LG C1 & Samsung QN90A: Experiences?

Domingo

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Pretty straightforward question. Anyone own either of these and have experiences that the normal reviews don't cover? I'm looking for caveats and good/bad personal experiences.
I know that on paper the LG seems like the way to go, but it's about a grand more expensive (for the larger models) and I'm still paranoid about burn-in. I use my TV as a monitor at least 8 hours a day, so the threat of having something static onscreen is pretty real. Do screensavers and the tech LG is pitching really alleviate this?
The Samsung only has one HDMI 2.1 port, but a new HDMI 2.1 AVR should alleviate that limitation, right?
On the HDR front, it sounds like the Sammy is brighter and they're split with LG using DolbyVision vs. Samsung's HDR10+. What's support like for one vs. the other in games and common streaming platforms?
 
The LG OLED image quality absolutely destroys the Samsung LCD (or any LCD). That's why people are using them as monitors.

TV reviews often act as if whatever LCD TV comes close to OLED, but they really don't. They'll point out how the LCD gets brighter and makes up for the lack of contrast, but in reality it doesn't unless you have tons of bright ambient light shining on the screen, in which case you aren't going to get good image quality no matter what screen you have. Higher peak brightness is obviously better than lower peak brightness if all other things are equal, but the contrast of an LCD just can't compete with OLED. Also when you're just using a PC or gaming all the processing LCDs need to get decent image quality is disabled, whereas OLED doesn't need any processing for the most part because the panels natively have infinite contrast and near instantaneous response time.

As for the burn in concerns you can look at the CX threads for info there. I use mine 8+ hours daily and I haven't had any signs of burn in and I'm not worried. I just set windows to turn off the screen after 5 minutes of no use and have the task bar on another monitor.
 
Plus the FALD in the QN90A goes to shit if you put it in game mode, and every other picture mode outside of that is slow as hell.

HDR10+ has little support right now and uptake doesn't seem to be all that fast. There are currently only 82 movies listed on Blu-ray.com that support the standard. It's more common on streaming services, but there are no games or game consoles that support it. Dolby Vision, on the other hand, is currently in the dev channel and coming to the Series X|S soon. There are only a few games on PC that support Dolby Vision. PS5 only supports standard HDR10 (and HGIG IIRC) with no indication of other standards being added in the future.
 
I don't really have the option for a second monitor, but hiding the taskbar should probably do the trick. I guess my fear is more about the UI for Photoshop/Illustrator whenever I'm stuck working on something for a few hours. Honestly, I'm scared of having to babysit something that cost $3500 knowing that if I get any sort of burn-in it's going to piss me off to no end.
 
...related - the Best Buy extended warranty claims that it covers "shadow images." It isn't cheap ($700 for 5 years), but that would put my mind more at ease. Per Reddit (whatever that's worth...) they will even replace it with a newer model if they don't carry it anymore. Anyone have first hand experience?
 
It's a choice you have to make:
- Buy OLED now and in a few years, its image "might" turn fugly.
- You can buy LCD today, but its image is butt ugly out of the box on day one. It'll probably retain the same image quality over the next few years.

Life is short and microLED isn't ready in this decade. Buy the OLED.
 
It's a choice you have to make:
- Buy OLED now and in a few years, its image "might" turn fugly.
- You can buy LCD today, but its image is butt ugly out of the box on day one. It'll probably retain the same image quality over the next few years.

Life is short and microLED isn't ready in this decade. Buy the OLED.

Yup. I'm not concerned about how my OLED is going to look 3-5 years down the line. I can get better image quality than an LCD from day 1 and enjoy it for years so that's worth it enough to me. Then in 5 years I'll just get the next best thing around.
 
The crazy amounts of overshoot Samsung TV's exhibit dating way back to 2019 make them unusable.

It gets even worse with VRR active.
 
I ruined my 2017 LG OLED with burn-in. I ran the pixel refresher utility every night, but it couldn't overcome a couple years of news and sports channels with their static chyrons blazing at the bottom of the screen for 8-12 hours/day. Definitely user error.

