LG 48CX

[elvn]

Totally agree with that. It's a real shame because those OLED TVs are pretty decent as monitors and the text quality on the WOLEDs is IMO not a problem as long as you use a bit of scaling.

I can't understand why LG would remove that option other than to try to push people to buy OLED monitors, or the more expensive monitor variants of large OLED TVs from their partners like Asus or Gigabyte. I have disabled ASBL on my CX and it has caused no issues during its lifetime.

I had it enabled again some time when I made the CX my living room TV, and then decided to turn it off when I saw those "dimming in dark scenes" issues again. For example Ozark is a great show but with a lot of dark scenes and it would always dim for me.

I'd also remind that a lot of people were shoe-horning oversized gaming tvs directly onto a desk, so the pixel sizes were larger to their perspective, exacerbating the text fringing, (and aliasing of anything else though text-ss mapping applied to non-rgb layouts is the worst offender). So scaling up close would help, but using the screen at a more optimal viewing angle (which means farther away than on a desk for a larger gaming tv 42"+) would have made the issue less pronounced and people probably would have been less vocal about it.

 

[kasakka]

I'd also remind that a lot of people were shoe-horning oversized gaming tvs directly onto a desk, so the pixel sizes were larger to their perspective, exacerbating the text fringing, (and aliasing of anything else though text-ss mapping applied to non-rgb layouts is the worst offender). So scaling up close would help, but using the screen at a more optimal viewing angle (which means farther away than on a desk for a larger gaming tv 42"+) would have made the issue less pronounced and people probably would have been less vocal about it.

IMO people were complaining way more about the QD-OLED pixel structure issues than anything on the WOLED TVs.

At a more appropriate viewing distance of 1+ m scaling becomes even more important.

 

[elvn]

Larger (perceived) pixel sizes, larger problems. Like viewing 4k at sub-60 PPD viewing distances, or 1440p native screens.

In regard to asbl I agree that options should be given, (even if they would void warranties)

 

[MistaSparkul]

This is one of the reasons why I would take LG over Samsung:

Once again Samsung with the boosting 10% window brightness to unrealistic levels to jebait people. I could already smell their bullshit from a mile away when people were posting 2000+ nits 10% window measurements. Why people continue to blindly accept results of quick measurements of Samsung at face value is beyond me.

 

[elvn]

Idk why they all insist on the slim form factor. I'd prefer a thicker chasis with vented grilles, full backplane heatsink and some active cooling fans with profiles like a rugged laptop or a gpu.

. . . .

Maybe you could at least avoid those dips by manually adjusting the brightness peaks yourself in settings, idk. Either way it could be sleazy marketing. All oled ramp down with brightness governors by some amounts and methods though (as well as some of the brightest FALDS depending on the model). A curve like that kicking abl to under 200nit after 1 minute of 10% screen space seems like a bad performance choice. Bright = HOT, and heat is bad news especially for oled emitters.

. . .

 

[kasakka]

Idk why they all insist on the slim form factor. I'd prefer a thicker chasis with vented grilles, full backplane heatsink and some active cooling fans with profiles like a rugged laptop or a gpu.

Probably because it's cheaper to make and ship because it takes less space and weighs less.

We have this insane trend of displays, phones and laptops being very thin for no good reason. If you look at reference monitors, they are thick bastards with fans etc. Give me that but in a consumer friendly price range. Nobody looks at the back of these things once it's mounted in place on a wall, desk, TV stand etc.

 

[elvn]

I think it's the "slim looks sexy" thing , like apple stuff and some misc manufacturer slim design gaming laptops that end up throttling their gpu more. I'd rather have rugged and functional.

 

[kasakka]

I think it's the "slim looks sexy" thing , like apple stuff and some misc manufacturer slim design gaming laptops that end up throttling their gpu more. I'd rather have rugged and functional.

Yeah a lot of nonsense especially in phones. I currently use a Samsung Galaxy Fold 4, and it's a really chunky phone when folded, but it feels fine to hold in your hand because it's quite narrow physically, no wider than an iPhone 12 Mini, just much taller. Phones have gone to complete nonsense like glass panels on the back etc for an attempt to be "premium". I miss the cheap, replaceable plastic of the Galaxy S4.

