Anyone else find OLEDs' progression disappointing?
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Dalek
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Re: Anyone else find OLEDs' progression disappointing?
Yep, I'm also disappointed as well.
I was really excited about getting an OLED monitor, having kept track of them since the first LG one that came out in late 2022.
Having finally tried two QD-OLED monitors last year, the lack of RGB sub-pixel layout was a huge dealbreaker for me. I got quite a lot of eyestrain from it.
Now there's finally an RGB subpixel layout available for OLEDs, but sadly they're either: glossy/semi-glossy and only 240hz
Add on top that most OLEDs aren't matte coating either which I'd much prefer, it will probably be another year or two until something like that is available.
Positives
-Having briefly play The Last of Us in the dark without the ceiling light on, the contrast and colours were the wow moment I was hoping for. It reminded me of the vivid colours of a CRT.
-Playing at 500hz was a fun and memorable experience
What I'm currently waiting for: 600hz or higher on a 1440p OLED with RGB subpixel layout.
But if I could pick a dream OLED monitor that should hopefully be obtainable within the next few years:
-5K, 1440p dual mode that scales perfectly between both resolutions, zero compromise with the scaler so that both modes look extremely sharp.
but with:
-27" 600hz 1440p OLED
-RGB Subpixel Layout
-Matte coating
-Even more reduced flickering if possible (not that flickering ever bothered me personally)
On a more positive note, I am optimistic it will only be another 3-5 years for OLEDs to mature properly, and we'll be closer to 1000hz at useable resolutions.
I was really excited about getting an OLED monitor, having kept track of them since the first LG one that came out in late 2022.
Having finally tried two QD-OLED monitors last year, the lack of RGB sub-pixel layout was a huge dealbreaker for me. I got quite a lot of eyestrain from it.
Now there's finally an RGB subpixel layout available for OLEDs, but sadly they're either: glossy/semi-glossy and only 240hz
Add on top that most OLEDs aren't matte coating either which I'd much prefer, it will probably be another year or two until something like that is available.
Positives
-Having briefly play The Last of Us in the dark without the ceiling light on, the contrast and colours were the wow moment I was hoping for. It reminded me of the vivid colours of a CRT.
-Playing at 500hz was a fun and memorable experience
What I'm currently waiting for: 600hz or higher on a 1440p OLED with RGB subpixel layout.
But if I could pick a dream OLED monitor that should hopefully be obtainable within the next few years:
-5K, 1440p dual mode that scales perfectly between both resolutions, zero compromise with the scaler so that both modes look extremely sharp.
but with:
-27" 600hz 1440p OLED
-RGB Subpixel Layout
-Matte coating
-Even more reduced flickering if possible (not that flickering ever bothered me personally)
On a more positive note, I am optimistic it will only be another 3-5 years for OLEDs to mature properly, and we'll be closer to 1000hz at useable resolutions.
- Chief Blur Buster
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Re: Anyone else find OLEDs' progression disappointing?
Agreed. There's some rough edges on OLEDs too, but relatively speaking, the OLED has been a bullet train compared to the LCD doldrums we've been stuck in for almost 20 years. The quality of a 2006-era TN LCD is almost the same color quality of a 2026-era TN LCD. In my closet, I still have my Samsung 245BW, one of the the first 2ms TN LCD. Surprising not much change.
Obviously, OLEDs will have to mature, as there's a lot of legitimate shortcomings. Valid complaints.
Ahem.NDUS wrote: ↑16 Apr 2026, 09:59But OLEDs do burn in. Proponents of OLED will tell you to just hide the task bar, avoid playing games or using software with static UI elements (ie. all of them), and basically totally change how you use your computer to avoid the glaring downside of OLEDs that manufacturers still haven't fixed.
Longest lasting OLEDs outlast shortest lasting LCDs now; venn diagram overlaps!
LCDs, especially backlights, also degrade too. https://www.rtings.com/tv/learn/longevi ... -10-months
OLED burn in is exaggerated, especially for 240Hz-and-up WOLEDs
Backlights have a finite life and they're cheapening too, while OLEDs are getting more durable. Tandem wear-levels multiple layers, and it's logarithmic (half brightness per layer = geometrically longer life). The better OLEDs can outlast the worst LCDs now.
I've been office-dogfooding my OLEDs for Visual Studio aggressively....
After 3 years of Visual Studio use, there's super faint stuff going on that I don't notice until displaying certain dark grey fields, and I really have to look. But I see worsened stuff on LCDs too like worse "backlight bleed style artifacts" (not bleed but similar looking to bleed) attributed to LED wear and tear and other similar factors. But it's not nearly as objectionable as the dimming I've witnessed on some cheap LCDs as of late. The 245BW CCFL is now failed (usually), and the XL2411T is pretty dim (70% dimmer) than when I got it new. But some newer TVs are degrading faster (ugh) to a splotchiness more objectionable than the ultra-faint stuff I see only after 3 years of intense office usage. Mind you, there's also some superlative LED backlights that lasts longer, and some OLEDs with not enough lifetime - some panels definitely have and did burn in too fast. It's not a full intersection; just a good venn diagram overlapping.