I've been reluctant to try an OLED as a monitor. Burn-in and screen size have kept me away. Still, I'm seeing prices fall to $1200 for the LG CX 48". That's tempting me to give it a shot. Haven't pulled the trigger, yet.
 
I ruined my 2017 LG OLED with burn-in. I ran the pixel refresher utility every night, but it couldn't overcome a couple years of news and sports channels with their static chyrons blazing at the bottom of the screen for 8-12 hours/day. Definitely user error.

I've been reluctant to try an OLED as a monitor. Burn-in and screen size have kept me away. Still, I'm seeing prices fall to $1200 for the LG CX 48". That's tempting me to give it a shot. Haven't pulled the trigger, yet.
They have improved the panels since 2017 and I'd say you probably did more harm to it by running the pixel refresher every night. On the latest LG models the pixel refresher runs a short cycle after I think 8 hours of cumulative usage when you turn the display off. Then at something like 2000 hours it runs a longer cycle.

I've been using the LG CX 48" as a desktop monitor for a year now. That's working on the desktop ~8 hours a day and then using it for personal stuff. There is no sign of burn in so far. I would expect that it might become an issue in a few years but by that time I expect to be able to buy something smaller and better.
 
They have improved the panels since 2017 and I'd say you probably did more harm to it by running the pixel refresher every night. On the latest LG models the pixel refresher runs a short cycle after I think 8 hours of cumulative usage when you turn the display off. Then at something like 2000 hours it runs a longer cycle.

I've been using the LG CX 48" as a desktop monitor for a year now. That's working on the desktop ~8 hours a day and then using it for personal stuff. There is no sign of burn in so far. I would expect that it might become an issue in a few years but by that time I expect to be able to buy something smaller and better.
I got nearly 4000 hours on my c9 with a lot of static content on it. It is on over 8 hours a day. Looks just as good as my CX I recently got for the most part. No burn in issues at all.
 
For the desktop usage folks - are you doing anything different than you normally would with a standard 'ol monitor/TV? As long as I don't have to jump through a bunch of hoops (nightly pixel refreshes, turning the brightness down extra low, screen-savers that fire up too quickly, etc.) I'm ready to bite. Again, I just don't want to have to babysit a $3500 TV.
 
For the desktop usage folks - are you doing anything different than you normally would with a standard 'ol monitor/TV? As long as I don't have to jump through a bunch of hoops (nightly pixel refreshes, turning the brightness down extra low, screen-savers that fire up too quickly, etc.) I'm ready to bite. Again, I just don't want to have to babysit a $3500 TV.
I use dark mode wherever available, have a black background on the desktop, turn the display off during long breaks, have it go to a blank screensaver after 10 minutes and run at 120 nits brightness. Apart from turning the display on/off all of this is automated so in actual usage compared to a regular monitor it's not much different.
 
They have improved the panels since 2017 and I'd say you probably did more harm to it by running the pixel refresher every night. On the latest LG models the pixel refresher runs a short cycle after I think 8 hours of cumulative usage when you turn the display off. Then at something like 2000 hours it runs a longer cycle.

I've been using the LG CX 48" as a desktop monitor for a year now. That's working on the desktop ~8 hours a day and then using it for personal stuff. There is no sign of burn in so far. I would expect that it might become an issue in a few years but by that time I expect to be able to buy something smaller and better.
Pixel refresher didn’t cause Fox News and ESPN chyrons to appear on the screen when I watched Netflix or Amazon Prime.
 
At this point I think I might just spring for the Best Buy warranty. Apparently it's legit and they will give you a newer model if they no longer carry the one you have. If I still have it after 4.5 years, I'll just leave it on the stock ticker channel 24/7 and see what happens.
 
Pixel refresher didn’t cause Fox News and ESPN chyrons to appear on the screen when I watched Netflix or Amazon Prime.


How are you watching Fox News or ESPN on Netflix, again?

The replays of scripted content almost certainly has no ticker.

You must have broken your TV on-purpose (to match the brokenness of your brain).