There's definitely sweet spots where something is not excessively slim just to be slim. Macbook Pros have gotten a bit thicker in the past few generations and they still look very sleek.
For example Panasonic plasmas had a lot going on in the back with heatsinks, fans and more but they weren't that thick.

By comparison my LG CX 48" is difficult to move on your own because you have few places to safely grip it because it's so slim. I had to throw away its box due to a flooded basement and when I moved, I had to transport it on the backseat of a car wrapped in bubblewrap. I would've worried much less about moving it if it was more rugged all the way to the top of the panel. And performed better because that space could've been used for e.g heatsinks.

 

[Advil]

Yeah a lot of nonsense especially in phones. I currently use a Samsung Galaxy Fold 4, and it's a really chunky phone when folded, but it feels fine to hold in your hand because it's quite narrow physically, no wider than an iPhone 12 Mini, just much taller. Phones have gone to complete nonsense like glass panels on the back etc for an attempt to be "premium". I miss the cheap, replaceable plastic of the Galaxy S4.

There's definitely sweet spots where something is not excessively slim just to be slim. Macbook Pros have gotten a bit thicker in the past few generations and they still look very sleek.
For example Panasonic plasmas had a lot going on in the back with heatsinks, fans and more but they weren't that thick.

By comparison my LG CX 48" is difficult to move on your own because you have few places to safely grip it because it's so slim. I had to throw away its box due to a flooded basement and when I moved, I had to transport it on the backseat of a car wrapped in bubblewrap. I would've worried much less about moving it if it was more rugged all the way to the top of the panel. And performed better because that space could've been used for e.g heatsinks.

THAT is my single big gripe about the CX48. The physical shape and weight are moronic. It's virtually impossible to move solo safely. It's got so much bulk in the middle and down low on the back, it makes no sense whatsoever why the panel is paper thin all along the top. What dang difference does it make? The rest of the back is chunky like a whale. And there is NO WHERE to grip it safely. No handles where the weight hangs well when lifting. Even with two people the odd heavy base weight and lack of hand holds anywhere make it extremely difficult to lift or move without pressing a finger into the screen surface fairly hard to counterbalance. You have to spend a good minute figuring out how to deal with the weight without touching the screen.

It just needed a normal back with some protection and most importantly decent handles!

 

[kalston]

It's official: I got burn-in on the CX. 4 years, 15000h, 99% of the time in SDR at 20 brightness (which is 80ish nits, the other 1% was in HDR mode). I always make the screen black when I step away from the PC and I believe it does keep counting the power-on hours in that case, even if the pixels are fully off. So the pixels have been turned on for less than that (a bit).

Now, it's very subtle burn-in mind you, has no impact on real world use yet. But if I stare at a pure white screen (I didn't get around to try other colours, it was late), I can see it very faintly, moving a small white window in the area makes it easier to see. Have to really stare and be close to the screen though.

What's burned in is ability icons from a MMO I've played a lot (probably 15% of the total hours, maybe a bit more but I'm not really playing it anymore), it's located near the bottom center and I can recognize the shape and size of the icons so I'm 1000% sure what it is. Shape, size, location: it matches perfectly.

 

[kasakka]

It's official: I got burn-in on the CX. 4 years, 17000h, 99% of the time in SDR at 20 brightness (which is 80ish nits, the other 1% was in HDR mode). I always make the screen black when I step away from the PC and I believe it does keep counting the power-on hours in that case, even if the pixels are fully off. So the pixels have been turned on for less than that.

Now, it's very subtle burn-in mind you, has no impact on real world use yet. But if I stare at a pure white screen (I didn't get around to try other colours, it was late), I can see it very faintly, moving a small white window in the area makes it easier to see. Have to really stare and be close to the screen though.

What's burned in is ability icons from a MMO I've played a lot (probably 15% of the total hours, maybe a bit more but I'm not really playing it anymore), it's located near the bottom center and I can recognize the shape and size of the icons so I'm 1000% sure what it is. Shape, size, location: it matches perfectly.

