Why OLED for PC use?

[Quiz]

There's an increase of OLEDs being used for PC use (whether it be an OLED TV or the ever increasing availability of OLED monitors). But isn't burn-in a concern? Those using LG OLED TVs as PC monitors, have you experienced burn-in? Do you do anything "special" to prevent burn-in or just use it as it was any other monitor?

 

[pendragon1]

its not not much of an issue with current gen but they all have refresh features built in to correct any that might happen, usually after thousands of hours.

 

[kasakka]

Burn in is not a huge concern unless your goal is to keep the same display for 5+ years. I used the LG CX 48" for two years straight working from home, so ~8h desktop use on workdays plus personal use. Same TV is still working without issue.

Just don't run high brightness, set your taskbar/dock/topbar to autohide, use dark modes where available.

People pick OLED because it's a good compromise atm where it's not super expensive, has real <1ms pixel response times, good enough HDR, excellent viewing angles etc. Like any tech it's far from perfect.

 

[Mchart]

There's an increase of OLEDs being used for PC use (whether it be an OLED TV or the ever increasing availability of OLED monitors). But isn't burn-in a concern? Those using LG OLED TVs as PC monitors, have you experienced burn-in? Do you do anything "special" to prevent burn-in or just use it as it was any other monitor?

The QD-OLED's like the Alienware have no burn-in as long as you allow the monitor to do its thing every 4 hours and do a pixel refresh. They come out of the box with a 3-year burn in warranty as well.

 

[Senn]

set your taskbar/dock/topbar to autohide

Am I the only one to find this an extremely annoying compromise? I'm not using OLED anywhere but my phone but I've tried auto-hiding my taskbar before and just found the lack of what is basically the permanent HUD with valuable info on my desktop to be an anti-feature.

 

[Mchart]

Am I the only one to find this an extremely annoying compromise? I'm not using OLED anywhere but my phone but I've tried auto-hiding my taskbar before and just found the lack of what is basically the permanent HUD with valuable info on my desktop to be an anti-feature.

I do not do this with my Alienware. I use it with both Windows and MacOS. No sign of any burn-in. I do make sure that the monitor turns off after 3 minutes of inactivity, but I do not do anything like hide dock/taskbar, etc.

 

[Senn]

I do not do this with my Alienware. I use it with both Windows and MacOS. No sign of any burn-in. I do make sure that the monitor turns off after 3 minutes of inactivity, but I do not do anything like hide dock/taskbar, etc.

Yeah turning off after inactivity is fine, I do that for energy saving purposes anyway. I just feel that taking what I consider to be useful (even vital) functionality away just to baby a panel that can burn in is madness.

This whole debate still bugs me because if we could take all the burn in concerns away from OLED, I'd already be on one.

And yes, I like to keep screens around long term. They tend to find other uses if I move on with my main setup.

 

[Zepher]

I use my Alienware everyday for 12-16 hours and the taskbar and my browser windows are always up.
This is how my windows are set up, I have had this monitor since launch, March of of 2022 and no burn in.
I will do a panel refresh, or whatever they call the feature that takes about 20 minutes, every 3-4 months.

 

[Jumpem]

They have the best picture quality. IPS monitors, which have been touted for a long time in PC outlets, are absolutely terrible looking in comparison.

 

[Mchart]

They have the best picture quality. IPS monitors, which have been touted for a long time in PC outlets, are absolutely terrible looking in comparison.

Again, depends on the content. For professional work OLED just don't do it because of the fringing, largely. General clarity on a high-end professional IPS is hard to beat, and when you're doing that type of work you don't really care about the backlight bleed issues of IPS.

 

[kasakka]

Am I the only one to find this an extremely annoying compromise? I'm not using OLED anywhere but my phone but I've tried auto-hiding my taskbar before and just found the lack of what is basically the permanent HUD with valuable info on my desktop to be an anti-feature.

What valuable info does it really have? Even on LCD I just hide it because that desktop space is more valuable than seeing a clock, some tray icons and open windows.

 

[GoldenTiger]

What valuable info does it really have? Even on LCD I just hide it because that desktop space is more valuable than seeing a clock, some tray icons and open windows.

Beats me... It comes back just by putting the cursor on the bottom of the screen or pressing the windows key anyway. Clock is the only real thing I look at there, and that's not something I need to see constantly.

 

[sgupta]

Not gonna lie, I was pretty opposed to going OLED before my current monitor (the new 27" OLED from LG [27GR95QE-B], which I'm loving so far). If you don't mind going on a journey, I'll tell you why I've become a fan of them, at least so far.