My B7 has survived nearly 4 years of Netflix plus Amazon plus games with huds plus a windows task bar, but because II minimize brightness outside fullscreen movies (plus black screensaver), the pixel aging is pretty even; if all you do is watch Fox News 24/7, you''re going to get ticker burn-in
 
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I use dark mode wherever available, have a black background on the desktop, turn the display off during long breaks, have it go to a blank screensaver after 10 minutes and run at 120 nits brightness. Apart from turning the display on/off all of this is automated so in actual usage compared to a regular monitor it's not much different.
The issue with dark mode in some applications is it being dark grey in reality instead of black, which prevents the pixels from actually switching off.
Pixel refresher didn’t cause Fox News and ESPN chyrons to appear on the screen when I watched Netflix or Amazon Prime.
The pixel refresher accelerates the decay of the pixels when you obsessively run the long refresher all the time. It would essentially be like leaving static chyrons on the entire surface of the screen for one hour. It really shouldn't be uses unless you notice an issue with the panel such as stuck pixels. Otherwise just let the TV automatically do its thing.
 
Pixel refresher didn’t cause Fox News and ESPN chyrons to appear on the screen when I watched Netflix or Amazon Prime.
Well your first mistake was watching Fox News. While running pixel refresher constantly will not cause burn in it might contribute to wear.
 
How are you watching Fox News or ESPN on Netflix, again?

The replays of scripted content almost certainly has no ticker.

You must have broken your TV on-purpose (to match the brokenness of your brain).

My B7 has survived nearly 4 years of Netflix plus Amazon plus games with huds plus a windows task bar, but because II minimize brightness outside fullscreen movies (plus black screensaver), the pixel aging is pretty even; if all you do is watch Fox News 24/7, you''re going to get ticker burn-in

Try reading more carefully before making comments that demonstrate your own broken brain.
 
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Well your first mistake was watching Fox News. While running pixel refresher constantly will not cause burn in it might contribute to wear.
As I mentioned, burn-in was the problem caused by static chyrons from channels like Fox and ESPN. I learned the hard way that OLED isn't suited for that kind of long-term use.
 
The issue with dark mode in some applications is it being dark grey in reality instead of black, which prevents the pixels from actually switching off.

The pixel refresher accelerates the decay of the pixels when you obsessively run the long refresher all the time. It would essentially be like leaving static chyrons on the entire surface of the screen for one hour. It really shouldn't be uses unless you notice an issue with the panel such as stuck pixels. Otherwise just let the TV automatically do its thing.
Pixel refresher ran for 1 hour after the TV was off. That's hardly obsessive and was recommended by the Geek Squad guys who installed the TV on my wall.
 
You should never run pixel refresher manually unless you already have burn-in. The pixel refresher purposely wears down the pixels to try to get them to an even amount of wear. Every time you run it you're shorting the life of your TV and making it more prone to burn-in.

"burn-in" is caused by pixels being more worn out than others.
 
You should never run pixel refresher manually unless you already have burn-in. The pixel refresher purposely wears down the pixels to try to get them to an even amount of wear. Every time you run it you're shorting the life of your TV and making it more prone to burn-in.

"burn-in" is caused by pixels being more worn out than others.
Pixel refresher itself does not wear down the pixels but is meant to compensate for wear. Afaik this can be achieved by driving worn pixels with a bit more voltage or leveling the voltages across the board so all pixels are driven similarly, which would result in gradual dimming more than anything.

In any case advances in both panels and mitigation methods have made LG OLEDs a lot more long lasting than they used to be. I have a C9 and CX and neither has any burn in despite both being used a lot.
 
Pixel refresher itself does not wear down the pixels but is meant to compensate for wear. Afaik this can be achieved by driving worn pixels with a bit more voltage or leveling the voltages across the board so all pixels are driven similarly, which would result in gradual dimming more than anything.

In any case advances in both panels and mitigation methods have made LG OLEDs a lot more long lasting than they used to be. I have a C9 and CX and neither has any burn in despite both being used a lot.

That's how the automatic pixel refresher works. It's just detecting the voltage changes so it can compensate later. They explain it here. https://www.lg.com/eg_en/tvs/oled-tvs/oled-reliability

The manual one that runs for an hour seems to do something more though. It's probably not good to manually run it.
 