That's nearly two years of on time for the display. I think I checked mine after 3 years and it was like half of that. I would just turn the TV off from the remote when taking a longer break so it would run its compensation cycles if needed.

I'd need to check where mine is set for SDR OLED light, but I remember 20 measuring closer to 120 nits. I don't have a calibrator atm so I can't check.

 

[kalston]

Yeah, it's a lot of time at home. We had covid lockdowns when I bought it, the working from home trend (though I almost never do that now) and I don't sleep a lot, like 6h a day on average. That's not exactly the norm I think. Only 20 mins walk from the workplace, so little time wasted commuting as well. Ah and yes I also did disable the ASBL (2 years ago) and pixel shifting (in 2020).

I usually turn it on/off only once per 24h, unless I know I'll be away from the screen for several hours. Rest of the time I use the "screen off" feature on the remote since a full on/off cycle is a bit slow and Windows or some programs might react badly to having no display detected.

The compensation cycles appear to be working fine, including the big one every 2000h (curious to see if the next one clears things up).

That being said it's really far from having any impact for real world use still. I'll try to take some pictures when I'm home. It's like very faint and blurry squares that are a bit darker than surrounding areas. Emphasis on faint and blurry. I'm very confident I can stick with this display for a long time still.

I don't think I've ever had that many hours on a single LCD in my entire life, since I was upgrading those now and then as the tech was improving.

 

[kasakka]

I don't think I've ever had that many hours on a single LCD in my entire life, since I was upgrading those now and then as the tech was improving.

I think that mainly says something about how good the CX series was and how disappointing the updates to these have been in the past few years.

 

[kalston]

Yeah I guess so. It's not totally perfect, I'd like to see improvements in the near black handling (esp with VRR) and the 5% grey banding is fairly noticeable at times. Would be nice to never have text rendering issues as well though Windows could be made to handle that. ASBL is also poorly implemented but I heard it's done better in newer models. I'm not a fan of the slim form factor (give me a huge heatsink) or the connector placement either but I've only had to move it once in those 4 years (and moved in to a place I actually own) so it's not the end of the world for me.

Higher refresh rate would also not hurt for some older games or if frame gen finally becomes more of a universal thing. But right now I don't care about having more than 120hz at 4k.

But for the price I paid and the mileage I got out of it so far (and I'm sure I'll get a lot more out of it still) I have zero regrets and will happily pick up another OLED again when the time comes.

 

[MistaSparkul]

That's nearly two years of on time for the display. I think I checked mine after 3 years and it was like half of that. I would just turn the TV off from the remote when taking a longer break so it would run its compensation cycles if needed.

I'd need to check where mine is set for SDR OLED light, but I remember 20 measuring closer to 120 nits. I don't have a calibrator atm so I can't check.

45 OLED light is 120 nits so 20 OLED light being 80 nits sounds right.

 

[kalston]

Yea Rtings and Tftcentral said 80 and my cheap meter agreed.

Edit2: I was a bit off as far as hours go, it's sitting on 15k not 17. My bad, I remembered wrong but thankfully I checked today:

Edit: here is a picture of a white screen taken at about normal viewing distance (full rez picture from an iPhone)

This matches my UI in that game:

There is not much if any burn-in visible with other colours, but with green/yellow/blue I can see the lines of the HP bars, example:

 

[MistaSparkul]

So out of 15,000 hours roughly 2200 hours was spent in one MMO and running it at 120nits SDR already caused burn in. Running it in HDR would have accelerated the burn in, especially if the game has no adjustments for UI brightness as some games like to pump a ton of brightness into the UI in HDR for some reason.

 

[kalston]

80* nits yea the game doesn't like auto HDR even. I just turn HDR on for video content and a few recent games with good support. But it's a drop in the water, hours wise.

But I mean in all games I like to keep my UI in the same general area, unless there's no option to customize it. So it's not just that one game. It all adds up over time.

I'm surprised by the dots though, and the fact the burn-in looks white for those, and not darker. That makes no sense to me.

 

[MistaSparkul]

80* nits yea the game doesn't like auto HDR even. I just turn HDR on for video content and a few recent games with good support. But it's a drop in the water, hours wise.