That all I want to reply to this thread about today.
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NDUS
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Re: Anyone else find OLEDs' progression disappointing?
The test you linked is LCDs with local dimming, and it looks way less egregious than OLED degredation. OLED degradation is having the Windows 11 taskbar and the Overwatch HUD seared into your monitor permanently in all scenarios, locally-dimmed backlight degradation is the bottom of your backlight being brighter than the top when on a fullbright test screen. Really hard to notice, which is why nobody talks about it while everyone knows and discusses OLED degradationChief Blur Buster wrote: ↑19 Apr 2026, 21:52Longest lasting OLEDs outlast shortest lasting LCDs now; venn diagram overlaps!
Also bears saying that it isn't difficult/expensive to replace the backlight for an LCD screen (replacements cost tens of dollars, sometimes doesn't even require soldering) while an OLED is damaged forever and must be thrown away.
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kalston
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Re: Anyone else find OLEDs' progression disappointing?
No, OLED burn-in isn't what you seem to think it is. Burn-in is pixels aging faster than others, and thus looking darker than neighbouring pixels because their brightness capacity is less than before.
It's far less noticeable than people think, in real world with a reasonable brightness and varied content. I've had an LG OLED TV from 2020 used as a monitor (mostly gaming with static HUDs), it has 25000+ hours and even if I can spot (by straining my eyes and moving within 30cm of a 48" screen) slight burn-in on a solid colour background (and only some colours, that is), it still looks flawless in real world usage.
Obviously I don't use it with max brightness but I didn't buy OLED to use it in a bright room, the tech is simply not suited for that, in a bright room you won't even perceive the infinite contrast of OLED due to how our eyes work so I would simply go LCD for that use case, since some LCDs do manage to be decently fast.
The LCD data from Rtings shows far worse failures (and a great diversity of them), with some models that fail to start or have their entire screen affected in a way that will be more noticeable than some OLED burn-in. And replacing the backlight of LCDs is far beyond what most people will do, if it's easy for you, great, but people will generally throw those screens if not under warranty.
And no the test linked includes plenty of cheap edge lit LCDs, not just expensive FALD. The FALD models tend to be higher end (and expensive) and experience different failures.
It's far less noticeable than people think, in real world with a reasonable brightness and varied content. I've had an LG OLED TV from 2020 used as a monitor (mostly gaming with static HUDs), it has 25000+ hours and even if I can spot (by straining my eyes and moving within 30cm of a 48" screen) slight burn-in on a solid colour background (and only some colours, that is), it still looks flawless in real world usage.
Obviously I don't use it with max brightness but I didn't buy OLED to use it in a bright room, the tech is simply not suited for that, in a bright room you won't even perceive the infinite contrast of OLED due to how our eyes work so I would simply go LCD for that use case, since some LCDs do manage to be decently fast.
The LCD data from Rtings shows far worse failures (and a great diversity of them), with some models that fail to start or have their entire screen affected in a way that will be more noticeable than some OLED burn-in. And replacing the backlight of LCDs is far beyond what most people will do, if it's easy for you, great, but people will generally throw those screens if not under warranty.
And no the test linked includes plenty of cheap edge lit LCDs, not just expensive FALD. The FALD models tend to be higher end (and expensive) and experience different failures.
- Chief Blur Buster
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Re: Anyone else find OLEDs' progression disappointing?
Incorrect. Not true for all LCD vs OLED cases.
I've seen local dimming have more egregous degradation than some OLEDs.
It varies depending on the display. You're cherrypicking older models of OLEDs, not the newer longer-lasting OLED formulations.
In addition, I have degraded non-locally-dimmed LCDs here too.
While this is true, this is now impossible on newer LCDs. The backlight assemblies are now hardcoded in a difficult-to-disassemble panel because of the race-to-bottom $100 LCDs. It's really annoying.
Manufacturers now have 3-year burn in warranty. That's a pretty big improvement.
I'll be blunt: After dogfooding my office for years with OLED, we currently don't need OLED chicken-littles on this forums. Please go somewhere else if you want to keep chicken-littling and parrotting OLED burn in around here. That stuff will be unceremoniously shot down like a champion FPS player.
