Why are OLEDs dirt cheap when compared to LED monitors?

[venomtail]

Readying myself up for the 4K future I'll be upgrading to so I'm researching the market. Still torn on the choices as looking at comparisons online, the mini LED monitors have such high peak all screen brigtness, in some games and movies the OLED's seem pretty washed out.

Problem where the fight does not come close is when I start looking at prices. Current year OLED's go around £1.2k-£1.4k which seems quite cheap when compared against £1.7k-£4k prices of mini LED monitors I'm seeing on PC hardware sites. These LED monitors aren't gonna be 2-3x better from the asking price.

Why? Isn't the OLED technology meant to be the new expensive kid on the block? Yet it's the cheapest one here... Make it make sense please.

For reference top tier OLED £1.2k LG 32GS95UE-B vs top tier LED £3.5k ASUS PG32UQX. That Asus isn't 3 times as good now is it, right?

[SpecTre12345]

The problem with OLED tech is that they suffer from burn-in and I don't believe that will ever be remedied. They are just trying to offload lemons at this point I believe.

 

If I was spending that many dollars, I would be trying to get an NVIDA "BFGD", IMO. They can't be matched, from what I can tell through reviews.

[venomtail]

6 minutes ago, SpecTre12345 said:

The problem with OLED tech is that they suffer from burn-in and I don't believe that will ever be remedied. They are just trying to offload lemons at this point I believe.

 

If I was spending that many dollars, I would be trying to get an NVIDA "BFGD", IMO. They can't be matched, from what I can tell through reviews.

So you're saying the MSRP of £1.2k is actually just a short term disguised discount?

[SpecTre12345]

15 minutes ago, venomtail said:

So you're saying the MSRP of £1.2k is actually just a short term disguised discount?

 

Basically.

 

They know they have a short life expectancy (1-2 years before issues ensue). They probably would honor the RMAs, but that's only a band-aid to that type of ouroboros. 

[Electronics Wizardy]

That LCD monitor you listed seems pretty old now(2021 reviews), where as the OLED model seems to be from 2024. The LCD display also seems to sell for well under that MSRP in the US(IDK about UK though).

 

Ive used a good amount of oled displays and don't really see the washed out problem. Maybe cause I'm in a fairly dark room though. HDR is designed to scale pretty well to max screen brightness. I'd say oled brightness is more than fine unless your in a high ambient area. 

 

Those many backlight LCDs still have some of the LCD issues like the higher pixel update speeds compared to OLED displays, and the ghosting near the bright highlights. 

 

3 minutes ago, SpecTre12345 said:

 

Basically.

 

They know they have a short life expectancy (1-2 years before issues ensue). They probably would honor the RMAs, but that's only a band-aid to that type of ouroboros. 

Really depends on use case, but Ive seen way longer than this on the OLEDs Ive used. 

[xg32]

32 minutes ago, venomtail said:

So you're saying the MSRP of £1.2k is actually just a short term disguised discount?

i basically have a uqx, a c2, and a dwf, so i can answer some of those questions. I'll try to go through each monitor as concise as possible.

 

IMHO, pick the monitor with cons u can stomach the most, none of them are perfect

 

burn in fears are overblown (haven't seen any), and if it's cheap, just get a new one in 3-4 years.

 

The updated version is the uqxr (hdmi 2.1 port) and without gsync,  which is 1k usd, dunno what it is in euros, you do not want a gsync module in ur monitor anyway, they are hot and will break ur monitor along with it.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=pg32uqxr&crid=SJW2O5IJB9VT&sprefix=pg32uqx%2Caps%2C133&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

 

a budget version of this is the 32m2v for 500usd, slightly less color gamut and tuning overall, also available in 27inch

 

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=32m2v&crid=DNBP8WT7REPT&sprefix=32m2v%2Caps%2C161&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

 

pros

it has way better colors than the c2 and slightly better color than the dwf, can only tell side by side. Higher peak brightness (which i personally don't care about)

 

cons

blooming due to mini-led, grays are awful, really slow response time to the point where it's really only a 120hz monitor rather than 144hz.

 

For QD-OLED, i recommend the 321upx, make sure it's glossy if u can black out the room 

 

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=321upx&crid=3FGXZXTTQ0ASZ&sprefix=321upx%2Caps%2C136&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

 

better response time vs mini-led, better colors against woled, but there's a purple tint if u can notice it.

 

For WOLED i'd go with the pg32ucdp*, or any model you can find cheaper.

