Is OLED overhyped ?

[Stahlmann]

10 minutes ago, Tan3l6 said:

I edited my last post. In what usage comfort units are we talking about?

Actually stupid thing to argue about...

Yes, it's stupid to argue about it, because it's entirely subjective.

 

But I don't personally know a single person that bought into OLED and regrets it. And that speaks for itself imo. (I'm talking about real-life people, not angry redditors.)

 

But when it comes to picture quality and specs, we can make objective comparisons and can see that OLED is superior in practically every way. And once a comparison is so one-sided, people rarely have vastly different subjective opinions.

 

The only people I talked with that didn't like OLED either never had one, never tried one out, or were generally unreasonable and invented reasons not to like them once they ran out of arguments. Some people just don't want to admit they're wrong even if they've been proven wrong.

[Tan3l6]

1 minute ago, Stahlmann said:

Yes, it's stupid to argue about it, because it's entirely subjective.

 

But I don't personally know a single person that bought into OLED and regrets it. And that speaks for itself imo.

Actually yeah, if you can afford it, then it's a good high end product, generally. And cheaper OLED models are getting more and more affordable.

Same would be with most high end products, like Nvidia RTX *090 series. But GPUs have more measurable benefits in raw fps and other features.

[Stahlmann]

Just now, Tan3l6 said:

Actually yeah, if you can afford it, then it's a good high end product, generally. And cheaper OLED models are getting more and more affordable.

Same would be with most high end products, like Nvidia RTX *090 series. But GPUs have more measurable benefits in raw fps and other features.

I'd argue the monitor is the most overlooked component of most setups. You can have all the fps you want, that doesn't do anything if the monitor can't show them in a decent manner. Even GPU features like ray tracing, etc. have objectively measureable impacts, but in the end the user has to judge subjectively if they want to take advantage of them. It's all the same really.

[SS451]

1 minute ago, Stahlmann said:

I'd argue the monitor is the most overlooked component of most setups. You can have all the fps you want, that doesn't do anything if the monitor can't show them in a decent manner. Even GPU features like ray tracing, etc. have objectively measureable impacts, but in the end the user has to judge subjectively if they want to take advantage of them. It's all the same really.

I agree with this whole sale.

[Agall]

1 minute ago, Stahlmann said:

I'd argue the monitor is the most overlooked component of most setups. You can have all the fps you want, that doesn't do anything if the monitor can't show them in a decent manner. Even GPU features like ray tracing, etc. have objectively measureable impacts, but in the end the user has to judge subjectively if they want to take advantage of them. It's all the same really.

I've made the argument that "your experience is only as good as it can be displayed" since about 2015 when G-sync first retailed. I was spending half the budget on a monitor at that point where it used to be one of the smallest chunks of the budget.

[GuiltySpark_]

44 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

I'd argue the monitor is the most overlooked component of most setups. You can have all the fps you want, that doesn't do anything if the monitor can't show them in a decent manner. Even GPU features like ray tracing, etc. have objectively measureable impacts, but in the end the user has to judge subjectively if they want to take advantage of them. It's all the same really.

 

40 minutes ago, Agall said:

I've made the argument that "your experience is only as good as it can be displayed" since about 2015 when G-sync first retailed. I was spending half the budget on a monitor at that point where it used to be one of the smallest chunks of the budget.

100%. Monitors are unfortunately often relegated to whatever was left in the budget for many people putting together builds these days and its a real shame. 

 

The experience of everything the PC is doing is going to be drastically different depending on how its being display but I think most just don't have any concept of this so they don't believe it matters. Ignorance is bliss kind of thing. 

 

When you get first hand experience with a really good display, it ruins you forever.

[SpaceGhostC2C]

Overhype is the only form of hype, so, to the extent that there is hype around OLED, then the answer would be yes. I don't personally know too many people concerned with displays, much less specific types of display, to have an idea of whether there is any hype at all.

 

I personally don't care about the display technology, only its performance in the dimensions I care for, which 99% of the time has meant sticking with IPS so far. I've recently gone check an Asus Zenbook S16 thinking it might be my next laptop; among my many disappointments with it was the extremely glossy, extremely reflective screen. Surely the blacks were pitch black, but that only contributed to make the screen a giant mirror. It didn't make an impression other than that. It may depend on what the retailer decided to show on said screen, though.

 

29 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

Also, small amounts of burn-in won't instantly make the display unuseable and might only be visible in very specific conditions. So even when an OLED starts to burn in, you can probably still use it for multiple more years before it gets too annoying. And by the time you use ANY display for 6+ years, no matter if it's OLED or LCD, you might consider an upgrade anyway.

The problem is, burn-in is a fact, when it becomes annoying is subjective and varies from person to person, and whether each person would change their display in 6 years even if working perfectly is pure speculation. So, everything you said is compatible with it being a non-issue and also compatible with it being a deal-breaker.

 

 

8 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

Yes, it's stupid to argue about it, because it's entirely subjective.

 

(...)

Some people just don't want to admit they're wrong even if they've been proven wrong.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ 

 

 

 

[Stahlmann]

6 minutes ago, Agall said:

I was spending half the budget on a monitor at that point where it used to be one of the smallest chunks of the budget.