I have an LG CX (2020) and Samsung Q90R (2019).

I find the Samsung Q90R to have more pleasing and natural color. It also has better sound, IMO. The Q90R also appears to have a better upscaler, which is a god-send for low resolution youtube videos and consoles that output below 4K.

For everything else, the LG CX wins by a mile, especially using it as a monitor. I have 6300+ hours on my CX with mixed use static desktop/webpages, TV, gaming, etc. No burn-in thus far. I find that PC gaming to be far superior on the CX compared to the Q90R, mainly due to the instantaneous pixel response time of OLED. Gaming with HDR on the CX is beyond stunning. The Q90R simply does not hold a candle to the CX in terms of HDR clarity and pop.

Ignore claimed brightness. Yes, the Samsung technically gets brighter, but because it uses FALD as opposed to per-pixel brightness control, the Samsung can look smeary when you have points of brightness. The LG OLED is able to drive a single pixel to max brightness and leave the pixels next to it completely off. This actually makes the LG OLED seem brighter in certain scenarios for HDR. Because of this, I actually prefer HDR content on the LG CX as opposed to the Samsung Q90R.




I did the following things to preserve the screen as much as possible.

Keep OLED brightness between 0-30% in SDR (30 is painful to look at in a dark room)
Set OLED brightness in HDR to 100 (YOLO)
Keep a static black background on your desktop
Autohide the taskbar
Set Windows Screensaver to 5 minutes
Set the signal to cut out at 1 hour.

There are several settings on the OLED you can enable to help as well, such as Screen Shift and Logo Luminance Adjustment to help keep the image from being static for too long. I know this sounds like a lot, but once you set these things, you can forget about it and just enjoy the screen. You don't really have to babysit it.
 
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I have an LG CX (2020) and Samsung Q90R (2019).

I find the Samsung Q90R to have more pleasing and natural color. It also has better sound, IMO. The Q90R also appears to have a better upscaler, which is a god-send for low resolution youtube videos and consoles that output below 4K.

For everything else, the LG CX wins by a mile, especially using it as a monitor. I have 6300+ hours on my CX with mixed use static desktop/webpages, TV, gaming, etc. No burn-in thus far. I find that PC gaming to be far superior on the CX compared to the Q90R, mainly due to the instantaneous pixel response time of OLED. Gaming with HDR on the CX is beyond stunning. The Q90R simply does not hold a candle to the CX in terms of HDR clarity and pop.

Ignore claimed brightness. Yes, the Samsung technically gets brighter, but because it uses FALD as opposed to per-pixel brightness control, the Samsung can look smeary when you have points of brightness. The LG OLED is able to drive a single pixel to max brightness and leave the pixels next to it completely off. This actually makes the LG OLED seem brighter in certain scenarios for HDR. Because of this, I actually prefer HDR content on the LG CX as opposed to the Samsung Q90R.




I did the following things to preserve the screen as much as possible.

Keep OLED brightness between 0-30% in SDR (30 is painful to look at in a dark room)
Set OLED brightness in HDR to 100 (YOLO)
Keep a static black background on your desktop
Autohide the taskbar
Set Windows Screensaver to 5 minutes
Set the signal to cut out at 1 hour.

There are several settings on the OLED you can enable to help as well, such as Screen Shift and Logo Luminance Adjustment to help keep the image from being static for too long. I know this sounds like a lot, but once you set these things, you can forget about it and just enjoy the screen. You don't really have to babysit it.

Thanks - I appreciate hearing from someone who owns both. Sound is a total non-issue. I'm planning on running it through an AV receiver for audio anyway.
 
I've read that the qn90a has freesync preemium pro, the c1 only has freesync premium.
 
I ruined my 2017 LG OLED with burn-in. I ran the pixel refresher utility every night, but it couldn't overcome a couple years of news and sports channels with their static chyrons blazing at the bottom of the screen for 8-12 hours/day. Definitely user error.