Most of my bias against OLED monitors was because I was a fairly early adopter of an LG OLED TV, and ended up suffering burn-in (Zelda: Breath of the Wild hearts in the upper left and news logos in the lower right), despite watching a variety of content. It also was before they introduced tone-mapping for HDR, so HDR was almost unwatchably dark, and that model had some audio sync issues too - it was a good TV in a lot of ways, but my overall experience was definitely marred by these issues, especially the burn-in. After that experience, I went with a Sony Full-Array Local Dimming (FALD) LED-LCD television and have absolutely loved it and not looked back. It has some blooming and minor dimming on things like starfields, but it's very manageable, the brightness in HDR is astounding, and it's just been fantastic.

So, when I upgraded my PC recently, it was time for a monitor upgrade (I think my last one was...maybe 11 years old...a 27" 60Hz Dell IPS...pretty good display as far as picture quality for desktop use, but very cloudy backlight and pretty poor contrast, especially for dark games). So, I thought I'd go up to 32" and go for one of the local dimming models, since I was so happy with my TV and I thought local dimming should be a no-brainer.

First try was an ASUS ROG PG32UQR - it was a reasonable price (about the same as the LG I mentioned), I really thought edge-lit local dimming would be fine for me, and it seemed to check all the boxes. I will say the picture itself was quite nice, and it had a lot of brightness. But the edge-lit dimming was VERY distracting, even in games, and I couldn't stand it honestly - if I had kept it, I would have to have turned it off for both games and desktop use (black levels would have been better than that old Dell, but still not great). That along with a firmware snafu convinced me I wouldn't be happy with it, so I returned it.

Next I decided to splurge and go for the FALD ASUS ProArt FPA32UCG-K instead since it had come down some from release price, was supposed to be professional-grade, had the full array dimming, a super-tight out of the box calibration, an included colorimeter, and on paper seemed like the perfect monitor. (I considered the ROG QX that a lot of people favor but decided on this instead due to the tighter calibration and the knowledge that a newer QXR was on the way later this year). Again, I found using PC applications (I do a lot of desktop work too) was still very distracting with local dimming on - you could see bright spots everywhere there was content with a mix of bright and dark - my calendar, for instance, or Discord. Games were a lot better and looked pretty great (still not OLED blacks, but close), but I would have had to toggle the FALD on and off when going from desktop use to gaming each time. Also, there was the equivalent of an eyebrow (dunno if it was that or a plastic shaving) showing through the screen (eventually got it to disappear with gentle tapping) and at least 3 dead pixels (which I noticed getting rid of the "eyebrow" lol), and it sometimes was stubborn about coming back from standby (it just occasionally wouldn't) and took a loooong time even when it did. Suffice it to say, for the high price point, I wasn't at all happy with this either, so elected to return it as well.

It then became clear I had three options. Go smaller/cheaper and wait for something I really wanted (maybe the QXR, though I have a feeling I'd have similar issues with that), try the G8 (didn't really want curved, but I've heard good things - again though, would I really be happy with FALD?), or try this new OLED that just launched. The other thing I considered given the 32" size is that even if I looked to the corners, I could see some color shift/etc. due to the poor viewing angles of IPS, which the G8 might have helped with, but I was actually finding myself increasingly okay with going back to 27". So, with the new 27" OLED just launching, I decided to give that a try, and after about a week, I love it. For some, brightness has been an issue, but I find it plenty bright for me personally, though to be fair I have a large amount of control of the light in the room I'm in.

The reasons why are manyfold, especially with the experiences above:
1.) Perfect blacks in both desktop and game usage, which is pretty incredible to use in both and something you're just not gonna get with any other current technology, including miniLED FALD.
2.) The viewing angles are also perfect. This thing is practically a piece of paper from the sides.
3.) I haven't noticed any dead pixels, panel uniformity is great, and coming out of standby is super quick.
4.) While it doesn't have a calibration certificate like the ASUS models, I was quite pleased with sRGB out of the box, and I was able to get my hands on a colorimeter to run the free LG Calibration Studio for an even better calibration. For my controlled environment needs, it was able to reach the SDR target of 160 nits in a window no problem with some room to spare (there is some ABL on a full white screen, but it's not too bad).
5.) I keep it in SDR unless I run a native HDR game (I toggle with the Windows Key + Alt + B shortcut, which I just learned is a feature of the XBOX Game Bar), and HDR looks great and surprised me by how bright it can get. After running Windows HDR Calibration, it's super vibrant and the highlights are bright enough to make me flinch.
6.) The super-high refresh rate and motion clarity is just icing on the cake.