Burn tends to be no longer a worry for cheaper 240Hz OLEDs -- There are many sub-$500 (several $300-$400) regular priced 240Hz OLED from Amazon that includes a 3-year burn in warranty. If OLED is still too expensive in your country, wait longer. 240Hz OLED is rapidly falling in price and I've already seen $299 sales on 240Hz OLED, if you prefer to wait for sales. I wouldn't be surprised for $250 in eventual sales later this year, especially if shipping disruptions lifts.
Just simply search amazon.com [Affiliate link: Amazon pays a small commision to Blur Busters] for "240Hz OLED" and scroll the prices; there's a $339, $379, $399 and a few other prices under $400 today for an OLED gaming monitor. It may be expensive in Europe or Canada, but the prices are now pretty reasonable for 240Hz OLEDs, especially since many of them now include a 3-year burnin warranty. If it made it to the end of 3-year without burnin, then burnin will still be faint after the 6th year and won't be objectionable until 10th year or beyond, depending on how much you use it.
I hate planned obscolence but 10 year is already longer-lasting than some brands of washing machines and dryer machines. OLED gaming monitors are now durable territory, unlike yesteryear OLEDs (especially 165Hz QD-OLED that burnt in faster, and especially older LG B6 OLED TVs).
RTINGs OLED burn in is great tests, but you can also clearly see they demonstrate maximum 24/7 at maximum intensity. Extrapolating some of those RTINGs display results in multiple years, and the 240Hz+ displays are actually even longer lasting than those TVs now, as RTINGs has not yet included 240Hz+ *W*-OLED in some of their burnin tests.
If you display tons of statics and are picky about issues, don't get OLED, but burn in is obviously an exaggerated concern given things like LCD backlight glow problems and other things like that. The whole package deal is what's important, and if the display is still enjoyable after 5-10 years. You're no longer paying $1500 for a 240Hz OLED, they're less than $400 now in the states for non-sale OLEDs on Amazon; and will occasionally hit closer to $300 during good sales (e.g. Prime Day).
No display is perfect. But one cannot scream OLED without screaming LCD at the same time. Be fair, apples vs apples, call out problems with both. Screaming OLED without screaming LCD at the same time? Look at both.
___
OLED progression is dissapointing in the blacks, but not in burn-in improvement progress.
Both LCD and OLEDs are good, but this is a red herring to the wrong dissapointment tree in a forest.
Burn-in is no longer an OLED dissapointment
*Assumes minimum Hz >= 240Hz AND fomulation = recent (WOLED, tandem, or similar).
Slow LCD Hz Progression
The first 120Hz LCD was 2009.
- 2016: It took until 2016 to get 240Hz (AOC AG251FZ, Zowie XL2540, etc)
- 2023: It took until 2023 to get 480Hz (ASUS PG248QP, etc) via big brands, though announcements occured in 2022, and zisworks did www.blurbusters.com/480hz
- 2026: Finally 1000 Hz is here (but 480 Hz OLED is still clearer motion, see www.blurbusters.com/5000hz for bad 1000 Hz LCD versus good 720Hz OLED image)
Fast OLED Hz Progression
The first OLED gaming monitor didn't arrive until 2022 but Hz progress was fast
- 2022: The first 165Hz OLED came out in 2022 - Alienware AW3423DW (165Hz) which burned in really fast
- 2023: The first 240Hz OLED came out in 2023 - LG UltraGear 27GR95QE / 45GR95QE (and a bunch of others), WOLED stopped burning in fast
- 2024: The first 480Hz OLED came out in 2024 - LG UltraGear 32GS95UE (And a bunch of others)
- 2026: The first 720Hz OLED came out in 2026 - ASUS PG27AQWP-W and LG UltraGear 27GX790B-B
The OLED Hz is currently a bullet train catching up rapidly; it is not dissapointing to me; and now has 3-year burnin warranties.
Some mediocre attributes
While OLED is stunning in most attributes; other items are still not progressing as fast as I would like:
- Relatively dim HDR compared to bright MiniLEDs; though tandem formulations are helping
- OLED BFI limitations; albiet overrideable by using DIY solutions; and
- OLED grey field consistency;
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NDUS
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Re: Anyone else find OLEDs' progression disappointing?
Not sure what a "chicken-little" is, but I do know that having this kind of emotional reaction to someone disagreeing with you about OLED being good is strange. Especially when it occurs alongside affiliate links to purchase OLED monitors.Chief Blur Buster wrote: ↑21 Apr 2026, 23:08I'll be blunt: After dogfooding my office for years with OLED, we currently don't need OLED chicken-littles on this forums. Please go somewhere else if you want to keep chicken-littling and parrotting OLED burn in around here. That stuff will be unceremoniously shot down like a champion FPS player.
I guess those OLED companies purchasing "blurbusters certifications" got to you, huh?