Ah 80 nits and just a drop in the water for usage. Yikes. Well on the bright side the C2 and up really improved things when it comes to burn in. I'm expecting a lot more CX owners to start having burn in soon enough. I personally have not sank more than a few hundred hours into a single game on my CX so I guess that's why it's still burn in free.

 

[kalston]

Well, I consider that a pretty good result personally, depends how you look at it. I'm far from being able to see it when I just "use" the display.

 

[MistaSparkul]

Well, I consider that a pretty good result personally, depends how you look at it. I'm far from being able to see it when I just "use" the display.

My cousin sinks thousands of hours into FFXIV so for him this is a pretty bad outlook lol. Gonna have to ask him if he has any burn in on his CX.

 

[kalston]

Maybe it's 3k or even bit more, it's hard to estimate since I'm using standalone version and can't track with Steam or anything. 2 years were really intense, but the other two was just a few hours a week (like now). I played a little WoW with nearly identical UI too, but that was just a few hundred since I got bored of that expansion fast.

But yeah, OLED is OLED, those pixels do burn if you go hard on them for long enough.

 

[MistaSparkul]

I wouldn't really consider using it at 80nits 99% of the time as going hard on it though, quite far from it in fact. 3000 hours is still pretty low considering that are games that people will easily sink that much time into whether it's FFXIV or Valorant. But again, OLED has made great improvements ever since the CX when it comes to burn in as RTings has shown with their testing. In fact the CX did not fair well at all in their stress test. My current issue with the CX isn't actually burn in though, it's the 100+ dead pixels scattered all along the outer edges.

 

[kalston]

Yea I have very few dead pixels on my end on the other hand. Like 10 or so.

While the burn-in from that one game is visible, I think it's important to stress how much I use that part of the screen generally speaking. Like even when I'm my browser (like now), I usually have a small 1080p-ish window located in that part of the screen. And like I said I keep my HUD there in other games as much as I can, it's just where my eyes "default" to so it's an old habit I have.

 

[SH1]

Everyone is ignoring that Kalston hasn't rerun Pixel Refresher yet? Worked for LTT if I recall...

 

[MistaSparkul]

Everyone is ignoring that Kalston hasn't rerun Pixel Refresher yet? Worked for LTT if I recall...

You can't go 15,000 hours without running a pixel refresher lol. And he mentions it's working just fine...

"The compensation cycles appear to be working fine, including the big one every 2000h (curious to see if the next one clears things up)."

Sure maybe the next big compensation cycle at 16,000 hours might help clear it up a little bit, but once it hits this point there isn't much that can be done.

 

[SH1]

I think there's a button to run it on demand. I'd press it. I'd be unable to resist. Curiosity.

 

[kalston]

Yea, I'm waiting for the automatic process that will happen exactly 1000 h from now. I don't see the point of running it manually, that will just add extra wear to the pixels.

To my knowledge, the manual pixel refresh is exactly the same thing as what runs automatically every 2000h. And since I was often there when it happened, I can confirm it "looks" the same and lasts for the same duration (I messed around with the manual one once or maybe twice early on, as some people were claiming it helps with the 5% grey vertical banding).

 

[SH1]

Yea, I'm waiting for the automatic process that will happen exactly 1000 h from now. I don't see the point of running it manually, that will just add extra wear to the pixels.

To my knowledge, the manual pixel refresh is exactly the same thing as what runs automatically every 2000h. And since I was often there when it happened, I can confirm it "looks" the same and lasts for the same duration (I messed around with the manual one once or maybe twice early on, as some people were claiming it helps with the 5% grey vertical banding).

So if Pixel Refresher is the same process and of the same fixed duration whether triggered by the hours count or manually are you then asking that process to do twice as much work at 2000 hours since the last Pixel Refresher run versus 1000 hours now? Thus diminishing its chance of success?

(I can imagine such a thing. However, I don't know how that process actually works. So just throwing that out there. )

 

[kasakka]

Yeah I'd probably just try running the pixel refresher manually and hopefully it will get rid of current burn-in instead of waiting for it to have lingered there for longer. Extra 1000h is quite a bit of time after all.