 

blacks are actually black unlike the other 2, scenes where most of the screen is dark is better too. color volume is bad (c2's bad now but i doubt it's improved much judging from reviews), proven burn-in track record.

 

I personally would not get woled anymore, but if u want true black and have a dark room, it's competitive. The greens are freaking awful on both my oleds compared to the mini-led.

 

 

 

[GuiltySpark_]

8 minutes ago, xg32 said:

For WOLED i'd go with the pg32ucdm

PG32UCDM is QD-OLED. PG32UCDP is WOLED. (annoyingly confusing to keep them all straight, I know)

 

Also @venomtail its helpful to note that there is OLED and LCD as two high level panel technologies. When you see "LED" its simply referring to the backlight type, but any LCD you buy today in the consumer space is using LED's for backlighting in some way. Cheap stuff and old stuff is edge lit, while the newer higher end stuff is using Mini-LED full array local dimming. You'd  have to go back 15+ years for LCD's that weren't LED backlit and instead used diffused CCFL tech.

 

As impressive as it is in *some* respects, only crazy people spend what they're asking for a PG32UQX in 2024.

[SpecTre12345]

40 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Really depends on use case, but Ive seen way longer than this on the OLEDs Ive used. 

 

I've been using this technology with cellular phones for many years, personally I don't trust it. But if you have observed otherwise, great for you!

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, SpecTre12345 said:

 

I've been using this technology with cellular phones for many years, personally I don't trust it. But if you have observed otherwise, great for you!

Have you had burn in issues with phones? Ive over all been pretty happy with my OLED phones(mostly iPhones) and its great to have video with no grey bars when watching.

[SpecTre12345]

5 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Have you had burn in issues with phones? Ive over all been pretty happy with my OLED phones(mostly iPhones) and its great to have video with no grey bars when watching.

 

Every phone I ever had that used this tech had so many burn in issues, to the point where I had to replace the phone.

[GuiltySpark_]

22 minutes ago, SpecTre12345 said:

 

Every phone I ever had that used this tech had so many burn in issues, to the point where I had to replace the phone.

Gotta be a use case thing. I've never seen burn in on a phone. I'm also at 7000 hours on my LG C2 as a desktop monitor and don't have a hint of it.

[SpecTre12345]

1 minute ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

Gotta be a use case thing. 

 

How so? Every time you use the phone, it will be a 'use case.'

[venomtail]

7 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

That LCD monitor you listed seems pretty old now(2021 reviews), where as the OLED model seems to be from 2024. The LCD display also seems to sell for well under that MSRP in the US(IDK about UK though).

 

Ive used a good amount of oled displays and don't really see the washed out problem. Maybe cause I'm in a fairly dark room though. HDR is designed to scale pretty well to max screen brightness. I'd say oled brightness is more than fine unless your in a high ambient area. 

 

Those many backlight LCDs still have some of the LCD issues like the higher pixel update speeds compared to OLED displays, and the ghosting near the bright highlights. 

 

Really depends on use case, but Ive seen way longer than this on the OLEDs Ive used. 

Weird that an older model slipped through, filtered 2024 models.

 

I was referencing a guy playing racket and clank and in the open world scenes, they weren't close. The OLED couldn't keep up with all screen brightness.

 

Yea, the comparisons aren't as easy as they should be cause they all get compared in the best light, to the point where I can't tell how far disingenuous many comparisons are.

 

Basically OLED is great for something like Dead Space but a struggle with something like Horizon Forbidden West.

[venomtail]

7 hours ago, xg32 said:

i basically have a uqx, a c2, and a dwf, so i can answer some of those questions. I'll try to go through each monitor as concise as possible.

 

IMHO, pick the monitor with cons u can stomach the most, none of them are perfect

 

burn in fears are overblown (haven't seen any), and if it's cheap, just get a new one in 3-4 years.

 

The updated version is the uqxr (hdmi 2.1 port) and without gsync,  which is 1k usd, dunno what it is in euros, you do not want a gsync module in ur monitor anyway, they are hot and will break ur monitor along with it.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=pg32uqxr&crid=SJW2O5IJB9VT&sprefix=pg32uqx%2Caps%2C133&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

 

a budget version of this is the 32m2v for 500usd, slightly less color gamut and tuning overall, also available in 27inch

 

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=32m2v&crid=DNBP8WT7REPT&sprefix=32m2v%2Caps%2C161&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

 

pros

it has way better colors than the c2 and slightly better color than the dwf, can only tell side by side. Higher peak brightness (which i personally don't care about)

 

cons

blooming due to mini-led, grays are awful, really slow response time to the point where it's really only a 120hz monitor rather than 144hz.