Your knowledge of monitors seems weirdly inaccurate when it comes to things where you're financially involved. For example:
Just horrifically incorrect. The opposite couldn't be more true. I have a TN right next to me which chromatically mogs plenty of *IPS* monitors, let alone the old TNs:Chief Blur Buster wrote: ↑19 Apr 2026, 21:52The quality of a 2006-era TN LCD is almost the same color quality of a 2026-era TN LCD. In my closet, I still have my Samsung 245BW, one of the the first 2ms TN LCD. Surprising not much change.

OLED is still burning in. 3 year warranty (on premium models only, with caveats like "expect some burn-in") - incredible. I sure do want to spend $1000 on a three-year consumable which has inferior motion clarity to monitors with 1/3 the price.
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t2na
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Re: Anyone else find OLEDs' progression disappointing?
I'm a little between both responses to this regarding burn in.
It'd be foolish for us to completely believe that burn in is no longer a thing with OLED monitors. However, I also think burn in should not be as much of a concern as it has been previously and I think people are often too 'scared' to use their monitor for what it is out of burn in fear.
Manufacturers have done a fantastic job with improving OLED care from the amount of features we get on monitors now to the panel tech itself - but burn is just part of the parcel with OLED. It might happen after years, it might happen sooner depending on your approach to the panel.
--
In terms of the actual thread title, my main disappointment with OLED is around the proper RGB pixel layout - which is now gradually appearing. The sooner this appears for standard 16:9 27" 1440p monitors the sooner that completely takes away that negative for me.
VRR flicker is the only other one that disappoints me. I'd hope by now we'd see more improvements here, I've used the Asus 'anti-flicker' settings but it fundamentally doesn't make a huge difference. If there is more progression made around resolving / reducing noticeable VRR flicker and some further brightness improvements then that would make me very happy! Hopefully we see a 27" 360+hz 1440p monitor with true RGB stripe pixel layout this year, I'd be jumping to that immediately.
It'd be foolish for us to completely believe that burn in is no longer a thing with OLED monitors. However, I also think burn in should not be as much of a concern as it has been previously and I think people are often too 'scared' to use their monitor for what it is out of burn in fear.
Manufacturers have done a fantastic job with improving OLED care from the amount of features we get on monitors now to the panel tech itself - but burn is just part of the parcel with OLED. It might happen after years, it might happen sooner depending on your approach to the panel.
--
In terms of the actual thread title, my main disappointment with OLED is around the proper RGB pixel layout - which is now gradually appearing. The sooner this appears for standard 16:9 27" 1440p monitors the sooner that completely takes away that negative for me.
VRR flicker is the only other one that disappoints me. I'd hope by now we'd see more improvements here, I've used the Asus 'anti-flicker' settings but it fundamentally doesn't make a huge difference. If there is more progression made around resolving / reducing noticeable VRR flicker and some further brightness improvements then that would make me very happy! Hopefully we see a 27" 360+hz 1440p monitor with true RGB stripe pixel layout this year, I'd be jumping to that immediately.
- kyube
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Re: Anyone else find OLEDs' progression disappointing?
It's anecdotal evidence from a discord server that I've copied.NDUS wrote: ↑16 Apr 2026, 15:51You can't see anything else because in your words you mainly browse on your computer. If you played a game regularly the HUD would also be burnt in. What you can't see, because it's global, is the color shift / decalibration across the entire panel. Unavoidable, and does away with the biggest marketed upside of OLED (color accuracy)
This is a extreme example of 0 care (all features off) for OLED as well, which goes to show how resilient they actually are in practice.
I don't see how a game HUD bar is harder on OLED than a taskbar, thus you coming to a conclusion that "HUD would also burn in"?...
I never stated that burn-in won't happen.
The point is the intensity of the effect and how long it takes for the effect to appear
No, this isn't tearing. For someone shilling +500Hz strobing, not knowing this part is funnyNDUS wrote: ↑16 Apr 2026, 15:51No idea what this is about - are you talking about tearing? Personally I've never even noticed tearing above 200fps or so. And there are Pulsar displays with gsync + ULMB2 now. The bottom line is that strobing just looks better for basically 99% of people - less blurry than anything else bar CRTs. Any comparison of strobing vs adaptive sync will show strobing is less blurry, regardless of whatever edge effects we nitpick over.
See: https://blurbusters.com/faq/advanced-st ... stalk-faq/
And no, Pulsar (VRR+PWM) is terrible from a eye comfort & objective experience perspective.
I've singlehandedly went through 15k games, in order to find titles which run +500FPS.NDUS wrote: ↑16 Apr 2026, 15:51The majority of popular multiplayer games (with some exceptions here and there: tarkov, rust, etc.) will happily run at 500+ fps on a good CPU. Just by the ones I play, I can name Overwatch, Warthunder, TF2, CS2, Valorant... I'm guessing of the top 25 Steam games, probably 10-15 can hit those framerates. This goes without saying that most old games can run that fast as long as you disable the FPS limiter.