Am I concerned about burn-in? A *little* bit. I'm told it's much less of an issue nowadays than back then. I'm only doing a few things to try to manage it:
- I have set my taskbar to autohide when not in use. I wasn't sure how I'd like that - it's not nearly as annoying as I thought it might be since it's pretty responsive, though it's still very *slightly* annoying. Honestly, if it annoyed me too much, I'd probably just turn it off and try not to worry about it.
- I have the monitor set to go to sleep after 5 minutes of not using the PC (with IPS that was usually 20 or so). It comes back super quick, so this isn't an issue at all.

The other thing to keep in mind, especially when talking about the expensive FALD display I mentioned above (and the QX/QXR are almost as much), is that this is quite a bit cheaper than those. Even if I DO replace it in 1-2 years because of burn-in, I still not be thrilled, but it's still going to be cheaper than had I kept that Pro-Art or gone with the QX. And by that time, there will be some more options available as well (ASUS is making one based on this panel, Dough apparently is, and others may follow).

So for me, it came down to, for my uses, this is simply the best monitor available for me with the fewest compromises (or at least, since ALL technologies currently have compromises, the compromises I can most easily and happily live with).

I hope someone finds this useful. Sorry it's so longwinded but I wanted to give a thorough response as someone who would have told you they'd never get an OLED monitor 6 months ago.

 

[KazeoHin]

What valuable info does it really have? Even on LCD I just hide it because that desktop space is more valuable than seeing a clock, some tray icons and open windows.

I have all my apps pinned to the task bar and desktop icons hidden. Feels good man

 

[jarablue]

I have the bing app change my wallpaper every day, have no desktop icons, run them all on the start menu and taskbar and auto hide the taskbar. No burn in here after 1k hours. I can't go back to shitty monitor tech after using a 48in C2 OLED. No way in hell.

 

[GameLifter]

So far I've had to RMA two Alienware QD-OLEDs for burn-in. Both were burned in from having two browser windows side-by-side burning in the middle scroll bar and URL bar. I noticed the burn-in on the first one after about two months and the second one started to burn-in almost immediately but I waited until it got really bad before sending it back. My third one has held up better so far. I'm hoping my first two were just bad panels.

 

[Zepher]

So far I've had to RMA two Alienware QD-OLEDs for burn-in. Both were burned in from having two browser windows side-by-side burning in the middle scroll bar and URL bar. I noticed the burn-in on the first one after about two months and the second one started to burn-in almost immediately but I waited until it got really bad before sending it back. My third one has held up better so far. I'm hoping my first two were just bad panels.

I have these color slides made to check for burn in and retention.

 

[xDiVolatilX]

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ro...ung-s95b-qd-oled-substantial-burn-in-3-months

Burn in is real don't get caught with your pants down. You need to be in a dim environment and have the brightness on the oled dim at all times otherwise it can and will burn in. *insert "I have 2000 hours no burn in" comment now. Yea you are in a dark cave like batman watching OLED turned down the brightness please don't mislead people. OLED will burn in a few months if you turn up the brightness that is a fact. If you're ok with dim room dim display that's fine. I certainly am not batman, I'm a normal person that enjoys daylight as much as I do dim light. Use oled at your own risk. Feeling risky? Cool. Wanna babysit your display? Cool. I'm not. I need my mini led 4k 144hz to last 10 years, not 10 months. Don't lie to yourself or others. The risk of burn in is a real fact, just accept it and deal with it as you all do.

 

[kasakka]

I have all my apps pinned to the task bar and desktop icons hidden. Feels good man

I never use the desktop for anything as it's nearly always covered by windows. If I want to open something I just hit one key on my programmable keyboard that does the shortcut for launching Powertoys Run search bar and type partial name of the app there. Or have it pinned in the Start menu.

 

[MacLeod]

Am I the only one to find this an extremely annoying compromise? I'm not using OLED anywhere but my phone but I've tried auto-hiding my taskbar before and just found the lack of what is basically the permanent HUD with valuable info on my desktop to be an anti-feature.

No I'm with you on this and it's why I have no interest in OLED. I like my taskbar to always be there. I've tried hiding it but find it annoying. I have several things pinned to it and it's just more convenient for me to have it always there.

Now granted I only use my PC for gaming so I am a little less picky on picture quality and am ok with not having the bleeding edge PQ for my monitor. I'd rather use a traditional LCD that I don't have to worry about burn in or maintenance.