 

[kalston]

My understanding is that it scans the pixels, and boosts the voltage of those that have aged the most, to level them with the rest of the panel. At some point of course raising the voltage is not possible anymore, so "burn-in" becomes visible - aka pixels much dimmer than the others. Both the manual pixel refresh and the automatic one every 2000h do the same thing.

There is a very quick scan that runs every time you power off the display as well, as long as it's plugged in, if it has been powered on for some hours. I think that one does the same thing in essence, but it's not thorough, it's a very fast process.

1000h is some months yeah, but this is not actually impacting my enjoyment of the display since I don't see it in regular usage. I can run it if people really want me to, but I don't expect miracles. OLED burns in eventually.

 

[SH1]

I'd go for it. I'm thinking it's what the manual option is for. That said, we don't know how much runway the display actually has left as you indicate. It might not work. And of course, you should only do what you're comfortable doing.

 

[kalston]

I'll run it later and let you guys know.

 

[MistaSparkul]

I'll run it later and let you guys know.

I see no harm in doing it early. Either it actually helps a little bit or at worst it just does nothing.

 

[kalston]

I scheduled it to run at bedtime and it did (saw the white lines and everything before I tucked myself). I'm at the office now but when back home later I will inspect the screen closely, and compare to what it looked like. I have other pictures (other solid colours) I didn't upload so there is quite a bit of data to work with.

 

[kalston]

Update!

Not really any difference to be honest. Maybe it's a little more blurry but I'm not positive on that.

Camera angle is a little different but when zooming I am able to make out the same things.

OLD:

NEW:

BONUS, hp bars on green :

Almost all other colours like red still look pristine mind you.

Now, back to enjoying the display the same as I have since day one, as for now there is still no issue for real world use.

 

[Lateralus]

Meh. Hard to see, but it does possibly look a bit better?

I'm in the same boat as you. I have a pretty high hour count on my CX and have been using it without ASBL for probably a couple of years now with OLED light set to 30 unless in HDR. There are certain portions of the screen that probably get more use overall, but I haven't been able to discern any burn-in when doing full screen fill tests after what, over 4 years of daily usage as a full-time monitor. LOL, no fricks given at this point as it has exceeded not only my expectations but the doomsday prophecies of numerous folks who insisted that such a use case wasn't possible. Most of those folks are long absent from this thread now.

I do have several dead pixels near the edges as noted by MistaSparkul, but only saw them after they were mentioned as a common thing (and then only after setting background to white and looking for them up close). They are completely unnoticeable during normal use, although it'll be interesting to see how many develop.

The great thing for newer buyers is that, as has been pointed out, the CX should be the worst case scenario in terms of burn-in, durability, and brightness as LG has continued improving the panel tech since those were released. So folks with C1s, C2s, etc. should see even better long-term performance than the already (to me) impressive CX.

 

[kalston]

Yup. I did not come here crying or regretting anything, just wanted to share my experience. I think most people will be more than fine and the newer models must have stellar longevity, probably beating off many competing LCD models.

I cannot even remember having nearly as many hours on a single LCD at home, and many of them developed far worse issues, such as dead pixels smack in the center where you can see them lol.

 

[kasakka]

I'm knocking on wood because so far I've avoided the dead pixels completely, along with burn-in. Still hoping it lasts until something in the 50-55" size comes out that is an actual improvement. Brighter HDR, higher refresh rate would do it for me, but since I actually use it as a TV, I don't want Samsung if I can avoid it since their TizenOS is a pile of crap.

 

[SH1]

Thank you for trying Pixel Refresher.

I intend to start driving this one harder as I want to start using RTX HDR for all games. I guess we enjoy these spectacular displays for as long as they last. And hopefully the newer ones get higher refresh rates. (And I'd add rolling scan BFI back, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards.) And also hope the C series panel keeps its current polarizer/coating. Deep glossy blacks without that magenta tinting, which might unfortunately make it unique at this point.

I just hit 4001 hours. Only had it a year and racking them up quickly looks like. Probably early days for burn in, but it arrived with some dead subpixels along the edges.