 

For QD-OLED, i recommend the 321upx, make sure it's glossy if u can black out the room 

 

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=321upx&crid=3FGXZXTTQ0ASZ&sprefix=321upx%2Caps%2C136&ref=nb_sb_noss_1

 

better response time vs mini-led, better colors against woled, but there's a purple tint if u can notice it.

 

For WOLED i'd go with the pg32ucdp*, or any model you can find cheaper.

 

blacks are actually black unlike the other 2, scenes where most of the screen is dark is better too. color volume is bad (c2's bad now but i doubt it's improved much judging from reviews), proven burn-in track record.

 

I personally would not get woled anymore, but if u want true black and have a dark room, it's competitive. The greens are freaking awful on both my oleds compared to the mini-led.

 

 

 

I'm hearing WOLED is the best of them all, at least in a PC setting.

[venomtail]

7 hours ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

PG32UCDM is QD-OLED. PG32UCDP is WOLED. (annoyingly confusing to keep them all straight, I know)

 

Also @venomtail its helpful to note that there is OLED and LCD as two high level panel technologies. When you see "LED" its simply referring to the backlight type, but any LCD you buy today in the consumer space is using LED's for backlighting in some way. Cheap stuff and old stuff is edge lit, while the newer higher end stuff is using Mini-LED full array local dimming. You'd  have to go back 15+ years for LCD's that weren't LED backlit and instead used diffused CCFL tech.

 

As impressive as it is in *some* respects, only crazy people spend what they're asking for a PG32UQX in 2024.

Saying that the ASUS mini led is overpriced? If it was in line with the competition when it comes to the price I could consider it but yea, x3 is just a bit too much.

[venomtail]

7 hours ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Have you had burn in issues with phones? Ive over all been pretty happy with my OLED phones(mostly iPhones) and its great to have video with no grey bars when watching.

 

6 hours ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

Gotta be a use case thing. I've never seen burn in on a phone. I'm also at 7000 hours on my LG C2 as a desktop monitor and don't have a hint of it.

2/3 of my phone's that have OLED screen's have burn in. The one that hasn't is still new enough but long term performance will have to be seen.

 

But you can't really compare phones vs TV's and monitors, as heat is the main enemy. TV's and monitors get proper cooling whilst many phones get pushed to the limit where they throttle and overheat thus further harming the OLED cells.

[Doobeedoo]

Well OLED is better. Depends also which models you are comparing. But Mini LED monitors were always a bridge gap to OLED but also very expensive on top and worse. I always saw them as waste.

[xg32]

8 hours ago, venomtail said:

I'm hearing WOLED is the best of them all, at least in a PC setting.

i wouldn't use an woled for pc cause of static images and just how bad some colors look, so i'd rather use a qd-oled with the purple tint, it's not as noticeable as the blooming on miniled at least.

[venomtail]

23 minutes ago, xg32 said:

i wouldn't use an woled for pc cause of static images and just how bad some colors look, so i'd rather use a qd-oled with the purple tint, it's not as noticeable as the blooming on miniled at least.

Yet to try an OLED monitor but reading reviews and comments I get the impression that everyone says QDOLED is the worst cause it has the worst black levels compared to other 2 OLEDs and that WOLED will last the longest and is the brightest so it can actually display a proper HDR image where as the others only excel at small area peak brigtness and constrast, simply taking advantage of itself being an OLED type panel.

[xg32]

1 hour ago, venomtail said:

Yet to try an OLED monitor but reading reviews and comments I get the impression that everyone says QDOLED is the worst cause it has the worst black levels compared to other 2 OLEDs and that WOLED will last the longest and is the brightest so it can actually display a proper HDR image where as the others only excel at small area peak brigtness and constrast, simply taking advantage of itself being an OLED type panel.

there are multiple threads but this one has alot of discussion, u can check the sub further if u want, it's really interesting

 

if the color volume (the amount of color the tv is capable of displaying) is really bad, then is it really a proper hdr image, or have the people that still say WOLED is better never owned a QD-OLED before? WOLED only displays proper colors when the image brightness is low, Most of the people that own both leans QD-OLED. I'm not kidding when i say the colors are bad.

 

 

this is the color gamut of the newest woled monitor from LG, and thats with full color volume on low brightness. how they charge a premium is beyond me.

