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aappleby
ksec
My Friend on a 30Hz Phone Screen because of battery saving mode said the difference between 30Hz and 60Hz is so minor, that in "In practice, it's been unnoticeable."
At one point in time 95%+ of HN comments were cheering on about Atom the text editor and later VSCode as being fast enough or unnoticeable. When Sublime user are baffled as to why. And Sublime isn't the fastest text editor either before Zed came out.
Yes, 10 times out of 10 I could tell an OLED font rendering to LCD. I wish I couldn't. Some people call it taste, some call it absurd requirement.
I could go on and on. The point is most people aren't very picky and picky is a definition defined by average. But there are those of us who have, let say very high standards that cares about PPI, Refresh Rate, Colour accuracy etc. Keyboard Key's typing distance, trackpad responsiveness, all the tiny details that I wish I could unseen and un-feel.
As the article state, RGB OLED Tandem is coming out, and I cant wait to see it in person. I have been pro LCD on Laptop for so long that when I learned Apple will soon ditch LCD for OLED I was worried. Hopefully the new sub pixel layout will fix it.
wolvoleo
Yes this. I don't use screens below 200dpi anymore (right now I have 4K on 24", at 200% scaling) and many people say that it's a waste because it's way too high. But I can still see pixels that are off. I just love sharp text. Which everyone is used to on their phones, I don't understand why people don't want the same on their computer which they probably use a lot more hours per day (I sure do)
I'm sure I would notice and be annoyed by this fringing too unless the pixels were so small I really couldn't see them. Probably needs to be slightly higher than 200 then. But I haven't seen oled monitors with such high DPIs. The highest I've seen is 4K on 27" which wouldn't even do for me on LCD.
ValdikSS
>right now I have 4K on 24", at 200% scaling
I have Dell P2415Q, from 2015. There are, like, 4 other (legacy) models of 24" 4K out there, and that's it. I've no idea why they don't manufacture them.
omnimus
Just a nitpick… it's ppi (pixels per inch). dpi is unit used in printing.
I have the same monitor and i believe over 200ppi is pointless for desk monitor unless you are very close to it. It makes sense for laptops which you have much closer but i think most people have desk monitors way way further from the eyes.
snarfy
I have a dual 4k/1080p(480hz) oled monitor at home I mostly run at 1080p and 4k lcd monitors at work. I bounce between both and really don't notice much difference. I need the text zoomed on 4k anyway, so it is effectively 1080p screen area, but sharper. Growing up in Atari days I don't mind pixels and actually like them. Latency and the 480hz is more important to me than 4k pixels.
Voultapher
4K on 24" equates to ~184ppi, not sure how you concluded > 200.
Source https://www.sven.de/dpi/
rabf
When people ask what computer they should buy I always tell them to get any old office computer from ebay and use the rest of the money to buy a really nice monitor, and a really nice keyboard and mouse, as these are the bits you use! For most tasks that are undertaken on a computer any processor from the last 10 years coupled with 16GB of ram is more than sufficient.
nasmorn
If you buy a really nice monitor, which for me starts at 6K 32” - the eBay computer will no longer drive it. What I find insane is how long companies issued 19” 1080 screens to their employees. I don’t think that was a well calculated choice given that a couple of hundred more over 5 years would have surely improved productivity by a little bit for their 50k year employees. It felt almost done out of spite to keep people in their place
wpm
I have a ThinkPad T420 that is sufficient for most tasks that don't involve HEVC acceleration. It's got a mobile Sandy Bridge i7, booting off of a SATA SSD.
The only thing that really needed an upgrade was the display. I ditched the crappy 1366x768 TN for a 1440p IPS and an LVDS-eDP conversion board. Looks fantastic. Runs great.
eloisant
It's all a matter of compromise.
I can see the difference between 60Hz and 120Hz on phone screens, and I think it's worth the impact on battery life.
I can see the difference in speed between VSCode and editors like Sublime or Zed, however in this case I prefer the additional features at the cost of speed/smoothness.
balou23
At some point there were LCD monitors that had very noticeable to me chequerboard pattern - like with analogue TV, only half of the screen got lit up/refreshed, but with an alternating pattern rather than scan lines.
After asking the owner of said screen how he could stand that... "stand what?"
Yep, I guess most people are not that picky.
beagle3
It’s not necessarily picky - it’s sometimes about physically different perception.
When DLP projectors first came out, I couldn’t watch them. I would see colors breaking in fast motion scenes and whenever I would move my head even slightly (and … we all move our head slightly often when watching a movie).
When I told other people, some of them nodded in understanding, but the vast majority thought I was making things up - for them, it was a rock solid picture.
One of my friends replied: “I can see about 300hz. Not all the time - only when I have secadic movements; but that means many fluorescents, DLPs and other light sources drive me crazy. I guess you’re also a member of crazy club”
Some people can hear 26khz. Some people can see DLPs. Some people can see the alternating pattern….
ssl-3
I had a (regrettable) 19" 4x3 ViewSonic display that made that problem obvious -- way back in 2008 or so.
My homework at that time revealed a couple of things:
1. Liquid crystals are individually driven by AC waveforms, not DC as one might assume. This is the nature of the beast. The frequency at which the signal alternates is not necessarily very high. Thus, sometimes, this alternating nature is visible.
2. Some displays use dithering. A given display might support just -- say -- 6 bits per subpixel. To get the full 8 or 10 or whatever number of bits that are expected as a final output, the in-between steps are approximated by switching between two values -- sometimes (again) at a fairly low frequency that is visible.
...
But anyway, that ViewSonic monitor: Most people thought it looked fine, but it drove me nuts.
lostlogin
Don’t forget sound. Listening to music off a phone speaker. It’s so grating that I don’t understand why anyone would do it.
ksec
There was a point in time ( may be 15+ years ago ) I said MacBook have the best laptop speakers and that was one of the reason I brought them. They are not perfect, as any people who cares about audio will tell you but considering the size of laptop they were the best I could get and decent enough.
Most of my friends, and nearly everyone on the internet was like, who buys Laptops because of speakers? They all sounded the same. Get a Dell. I think it was on either Anandtech or Tomshardware. It was certainly before Reddit Era.
Somewhere along the line, may be 2015 to 2020 Youtube reviewers have been bashing about Dell or other laptops for their crappy cost saving speakers. ( Thank You Dave2D ) And, manage to actually show it in the video how awful they were. All of a sudden "consumer" took notice and have since demanded better speakers. Laptop Speakers in the past 5 years have improved tremendously. As it turns out, people need to learn how to compare. And once they do, they cant unseen it.
But in all honesty in the past few years I really really wished I dont have the ability to tell the difference. To not have the mentality how something could be "better". To stop thinking how everything, from Food, Furniture, