched movies on my msi before and i have zero issues with it.

Nil on oled. If 55-65" is for u fine. Anything larger than 27" is way too big for gaming and general computer use.

I really don't watch movies on anything other than TV's (55 or larger) as they seem to look great on them and the size really helps with the experience. But that's just my personal taste I know. The other cons of it I just don't see. I guess for me, I see lack of color representation, true blacks, etc.. a lot more/before I notice the other issues ? IDK ? But a 4k blu ray movie off a quality blu ray player to a 4k good quality 55" tv looks like it can get no better to me (for movies).

But I 100% agree that gaming and computing (and my audio job's Pro Tools program) are to only be done on smaller higher ratio of pixel to size monitors. Movies just need true blacks for me. I definitely was not implying anyone uses a 55" OLED tv for computing. Gaming ? Sometimes if at 4k and game isn't overly reaction dependent.

You are right though, before I knock the MSI blacks just off a picture, I should test it first once it comes. Which leads me to a question, can I set the MSI to do less hz if I want to match say the movie/player if the source is not my computer ? Cause I'm getting my monitor before my computer comes and I'd like to test it out on normal stuff first.

OLED has that attribute. That said, OLED also has problems with panel lottery effects that ceates non-uniform banding effects that has thousands of complaints on Google.

Yea very familiar with that banding. Luckily my panel lottery was a dead on hit on first try ! Super uniform, unnoticeable banding effects, and not one dead pixel (that I've ever seen/found so far). But man, I was definitely worried about it because I heard of the complaints.

Most those complaints are for the 65" and up though. Which IMO is too big for 4k.

I have visited enough conventions, production displays, and prototype displays that the venn diagram of OLED and multithousand-count high-end FALD LCD, overlaps. (local dimming backlights that uses several thousands LEDs). Also I've seen those Pansonic/HiSense "Dual Cell" double-layer LCDs that are defacto million-pixel FALD. I have seen local-dimmed FALD that is superior to OLED in many aspects, including one FALD LCD that had banding-free. I have also seen some LCDs that had better color gamut than some OLEDs. There are pros/cons of each respective tech.

For sure, I never wanted sound like I thought OLED is best, or would be. Its just best for my personal price range, and tv/movie/some eye candy games usage for now. And was just kinda comparing the MSI's blacks/color to it is all.

[bigni]

have never used an IPS panel before but this one seems interesting. I don't really care about viewing angles but are the colors that much better on the MSI MAG251RX compared to the Acer Nitro XF252QX?

[RLCSContender*]

have never used an IPS panel before but this one seems interesting. I don't really care about viewing angles but are the colors that much better on the MSI MAG251RX compared to the Acer Nitro XF252QX?

Tbh, its really not the colors but the color SHIFT that makes a lot of people apprehensive about buying TN. Tn has a niche market such as competitive FPS gamers.

If you are not directly facing the monitor at a straight angle, there will be color shift. Move your head? Color shift. Hell, there's even color shift even if u view the tn monitor called distortion bcuz although u are facing it directly forwRd, the corners of the monitor are still at an angle since our eyes arent flat, its round. Which means the corners will look distorted as if u are loooking directly into a black hole.
The color uniformity and inaccurate colors are acceptable for most ppl who have never owned an IPS panel, but the color shift is a major dealnreaker for most ppl.

[forii]

Guys I found out nice way to boost your brightness with Anti Motion Blur on the MSI MAG.

You go into your nvidia panel or AMD and boost up your desktop brightness from 50% to like 75%, its a bit more bright. You can try same with the gamma, It might be even better, didn't test it yet in game.

As we know if you turn on your AMB your brightness setup is locked, but it doesnt happen with contrast, this thing you can also boost up to 70 (I would not go more than 70 due to bad yellow color)

Here is the photo from my nvidia panel (its in polish language though)

[Chief Blur Buster]

These are pros/cons of this --

It's a technique that can be used to reduce strobe crosstalk, speed up VA dim colors (avoid nasty parts of the GtG heatmap), reduce ghosting/coronas, etc.

When raising control panel brightness, you should also decrease Contrast (Kontrast) simultaneously, to preven the white clipping effect (bright whites getting clipped). Try testing Brightness 70% with a Contrast of 40% or so.

Increasing brightness of blacks is very useful for reducing strobe crosstalk and reducing ghosting/corona artifacts. You get crappy contrast but the strobe crosstalk is reduced, which is something some people prioritize over color -- it's why the first LightBoost monitors had poor colors, they used a slight amount of gamut compression to create improved overdrive for dark colors and bright colors.

I try to avoid this, as GtG is now fast enough most of the time. However, when you're pushing the limits of a panel (strobing near max Hz), this can reduce strobe crosstalk to compress the color gamit slightly (raise blacks brighter and lower whites dimmer a bit, to about 90% original gamut size). Another trick is the HDTV 16-235 trick too, though it's an abuse of that feature.

The penalty is worse colors/brightness. Though it does provide a kind of a shadow-boost feature for CS:GO and other games that benefits from such features -- though these adjustments can also be built into the monitor too as well.

[RLCSContender*]

Interesting

[RLCSContender*]

Forii, i dont recommend nvidia as a workaround to the locked brightness setting on the MSi' BFI.

The app controlmymonitor is a way to unlock the brightness without compromising the color gradient and color accuracy

[bigni]

have never used an IPS panel before but this one seems interesting. I don't really care about viewing angles but are the colors that much better on the MSI MAG251RX compared to the Acer Nitro XF252QX?

Tbh, its really not the colors but the color SHIFT that makes a lot of people apprehensive about buying TN. Tn has a niche market such as competitive FPS gamers.

If you are not directly facing the monitor at a straight angle, there will be color shift. Move your head? Color shift. Hell, there's even color shift even if u view the tn monitor called distortion bcuz although u are facing it directly forwRd, the corners of the monitor are still at an angle since our eyes arent flat, its round. Which means the corners will look distorted as if u are loooking directly into a black hole.
The color uniformity and inaccurate colors are acceptable for most ppl who have never owned an IPS panel, but the color shift is a major dealnreaker for most ppl.

You are right

[Chief Blur Buster]

You are right

That said, the best TN has better colors than the worst IPS -- assuming you're viewing head-on.

If you have seen enough TN panels and IPS panels, and also own a Spyder/i1 colorimeter, and run the calibration on them, there are a few really-good TN that outperforms the less-good IPS. Assuming you're viewing straight on -- with correct monitor height -- from at least arm's length away -- not from too far above and not too far below.

Mind you, the viewing angle issue is there (to varying extents) but this is not always critical for a solo competitive gamer on a desktop monitor. It's easy to adjust TN monitor position, after all.

You do have the typical crappy shadowboosted BenQ colors by default, until you switch it to "sRGB Mode" or "Movie Mode", then the colors suddenly get better -- and then you improve further with a Spyder or i1 colorimeter, and then of a surprise that formerly-crappy BenQ default calibration -- suddenly performs a little bit better than the worst IPS panels and decently do doable PhotoShop night class work... As long as you're viewing head-on and not tilting head around.

There are also wide-gamut TN panels (e.g. Viotek GFT27DB) with 115% sRGB, 1440p 144Hz with better-than-IPS colors. It really really pops. It doesn't even look like a TN until you tilt your head! I prefer to PhotoShop on that one than one of those fluorescent-backlit DELL monitors. Yep, that TN blows away an older Dell 60Hz IPS monitor still sitting at many office desktops (such as Dell 2407WFP, which is only approximately 72% sRGB). That TN.... just dazzles in color.

There's also certain IPS panels with somewhat worse-than-average-IPS viewing angles (even if not as bad as TN), as another playing-field-leveller that sometimes happen to increase venn diagram overlap when combined with all the above.

It's one of those overlapping venn diagrams.