Not knocking anybody that does tho because OLED makes a gorgeous picture so I totally get why one wouldn't mind the few hassles and inconveniences that come with owning one. I'm sure for plenty out there it's worth the trade off..... For me tho it's not.

 

[Senn]

What valuable info does it really have? Even on LCD I just hide it because that desktop space is more valuable than seeing a clock, some tray icons and open windows.

For me, aside from the tray icons, clock and open windows I've also got CPU, memory, network and disk I/O monitors on there. Necessary? Not for everyone. But I enjoy having those down there and have found it genuinely useful many times when things start going boobs upwards.

KDE, if you're wondering.

 

[vegeta535]

I only use my CX55 for gaming in my PC. I use another monitor for general use stuff.

 

[Odigo]

I want to jump to OLED.. but waiting for 32inch sizes.. from my understanding it takes allot to burn in. It's not as common as people make it out to be.. Assuming you don't leave a static screen for days.

 

[Mchart]

I want to jump to OLED.. but waiting for 32inch sizes.. from my understanding it takes allot to burn in. It's not as common as people make it out to be.. Assuming you don't leave a static screen for days.

Alienware is 34'', why do you want a 32''?

 

[Odigo]

Alienware is 34'', why do you want a 32''?

It's a weird extra wide screen resolution. For gaming, from my understanding, if not supported will be closer to 27inch screen size.

 

[Mchart]

It's a weird extra wide screen resolution. For gaming, from my understanding, if not supported will be closer to 27inch screen size.

That's true. However, there aren't many modern games that have issue supporting ultra widescreen. Worst case scenario is you get pre-rendered movies/menus that are 16:9 and so you get black bars. However, because it's OLED you don't notice the black bars.. Since they are completely black unlike other LED panels.

 

[GoldenTiger]

Alienware is 34'', why do you want a 32''?

Lower odd widescreen resolution (much lower than 4k) plus it's curved.

 

[Zahua]

I haven't had any burn in and use 100% brightness and many hours a day.

Even if i did get 1 or 2 icons burn in, that's still better than IPS glow and low contrast.

 

[Nenu]

"IF" there wasnt the prospect of burn in I would have an OLED as my main display.
But I wont be taking the risk, especially when they arent that bright for HDR anyway, and colour quality reduces to get their highest brightness.

I compared OLED vs my QLED VA TV and UW VA monitor and there isnt enough difference to make it worth the trouble.
My TV is HDR2000 which looks amazing.
There is some halo'ing around small bright objects on a black background (pretty rare) but I'd rather that than subject myself to a poorer everyday experience limiting damage, and not being able to pass the screen on to family/friends when I'm finished with it because its knackered.

When high output OLED is known to be safe for PC use and can do HDR2000+, I may switch.
Though it looks like microLED will make it first.

 

[Mopar63]

The QD-OLED's like the Alienware have no burn-in as long as you allow the monitor to do its thing every 4 hours and do a pixel refresh.

This statement has no basis in factual data at this time. While the Alienware offers a 3 year warranty against burn in this in no way means there will be no burn in. We need long term testing to know this for sure.

 

[xDiVolatilX]

This guy does a good round up with 3 monitors I enjoyed his fair nonscientific opinion.



Pros and cons to different display technologies.

 

[LigTasm]

This guy does a good round up with 3 monitors I enjoyed his fair nonscientific opinion.



Pros and cons to different display technologies.

Jufus is harsh but realistic. He can be a little toxic sometimes but at least he's not paid to shill.

I have wanted OLED for years, after looking at the TVs in Best Buy when they first came out I was sold on the colors. I don't care much about accuracy as I don't do pro work but the vibrant colors and deep blacks really attracted me. I don't watch TV, I have one in the house with a hulu box just for guests so buying a $3000+ OLED TV was not really practical. Finally I managed to snag the FO48U on sale for $699 or whatever and its just great. I would prefer a smaller screen, but glossy OLED just looks so damn good. Looking at my dell 1440p IPS panel the colors are so washed out and dingy looking I almost feel like something is wrong with my eyes.

 

[kasakka]

This guy does a good round up with 3 monitors I enjoyed his fair nonscientific opinion.



Pros and cons to different display technologies.

This guy yelling everything was frustrating to watch. Then he keeps repeating the same points over and over. So nobody else has to watch this crap, here's a summary:

• Likes the 360 Hz LCD best for eSports because of the higher refresh rate and how it feels to play with a locked 359 fps.
• Neo G8 best for single player games and likes the HDR brightness. Less responsive for eSports games when local dimming is used.
• LG 1440p OLED is good as an overall option for single/multiplayer games and not having to buy a more powerful GPU like you would need with the 4K Neo G8.
• Feels the LG 1440p OLED is too dim.