Even modern singleplayer games will hit those frames sometimes, especially with frame generation or reprojection. I recently played RE9 and even with everything maxed I could hit 500+ fps with framegen 4x.
Those ones you've named are cherrypicked and don't represent the larger population of games
For the latter (MFG), that's a even smaller subset of games on the market and it comes with it's own detriments (temporal instability in form of artifacting)
No. A display which does full on-off pulses at 60-200Hz cannot be the better eye comfort experience in the slightest. Ever.
This also completely disregards the discussion of display resolution (pixel density), as I've chosen temporal information being more important over spatial information for eye comfort.
That's a WOLED specific concern. Not a thing on QD-OLED or new UW RGB stripe panels.
Let's wait for the 2nd RGB stripe panel to come out (PG27UCWM) and see if LG fixed the vertical banding (which I assume you're referring to)
I agree, TN's have evolved tremendously in terms of color reproduction. I also don't understand Chief's statement there.NDUS wrote: ↑16 Apr 2026, 15:51Just horrifically incorrect. The opposite couldn't be more true. I have a TN right next to me which chromatically mogs plenty of *IPS* monitors, let alone the old TNs:Chief Blur Buster wrote: ↑19 Apr 2026, 21:52The quality of a 2006-era TN LCD is almost the same color quality of a 2026-era TN LCD. In my closet, I still have my Samsung 245BW, one of the the first 2ms TN LCD. Surprising not much change.
--snip--
You could've picked the superior model tho (XL2586X / 86X+), as they employ a QD-based backlight. Here
It's a shame that both are limited to FRL4
A glossy screen protector, to remove the abhorrent grainy matte coating, would boost perceived contrast and image quality even further
I've seen LCDs also die <5 years, that doesn't make me believe all LCDs are fickle creatures.
We still don't have long-term data on OLED (+5 years) of a large enough sample size to claim OLED is somehow "trash".
No one here has denied that a organic material won't burn-in, as mentioned above.
I do agree with you that LCD offers more variety compared to OLED, with the ability to use VRR & BlStrobing, as opposed to good S&H only.
Though, this discussion completely disregards OLED's faster G2G RT (across all combinations) affecting overall perceived refresh rate compared to TNs, eye strain concerns of strobing, the strong matte coating of TNs (fixable to some extent) & the pixel density of +500Hz TNs
Although, the last point is somewhat debatable, as 24" FHD & 27" QHD isn't that large of a difference.
As for the pricing claim:
https://geizhals.eu/?cat=monlcd19wide&x ... E11963_480
https://geizhals.eu/?cat=monlcd19wide&x ... E11963_480
The cheapest TN (600Hz) is 500eur
The cheapest QD-OLED (500Hz) with DP80 is 645eur
That's not quite 1/3, is it now?
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- Chief Blur Buster
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Re: Anyone else find OLEDs' progression disappointing?
Addressing Incredible TN Improvements Over Old TNs
(And you acknowledged "the old TNs" -- bingo.)
Historicals.
So correcting what I said:
Mind you, the best TN's are pretty good nowadays, beating the worst IPS. Wide-gamut TN now exist, whereas it didn't before.
It was historically correct that, on average, IPS was much more colorful than TN.
When the great IPS first came out, things like the 30 inch wide-gamut IPS monitors of year ~2005. Like Look at that era.
See, Apple Cinema 30" (year 2004 IPS) and Dell 3007WFP (year 2006 IPS) versus a Samsung 226BW or 245BW (year 2007 TN). I was there, when the LCDs replaced CRT
The older IPS was shockingly colorful compared to the newer TN in that era. It was literally wide-gamut vs narrow-gamut. It was almost universally common that IPS color beat TN color at one time in the past.
It's a venn-diagram-overlaps situation TOO.
(Ahh, we can debate who spun what words, but if you reply to this -- study history first prior to your reply. If you do AI research, narrow-scope to historicals and YourFavouriteAI-dot-Com will suddenly agree with me.)
But Also Acknowledging The Package Deal:
(Color AND Response AND Blur)
You could only pick one or two out of three.
- You had good color but poor response
- You had good color but poor strobe crosstalk
- You had fast response but poor color
- You had fast response but lots of blur
Etc.
We have to also know that fast response doesn't necessarily equal low blur (see GtG vs MPRT) if you're throttled by low-Hz sample and hold. The sheer high Hz of new 480-720Hz OLED finally addresses the blur part without adding eyestrain-flicker strobing for the flicker-sensitive people amongst us.