 

 

 

 

As for HDR, on a low brightness image, i'd take the WOLED on p3, for everything else p3 i'd go with QD-OLED, i force rec 2020 on my miniled in games like cyberpunk and dead space, neither oled is capable of forcing rec2020. Which also looks better on auto hdr.

[Stahlmann]

These $4000 MiniLED monitors are from several years ago when OLEDs weren't around. More current MiniLED monitors capable of HDR1400 tiers of brightness sell well under $1000, often similarly priced or less expensive than similar specced OLEDs.

 

As someone who completely switched over to OLED 2 years ago, I still don't regret it. I'll adress a few of it's major discussing points:

 

- The picture quality is just better. Brightness might not be as high as the best MiniLED panels, but still high enough to deliver a good HDR experience combined with pixel-level dimming and true blacks. Call me crazy, but I think MiniLED HDR is much more uncomfortable to use. Having 600-1000 nits of fullscreen brightness will result in some very uncomfortable scenes. 150-250 nits of fullscreen brightness is much more useable. The <10% peak brightness is much, much more important for a good HDR experience in most scenes. And in this regard, OLED isn't too much behind. I'd say anything that can do >600 nits on a 10% window is bright enough to deliver a great HDR experience.

 

- Response times are so much better and since OLEDs don't need pixel overdrive, there is no overshoot and response time performance is the same at every refresh rate, be it at 480Hz or 60Hz. With many LCDs you need to use different overdrive settings at different refresh rates because the higher overdrive settings usually have way too much overshoot at low refresh rates. And only very few LCD monitors have automatic variable overdrive.

 

- Burn-in is way overblown. If you work on your monitor for 8 hours a day, every day, then I expect you'll run into it in a year or two. But if you use it as a content consumption and gaming monitor, with some occational web browsing or work from home, then I don't expect any issues in at least 3-4 years. And even if there is slight burn-in in 4+ years, that doesn't instantly make the monitor unuseable. You might only see it in certain conditions and it won't bother you for another few years before it gets too noticeable. Basically, in the time you'll run into burn-in, you're just as likely to have issues on a  MiniLED monitor. When talking about OLED burn-in, people tend to forget that LED backlit monitors aren't indesctructible either. Especially MiniLED has hundreds or thousands of LED's on the backlight which can also die over time.

 

I also have one OLED TV that has been exclusively used as a living room TV for almost 5 years now, and it also doesn't have any signs of burn-in yet.

 

- Text clarity isn't an issue in my case. I use 150% scaling on my 4K OLED monitor and don't have any issues with text. If anything, the glossy display coating more than makes up for the slightly worse text clarity because glossy is just clearer than matte to begin with. The 32" 4K monitors have high enough pixel density to completely counteract the text clarity issues, even at 100% scaling.

 

- The VRR flickering that came up in the last year or so isn't an exclusive issue with OLED. MiniLED is often even worse in this regard, but somehow people also tend to ignore this whel trash talking OLED monitors. And in the last 2 years I've been using an OLED monitor, I can say that this is a non-issue imo. You'll only notice it during loading screens. Normal gameplay never has these huge fps fluctuations you'd need to bring this flickering out, at least as long as your PC is capable of delivering decent performance to begin with.

[venomtail]

15 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

These $4000 MiniLED monitors are from several years ago when OLEDs weren't around. More current MiniLED monitors capable of HDR1400 tiers of brightness sell well under $1000, often similarly priced or less expensive than similar specced OLEDs.

 

As someone who completely switched over to OLED 2 years ago, I still don't regret it. I'll adress a few of it's major discussing points:

 

- The picture quality is just better. Brightness might not be as high as the best MiniLED panels, but still high enough to deliver a good HDR experience combined with pixel-level dimming and true blacks. Call me crazy, but I think MiniLED HDR is much more uncomfortable to use. Having 600-1000 nits of fullscreen brightness will result in some very uncomfortable scenes. 150-250 nits of fullscreen brightness is much more useable. The <10% peak brightness is much, much more important for a good HDR experience in most scenes. And in this regard, OLED isn't too much behind. I'd say anything that can do >600 nits on a 10% window is bright enough to deliver a great HDR experience.

 

- Response times are so much better and since OLEDs don't need pixel overdrive, there is no overshoot and response time performance is the same at every refresh rate, be it at 480Hz or 60Hz. With many LCDs you need to use different overdrive settings at different refresh rates because the higher overdrive settings usually have way too much overshoot at low refresh rates. And only very few LCD monitors have automatic variable overdrive.