I'd say nowadays the balance is pretty much "spend as much on your monitor as on the GPU".

[Spindel]

Also might as well answer the main question. 

 

Aside from not wanting to spend money on a OLED screen currently I have one main reason I do not want a OLED monitor or TV. 

 

And the thing is this issue might have been fixed with newer models but is a real issue with older models, I just haven't checked the development with this issue. 

 

The issue I have is, since OLED is plastic, it is (or at least was) sensitive to UV light. Direct sunlight damages (or at least used to) the OLED, it is/was particularly noticeable when not the entire screen got hit by direct sunlight since it gave the screen an uneven colour reproduction. 

 

In all places in my home where I have a monitor or TV there is a couple of hours a day where the screen partially gets hit by direct sunlight in the summer (and it's even more sunlight in some places in my home in the winter since I live on lat 59,29 and the sun basically shines vertically into my windows during certain times of the day, but on the other hand the UV content is really low then since it gets filtered away by the atmosphere). 

[Tan3l6]

Hmm, cheapest 1440p 240Hz OLED, AOC AG276QZD costing only ~$560€ is actually priced quite reasonably, compared to higher end 1440p 240Hz IPS.

So perhaps not overpriced, taken account image quality uplift with (QD-)OLED.

[Agall]

24 minutes ago, GuiltySpark_ said:

When you get first had experience with a really good display, it ruins you forever.

^ Me ruined since 2014 with a VG248QE with the Nvidia DIY G-sync kit  $500 for a monitor back then was considered insane.

 

21 minutes ago, Stahlmann said:

I'd say nowadays the balance is pretty much "spend as much on your monitor as on the GPU".

I've also taken the stance to upgrade my monitor and GPU at about the same time. With my current setup of a Neo G8 and 4090, I don't plan on replacing either for quite a while. Properly configured HDR on a QLED puts it into mid-tier OLED territory on color and contrast and entirely killed my desire to upgrade to OLED.

[Stahlmann]

17 hours ago, Agall said:

Properly configured HDR on a QLED

And that right there is the problem. Not just Samsung, but most monitor brands lack the attention to detail that is required to get HDR done right on monitors. Not to mention other issues like blooming, or higher input lag with HDR because of the FALD algorithm. There are still quite a few drawbacks with HDR on LCDs. But they also have advantages like color volume (compared to WOLED at least) and brightness. There are always tradeoffs with every monitor. But imo the tradeoffs coming with FALD are worse than the ones coming from OLED.

 

My 700 nits peak /120 nits fullscreen LG C2 delivers a better HDR experience than the 1100s nits peak / 1100 nits fullscreen Asus PG35VQ I had before, no doubt about it. Brightness isn't the most important factor of HDR, contrast is. While good FALD can get in the contrast ranges of 10.000:1 and the best can geteven higher, that's still noticeably behind the contrast OLED delivers. If you want to put a number to it, most brands put 1.000.000:1 on OLED spec sheets, even though it is effectively infinite. I guess they're just not allowed to market something as infinite because of some regulations.

 

Another problem is that most monitors don't allow for much configuration in their HDR modes, so you get what tech configure in the factory. You can maybe change the color temperature or peak brightness, but you can't fix bad color accuracity or wrong EOTF tracking, which is where most HDR LCD's fall apart, especially Samsung monitors.

 

Here is an example of the Samsung Neo G8 EOTF tracking, with the low end being way too dark and the high end being way too bright. And changing the local dimming settings to Auto, High, Low, or even turning it off won't fix it on this particular monitor. What we see here is so called black crush, where the monitor visibly loses a lot of shadow detail and just displays everything near black as black, even when it shouldn't. And this isn't just the Neo G8, it's like that with all of Samsung's Neo lineup.

 

 

Now compare this to the LG C2, which is bang-on right out of the box:

 

 

Now you might argue I'm to hung up about EOTF accuracity. But my point is: This isn't just about EOTF tracking. If the user can't calibrate or configure something, then you'd better make sure the out of the box configuration is good. And sadly, with most HDR LCDs, it isn't.

 

OLEDs are not all perfect either, but most brands come a lot closer to "good" with them.

LG is the only brand I know that reliably get's it right.

 

And as a result of badly configured HDR monitors, the common misconception about Windows HDR being bad was born, even though Windows does everything right.

[Agall]

3 hours ago, Stahlmann said:

And that right there is the problem. Not just Samsung, but most monitor brands lack the attention to detail that is required to get HDR done right on monitors.

Whether it works right or not too is so hit or miss. Since swapping to my Ally X from my 7950x3D build, I've struggled to get HDR to reliably function in the games it was working great on prior.

 

The visual difference is insane and I'd compare it to a mid range OLED, having experienced a few including the Steam Deck's. Without HDR, I don't think QLED properly utilizes the complexity of the backlighting.

 

TBH, if SteamOS is officially released on the Ally X, I'll likely full send it, this being a reason since HDR seems to just work better on it, given the Steam Deck OLED.

[Haswellx86]

OLEDs are absolutely great. True blacks and really good color. And you say they are still really expensive? Even budget phones today have a 120 Hz AMOLED display.