I don't disagree with those points. Cannot say about brightness as I haven't used the LG 1440p. I just really, really hate "YouTube personalities".

 

[kamxam]

Why have an OLED as a Desktop Monitor? I try to say, "Why Not?"

Have the S95B QD-OLED atm as my monitor, and enjoying it a lot. Would have liked it to be about 48", but the smallest of that TV was 55" So....Here i am.
Have found 1 stuck pixel but it's not really noticeable unless you look for it. Wouldn't mind figuring out how to get rid of it though but not a deal-breaker.

 

[ZodaEX]

Why have an OLED as a Desktop Monitor? I try to say, "Why Not?"

Because it's not worth the effort dealing with significant the burn-in issues. My Minecraft inventory bar is burned into my OLED and it drives me nuts. It's just a poor design for a monitor. I can see how you could get away using the tech in a phone though. Assuming you aren't on it for hours straight every day.

 

[xDiVolatilX]

This guy yelling everything was frustrating to watch. Then he keeps repeating the same points over and over. So nobody else has to watch this crap, here's a summary:

• Likes the 360 Hz LCD best for eSports because of the higher refresh rate and how it feels to play with a locked 359 fps.
• Neo G8 best for single player games and likes the HDR brightness. Less responsive for eSports games when local dimming is used.
• LG 1440p OLED is good as an overall option for single/multiplayer games and not having to buy a more powerful GPU like you would need with the 4K Neo G8.
• Feels the LG 1440p OLED is too dim.

I don't disagree with those points. Cannot say about brightness as I haven't used the LG 1440p. I just really, really hate "YouTube personalities".

Ya he can be obnoxious lol but he has really grown on me because he spits the truth. His reviews samples are bought by supporters backing his channel so all of his opinions are his own. 100% his own thoughts. I've actually never disagreed with him yet. Also he overclicked all hardware to the max, pretty cool content.

 

[xDiVolatilX]

Because it's not worth the effort dealing with significant the burn-in issues. My Minecraft inventory bar is burned into my OLED and it drives me nuts. It's just a poor design for a monitor. I can see how you could get away using the tech in a phone though. Assuming you aren't on it for hours straight every day.

You should see my Galaxy OLED phone lol it's horrifying with terrible burn in. I hated the burn in so much I knew I would never want to spend a lot of money on a PC display cause I would no doubt regret it. Also I don't like the dim look oleds doesn't wow me. I have an OLED C2 and returned it honestly it was boring to look at.

 

[LigTasm]

You should see my Galaxy OLED phone lol it's horrifying with terrible burn in. I hated the burn in so much I knew I would never want to spend a lot of money on a PC display cause I would no doubt regret it. Also I don't like the dim look oleds doesn't wow me. I have an OLED C2 and returned it honestly it was boring to look at.

I can't even imagine what you guys think a "bright" display looks like, my screen is at a brightness of 20 and its sometimes too bright still. Are you sure you don't want to just go outside and try to stare down the sun?

 

[xDiVolatilX]

I can't even imagine what you guys think a "bright" display looks like, my screen is at a brightness of 20 and its sometimes too bright still. Are you sure you don't want to just go outside and try to stare down the sun?

All the time. Sometimes if I'm feeling frisky I'll even stare through my telescope 🔭for added affect. Ahhhhh feels good on the eyes 👀

 

[Sancus]

There's an increase of OLEDs being used for PC use (whether it be an OLED TV or the ever increasing availability of OLED monitors). But isn't burn-in a concern? Those using LG OLED TVs as PC monitors, have you experienced burn-in? Do you do anything "special" to prevent burn-in or just use it as it was any other monitor?

Ive been using my Alienware AW3423DW for 9 months now with no signs of burn-in. Brightness is 50%(can't imagine why anyone would want to use more than that).

I treat it as a normal monitor, and use it probably 10-12 hours a day. I do not hide my taskbar. The only concession I've made to it being OLED is reducing sleep time from 1 hour with an LCD to 10 minutes. And that's mainly so that the pixel refresh gets more opportunities to run, since it only takes a few minutes.

To me, ~$1000 is very cheap for a monitor of this quality level and I have no problems replacing it in 3 or 4 years if need be. Probably will want something better by then anyway.

Hot take: An OLED monitor with burn-in on the panel would *still* be a better looking monitor than any IPS LCD, and it's not even close. IPS glow is far, far more distracting and visible in more scenes than taskbar burn-in.