 

- Burn-in is way overblown. If you work on your monitor for 8 hours a day, every day, then I expect you'll run into it in a year or two. But if you use it as a content consumption and gaming monitor, with some occational web browsing or work from home, then I don't expect any issues in at least 3-4 years. And even if there is slight burn-in in 4+ years, that doesn't instantly make the monitor unuseable. You might only see it in certain conditions and it won't bother you for another few years before it gets too noticeable. Basically, in the time you'll run into burn-in, you're just as likely to have issues on a  MiniLED monitor. When talking about OLED burn-in, people tend to forget that LED backlit monitors aren't indesctructible either. Especially MiniLED has hundreds or thousands of LED's on the backlight which can also die over time.

 

I also have one OLED TV that has been exclusively used as a living room TV for almost 5 years now, and it also doesn't have any signs of burn-in yet.

 

- Text clarity isn't an issue in my case. I use 150% scaling on my 4K OLED monitor and don't have any issues with text. If anything, the glossy display coating more than makes up for the slightly worse text clarity because glossy is just clearer than matte to begin with. The 32" 4K monitors have high enough pixel density to completely counteract the text clarity issues, even at 100% scaling.

 

- The VRR flickering that came up in the last year or so isn't an exclusive issue with OLED. MiniLED is often even worse in this regard, but somehow people also tend to ignore this whel trash talking OLED monitors. And in the last 2 years I've been using an OLED monitor, I can say that this is a non-issue imo. You'll only notice it during loading screens. Normal gameplay never has these huge fps fluctuations you'd need to bring this flickering out, at least as long as your PC is capable of delivering decent performance to begin with.

About the release dates, you're right. Some posts and articles and databases I used are severely out of date and I've interpreted the ASUS model as the new one instead it simply being the last one to be updated on said lists.

 

With the brightness you're right. Since I've never daily driven an HDR monitor and my only real experience with a near 10 year old Toshiba HDR10 TV. I think people underestimate how punchy a bright image is on TV's, but for such close up monitors... maybe you're right and it's not a great thing.

 

Everyone here's really turntabled by outlook on the QDOLED panels. But yea, £1.2k seems like an average price for a new panel.

[Stahlmann]

20 minutes ago, venomtail said:

About the release dates, you're right. Some posts and articles and databases I used are severely out of date and I've interpreted the ASUS model as the new one instead it simply being the last one to be updated on said lists.

 

With the brightness you're right. Since I've never daily driven an HDR monitor and my only real experience with a near 10 year old Toshiba HDR10 TV. I think people underestimate how punchy a bright image is on TV's, but for such close up monitors... maybe you're right and it's not a great thing.

 

Everyone here's really turntabled by outlook on the QDOLED panels. But yea, £1.2k seems like an average price for a new panel.

Here in Germany the 32" 4K OLED monitors start just above 900€.

The 27" 1440p OLED monitors start around 600€.

 

I got my 42" 4K LG C2 for 1.050€ 2 years ago. But these LG 42" TVs have been selling for around $800 at times, which is just insane value for this display size and OLED.

 

When you want a comparable MiniLED monitor to the $4000 MSRP Asus model, the Samsung Odyssey Neo G7 can be had for around 650€.

 

So yeah, the introduction of OLEDs on the display market significantly changed prices.

[venomtail]

54 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

Here in Germany the 32" 4K OLED monitors start just above $900.

The 27" 1440p OLED monitors start around $600€.

 

I got my 42" 4K LG C2 for 1.050€ 2 years ago. But these LG 42" TVs have been selling for around $800 at times, which is just insane value for this display size and OLED.

 

When you want a comparable MiniLED monitor to the $4000 Asus model, the Samsung Odyssey Neo G7 can be had for around $650.

 

So yeah, the introduction of OLEDs on the display market significantly changed prices.

Yea, on PCPP the absolute cheapest starts around 1300eur and 1440p starting around 800eur. Quite the bump. Is this another Brexit benefit? I was considering a 27 1440p OLED but if I realistically want to get a single monitor for the next 15 years, I think 4K leaves plenty more room to grow.

[Stahlmann]

1 hour ago, venomtail said:

Yea, on PCPP the absolute cheapest starts around 1300eur and 1440p starting around 800eur. Quite the bump. Is this another Brexit benefit? I was considering a 27 1440p OLED but if I realistically want to get a single monitor for the next 15 years, I think 4K leaves plenty more room to grow.

Idk about post-brexit shipping rates to the UK, but it might be cheaper for you to buy in Germany and ship it over there 

 

When just converting €/£, the 32" model should be around £760 if it would be selling for the same price. That's quite the leap.