One problem is that 20 years ago we couldn't have fast pixel response (2ms GtG happened in 2006) and great color (the slow IPS) and great low blur (the CRTs), all at once in the same screen.
Also, it's important to acknowledge simultaneous rankings (color) AND (performance) AND (low blur) too.
We could add more package deal line items like blacks (good and bad lineitems) and others.
If you throw in package deal factors -- the nitpicks over just-color starts to expand far beyond. The package deal difference of most (e.g. 80-90%) of 2006-vs-2026 LCDs is dissapointingly smaller (80-90% of the time) than the package deal difference of LCD vs OLED.
Good MiniLEDs distort the package deal -- for example, Apple MiniLEDs have fantastic color but pretty crappy pixel response. Then again I met a shockingly impressive Lenovo 240Hz laptop MiniLED that performed perfectly with my CRT electron beam simulator, and so, those cherrypicked MiniLEDs + external strobing actually kept up (unlike slow-responding MiniLEDs where the FALD lagged behind LCD scanout).
However, the cheapest 240Hz OLEDs look better than cheapest MiniLED monitors (with crappy slow-lagged FALD that are strobe-incompatible). Not very "Blur Busters" in motion blur quality in a good package deal of (color + blur + response).
Yes it's fun to throw "cherrypick missiles", but let's do a goalpost position correction.
(And you acknowledged "the old TNs" -- bingo.)
Historicals.
So correcting what I said:
Still true. LCD quality improvements have been marginal 2006-2026 comparatively speaking compared to the OLED bullet train.The quality of an 2006-era TN LCD is almost the same color quality of an AVERAGE 2026-era TN LCD. In my closet, I still have my Samsung 245BW, one of the the first 2ms TN LCD. Surprising not much change.
Mind you, the best TN's are pretty good nowadays, beating the worst IPS. Wide-gamut TN now exist, whereas it didn't before.
It was historically correct that, on average, IPS was much more colorful than TN.
When the great IPS first came out, things like the 30 inch wide-gamut IPS monitors of year ~2005. Like Look at that era.
See, Apple Cinema 30" (year 2004 IPS) and Dell 3007WFP (year 2006 IPS) versus a Samsung 226BW or 245BW (year 2007 TN). I was there, when the LCDs replaced CRT
The older IPS was shockingly colorful compared to the newer TN in that era. It was literally wide-gamut vs narrow-gamut. It was almost universally common that IPS color beat TN color at one time in the past.
It's a venn-diagram-overlaps situation TOO.
(Ahh, we can debate who spun what words, but if you reply to this -- study history first prior to your reply. If you do AI research, narrow-scope to historicals and YourFavouriteAI-dot-Com will suddenly agree with me.)
But Also Acknowledging The Package Deal:
(Color AND Response AND Blur)
You could only pick one or two out of three.
- You had good color but poor response
- You had good color but poor strobe crosstalk
- You had fast response but poor color
- You had fast response but lots of blur
Etc.
We have to also know that fast response doesn't necessarily equal low blur (see GtG vs MPRT) if you're throttled by low-Hz sample and hold. The sheer high Hz of new 480-720Hz OLED finally addresses the blur part without adding eyestrain-flicker strobing for the flicker-sensitive people amongst us.
One problem is that 20 years ago we couldn't have fast pixel response (2ms GtG happened in 2006) and great color (the slow IPS) and great low blur (the CRTs), all at once in the same screen.
Also, it's important to acknowledge simultaneous rankings (color) AND (performance) AND (low blur) too.
We could add more package deal line items like blacks (good and bad lineitems) and others.
If you throw in package deal factors -- the nitpicks over just-color starts to expand far beyond. The package deal difference of most (e.g. 80-90%) of 2006-vs-2026 LCDs is dissapointingly smaller (80-90% of the time) than the package deal difference of LCD vs OLED.
Good MiniLEDs distort the package deal -- for example, Apple MiniLEDs have fantastic color but pretty crappy pixel response. Then again I met a shockingly impressive Lenovo 240Hz laptop MiniLED that performed perfectly with my CRT electron beam simulator, and so, those cherrypicked MiniLEDs + external strobing actually kept up (unlike slow-responding MiniLEDs where the FALD lagged behind LCD scanout).
However, the cheapest 240Hz OLEDs look better than cheapest MiniLED monitors (with crappy slow-lagged FALD that are strobe-incompatible). Not very "Blur Busters" in motion blur quality in a good package deal of (color + blur + response).
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Re: Anyone else find OLEDs' progression disappointing?
So hoo boy, time to activate the UFO intercom speakers for a brief mo...
<UFO intercom="Announcement">
Hurry up and wait, buddy.
SSD progression has been more dissapointing than OLED.
RAM progression has been more dissapointing than OLED.