I've been reluctant to try an OLED as a monitor. Burn-in and screen size have kept me away. Still, I'm seeing prices fall to $1200 for the LG CX 48". That's tempting me to give it a shot. Haven't pulled the trigger, yet.

if you buy through best buy and get geek squad extended warranty, it covers burn in. This is the only extended warranty I'm aware of that covers burn in
 
Pretty straightforward question. Anyone own either of these and have experiences that the normal reviews don't cover? I'm looking for caveats and good/bad personal experiences.
I know that on paper the LG seems like the way to go, but it's about a grand more expensive (for the larger models) and I'm still paranoid about burn-in. I use my TV as a monitor at least 8 hours a day, so the threat of having something static onscreen is pretty real. Do screensavers and the tech LG is pitching really alleviate this?
The Samsung only has one HDMI 2.1 port, but a new HDMI 2.1 AVR should alleviate that limitation, right?
On the HDR front, it sounds like the Sammy is brighter and they're split with LG using DolbyVision vs. Samsung's HDR10+. What's support like for one vs. the other in games and common streaming platforms?

I would take everything here with a large splash of salt (including mine). You tends to get extreme viewpoints here like mine and I totally hate OLED because of the fake image. Drop over to AVS forum where there're more actual videophiles hanging out.

I went from a KS9500 to a CX only to sell it after 2 months and bought a Q90T and never looked back. If you care to read through a bunch of arguments. Check this thread.

https://hardforum.com/threads/gigab...ch-4k-144-hdr1000-qled-monitor.2009247/page-7
 
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I would take everything here with a large splash of salt (including mine). You tends to get extreme viewpoints here like mine and I totally hate OLED because of the fake image. Drop over to AVS forum where there're more actual videophiles hanging out.

AVS forum has a lot of good info but also people who are so anal about displays that they probably can never enjoy anything they buy. I sometimes feel that they only look at test slides and nothing else on their TVs.
 
I would take everything here with a large splash of salt (including mine). You tends to get extreme viewpoints here like mine and I totally hate OLED because of the fake image. Drop over to AVS forum where there're more actual videophiles hanging out.

I went from a KS9500 to a CX only to sell it after 2 months and bought a Q90T and never looked back. If you care to read through a bunch of arguments. Check this thread.

https://hardforum.com/threads/gigab...ch-4k-144-hdr1000-qled-monitor.2009247/page-7
Pretty sure I said the Q90R has better color than the CX IMO. Did you miss that?

From a technology standpoint (especially for gaming and HDR), the CX and all of LG's OLEDs are the winner by far. As was pointed out, display enthusiast forums will nitpick a display like crazy, which saps the "wow" factor out of tech like OLED. OLED has its faults, but LG's OLED tech is really good, especially for gaming.




EDIT: Oh... I love this one... from the thread listed above, this is in regards to what the user said about his CX 77 with the caption "There goes the no blooming myth".

Excuse my French but WHAT AN EFFING JOKE!!!!! What you're seeing is extremely bright white pixels that are causing a bloom-like effect on the camera. The reason you don't see this on the Q90T is because Samsung is keeping the brightness consistent due to its lower FALD zones and Samsung controlling the brightness so that it doesn't over-brighten the scene around it.

Those bright pixels are an ADVANTAGE of OLED's per pixel light control.

1625930453811.png
 
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Pretty sure I said the Q90R has better color than the CX IMO. Did you miss that?

From a technology standpoint (especially for gaming and HDR), the CX and all of LG's OLEDs are the winner by far. As was pointed out, display enthusiast forums will nitpick a display like crazy, which saps the "wow" factor out of tech like OLED. OLED has its faults, but LG's OLED tech is really good, especially for gaming.




EDIT: Oh... I love this one... from the thread listed above, this is in regards to what the user said about his CX 77 with the caption "There goes the no blooming myth".

Excuse my French but WHAT AN EFFING JOKE!!!!! What you're seeing is extremely bright white pixels that are causing a bloom-like effect on the camera. The reason you don't see this on the Q90T is because Samsung is keeping the brightness consistent due to its lower FALD zones and Samsung controlling the brightness so that it doesn't over-brighten the scene around it.