CPU progression has been more dissapointing than OLED.
Recent GPU progression is getting slow, slowly veering into more dissapointment.
Burnin-per-hour is more than 10x slower than back in the Bad Old "LG B6" Days.
I worry MASSIVELY more about my SSD -- the TBW problems (SSD rot) -- and the shutdown computer rot (SSD decay from lack of electricity).
Why Is Data Loss Less Important Than OLED Burn In?
A heavily written SSD can wear and tear faster than a heavily driven OLED.
Your 20 year old treasured digital photos less important than OLED burn in, especially if your SSD goes bad in your (computer|phone|laptop|device) and forget to pay your spicy-price cloud subscription long enough? Poof. Misplaced priorities IMHO, baby.
I can't safely store a SSD backup drive as safely as a HDD backup drive, slowing the **** down my offsite backups. Yes, you can pay the pretty penny for the delicious Sammy 990 Pro's or 9100 Pro's as your speed demon primary OS drive and Steam drive. Good longevity for a computer plugged 24/7 with that dollar. But its data eventually still dies if they're used as an external backup drive, so still back to square one.
Also...
Sub-$1K OLED monitors are still new
The first sub-$1000 OLED was only three years ago. Year 2023. Come on...
It's still early in the OLED bullet train journey.
I think a lot of concerns will improve.
I hope OLED manufacture doesn't enshittify like LCD manufacture is currently.
<Einstein Everything="Relative">Eye of the beholder.</Einstein>
I get it. Moore's law is dissapointing.
____
Displays Went Through An SSD-Feel Upgrade, Blur-Wise
So here's a pitch on Blur Busters <---- OUR FREAKING NAMESAKE
But what? OLED is the biggest computer-improvement currently going on, whatever dissapointments are going on is merely academic to the bigger dissapointments elsewhere. 120vs480 is more human visible than 60vs120, because of OLED, if you saw it in person. Going 60 LCD -> 480 OLED has an upgradefeel like upgrading HDD to SSD, bigger than a 60vs120 upgradefeel, and bigger than a 120vs480 upgradefeel.
Obviously, strobe-fans know better -- but for the mainstream wanting bright pictures, bright color, no strobing, and very low blur, it's currently a very rapidly-upgrading package.
With the 720Hz OLED (1.4ms MPRT at 720fps) now currently on my desk strobelessly producing less motionblur than LightBoost strobing (2.4ms), we already entered an era where "strobless has less motion blur than strobing". It's pretty darn impressive when sample and hold has less motionblur than BFI and strobe backlights*
Can you believe, that on my desk, is a sample and hold display, capable of producing "nearly as good as LightBoost 10%" (1ms MPRT) quality motion, without flicker-based motion blur reduction, without strobing, and without BFI? Blurless sample and hold era is here.
Even at 540fps 540Hz 1440p full resolution, it still produces less motion blur (1.9ms MPRT) than LightBoost 100% did (2.4ms MPRT). The first good strobe backlight, that truly launched Blur Busters fame with our old LightBoost HOWTO in year 2012-2013.
*Obvious catch: Requires 720fps content, since motionblur=frametime on sample and hold.
Blur Busters <---- OUR FREAKING NAMESAKE
That's Why Lots of Armchair Dissapointmentsplaining Happens:
Most haven't seen 720fps 720Hz OLED?
Now...
Acknowledgements to line-item LCD superiorities
But yes, OLED streaky greys for sensitive people can be a bigger problem than OLED burn in. A tradeoff, obviously. Some are getting much better though! Yes, Discorz returned his 480 Hz OLED due to the streaky blacks. For me, it's a minor trade for a bigger upgrade in terms of flicker-free blurfeel.
And yes, *good* LCD strobing is still better in blur busting, with a LOT of compromises. PureXP Ultra can still do 0.4ms MPRT on a ViewSonic XG2431. (Very dim though). And LCD VR headsets have standardized on approximately 0.3ms MPRT, with zero strobe crosstalk. Y'know, it's still flicker-based motion blur reduction. Yet, some of us have flicker-based eyestrain AND blur-based eyestrain. Finding a compromise is tough.
We can rant about disappointments about OLEDs -- but what if maaaaaaaaaybe OLED expectations were just too lofty? Settling for a 1 million dollar jackpot isn't exactly that dissapointing when you were hoping to win 10 million. OLED's still a fantastic introduction into the display market -- hopefully it does not enshittify from here.
</UFO>
<UFO intercom="Announcement">
Hurry up and wait, buddy.
SSD progression has been more dissapointing than OLED.
RAM progression has been more dissapointing than OLED.
CPU progression has been more dissapointing than OLED.
Recent GPU progression is getting slow, slowly veering into more dissapointment.
Burnin-per-hour is more than 10x slower than back in the Bad Old "LG B6" Days.
I worry MASSIVELY more about my SSD -- the TBW problems (SSD rot) -- and the shutdown computer rot (SSD decay from lack of electricity).
Why Is Data Loss Less Important Than OLED Burn In?
A heavily written SSD can wear and tear faster than a heavily driven OLED.
Your 20 year old treasured digital photos less important than OLED burn in, especially if your SSD goes bad in your (computer|phone|laptop|device) and forget to pay your spicy-price cloud subscription long enough? Poof. Misplaced priorities IMHO, baby.
I can't safely store a SSD backup drive as safely as a HDD backup drive, slowing the **** down my offsite backups. Yes, you can pay the pretty penny for the delicious Sammy 990 Pro's or 9100 Pro's as your speed demon primary OS drive and Steam drive. Good longevity for a computer plugged 24/7 with that dollar. But its data eventually still dies if they're used as an external backup drive, so still back to square one.
Also...
Sub-$1K OLED monitors are still new
The first sub-$1000 OLED was only three years ago. Year 2023. Come on...
It's still early in the OLED bullet train journey.
I think a lot of concerns will improve.
I hope OLED manufacture doesn't enshittify like LCD manufacture is currently.
<Einstein Everything="Relative">Eye of the beholder.</Einstein>
I get it. Moore's law is dissapointing.
____
Displays Went Through An SSD-Feel Upgrade, Blur-Wise
So here's a pitch on Blur Busters <---- OUR FREAKING NAMESAKE
But what? OLED is the biggest computer-improvement currently going on, whatever dissapointments are going on is merely academic to the bigger dissapointments elsewhere. 120vs480 is more human visible than 60vs120, because of OLED, if you saw it in person. Going 60 LCD -> 480 OLED has an upgradefeel like upgrading HDD to SSD, bigger than a 60vs120 upgradefeel, and bigger than a 120vs480 upgradefeel.
Obviously, strobe-fans know better -- but for the mainstream wanting bright pictures, bright color, no strobing, and very low blur, it's currently a very rapidly-upgrading package.
With the 720Hz OLED (1.4ms MPRT at 720fps) now currently on my desk strobelessly producing less motionblur than LightBoost strobing (2.4ms), we already entered an era where "strobless has less motion blur than strobing". It's pretty darn impressive when sample and hold has less motionblur than BFI and strobe backlights*
Can you believe, that on my desk, is a sample and hold display, capable of producing "nearly as good as LightBoost 10%" (1ms MPRT) quality motion, without flicker-based motion blur reduction, without strobing, and without BFI? Blurless sample and hold era is here.
Even at 540fps 540Hz 1440p full resolution, it still produces less motion blur (1.9ms MPRT) than LightBoost 100% did (2.4ms MPRT). The first good strobe backlight, that truly launched Blur Busters fame with our old LightBoost HOWTO in year 2012-2013.
*Obvious catch: Requires 720fps content, since motionblur=frametime on sample and hold.
Blur Busters <---- OUR FREAKING NAMESAKE
That's Why Lots of Armchair Dissapointmentsplaining Happens:
Most haven't seen 720fps 720Hz OLED?
Now...
Acknowledgements to line-item LCD superiorities
But yes, OLED streaky greys for sensitive people can be a bigger problem than OLED burn in. A tradeoff, obviously. Some are getting much better though! Yes, Discorz returned his 480 Hz OLED due to the streaky blacks. For me, it's a minor trade for a bigger upgrade in terms of flicker-free blurfeel.
And yes, *good* LCD strobing is still better in blur busting, with a LOT of compromises. PureXP Ultra can still do 0.4ms MPRT on a ViewSonic XG2431. (Very dim though). And LCD VR headsets have standardized on approximately 0.3ms MPRT, with zero strobe crosstalk. Y'know, it's still flicker-based motion blur reduction. Yet, some of us have flicker-based eyestrain AND blur-based eyestrain. Finding a compromise is tough.
We can rant about disappointments about OLEDs -- but what if maaaaaaaaaybe OLED expectations were just too lofty? Settling for a 1 million dollar jackpot isn't exactly that dissapointing when you were hoping to win 10 million. OLED's still a fantastic introduction into the display market -- hopefully it does not enshittify from here.
</UFO>
Head of Blur Busters - BlurBusters.com | TestUFO.com | Follow @BlurBusters on: BlueSky | Twitter | Facebook
Forum Rules wrote: 1. Rule #1: Be Nice. This is published forum rule #1. Even To Newbies & People You Disagree With!
2. Please report rule violations If you see a post that violates forum rules, then report the post.
3. ALWAYS respect indie testers here. See how indies are bootstrapping Blur Busters research!