Those bright pixels are an ADVANTAGE of OLED's per pixel light control.
I was not pointing to a specific post, was just showing that opinion can get extreme on threads like this. But since you brought it up, I would not call those over bright subtitle a good thing, It is however a very good example of the aggressive ABL messing things up.
 
AVS forum has a lot of good info but also people who are so anal about displays that they probably can never enjoy anything they buy. I sometimes feel that they only look at test slides and nothing else on their TVs.

That too but you can usually find a lot more setting suggestions and tricks (like how to get into the service menu) for specific models.
 
AVS forum has a lot of good info but also people who are so anal about displays that they probably can never enjoy anything they buy. I sometimes feel that they only look at test slides and nothing else on their TVs.

Seriously lol. People on that forum are kinda like, once they see color banding in one specific scene in one specific game they will go and spend the rest of their time trying to find banding in anything and everything else. One flaw and now the whole display is permanently ruined for them lol. Pretty much why I haven't even bothered to make an account there to this day.
 
I found AVS to be pretty helpful back when using a TV for a monitor (and running PC audio through an AVR) was still unusual or new. Yet every time I look for anything there these days, it's a war zone. Mostly people who made a buying decision and feel morally obligated to defend that by downplaying all other options. It's like Sega vs. Nintendo from the 90's. Hence I figured I'd check here to get slightly less extreme opinions.

I think I'm going to end up getting the LG and the Best Buy warranty that'll swap it out if burn-in occurs. I plan to take normal precautions that people are recommending, but I also refuse to consider normal use and even watching certain channels a lot to be "user error." I'm going to hide the taskbar, enable a screen saver (+ the TV protection settings), and just let the chips fall.
 
I found AVS to be pretty helpful back when using a TV for a monitor (and running PC audio through an AVR) was still unusual or new. Yet every time I look for anything there these days, it's a war zone. Mostly people who made a buying decision and feel morally obligated to defend that by downplaying all other options. It's like Sega vs. Nintendo from the 90's. Hence I figured I'd check here to get slightly less extreme opinions.

I think I'm going to end up getting the LG and the Best Buy warranty that'll swap it out if burn-in occurs. I plan to take normal precautions that people are recommending, but I also refuse to consider normal use and even watching certain channels a lot to be "user error." I'm going to hide the taskbar, enable a screen saver (+ the TV protection settings), and just let the chips fall.
This is what myself and a lot of users here ended up doing. No regrets.

I've been using my display for a lot of static display work, especially being a DBA and having to look at script/code for a good portion of the day. Like I said, I have 6300+ hours on my CX, and so far, no issues, but I have been quite varied on my content. If you're constantly watching one of the major news channels with a static logo on screen, OLED is a bad idea. If you're varying your content (gaming = varied content btw), you should be fine.
 
This is what myself and a lot of users here ended up doing. No regrets.

I've been using my display for a lot of static display work, especially being a DBA and having to look at script/code for a good portion of the day. Like I said, I have 6300+ hours on my CX, and so far, no issues, but I have been quite varied on my content. If you're constantly watching one of the major news channels with a static logo on screen, OLED is a bad idea. If you're varying your content (gaming = varied content btw), you should be fine.

Luckily the Best Buy protection plan is "only" $700 for 5 years. While not exactly cheap, that extra $ will be long forgotten in a few years and it'll give me the peace of mind not to be paranoid all the time. This TV will basically be my entertainment center, work monitor, game monitor, etc.
 
I ruined my 2017 LG OLED with burn-in. I ran the pixel refresher utility every night, but it couldn't overcome a couple years of news and sports channels with their static chyrons blazing at the bottom of the screen for 8-12 hours/day. Definitely user error.

I've been reluctant to try an OLED as a monitor. Burn-in and screen size have kept me away. Still, I'm seeing prices fall to $1200 for the LG CX 48". That's tempting me to give it a shot. Haven't pulled the trigger, yet.
B6 user here. I can safely say that running the OLED backlight at too high will cause long-term wear problems. I'm running at 30 now, where I used to run at 100. As for static content, as long as the backlight isn't blaring and you don't have a UI up completely uninterrupted, you should be fine.
 
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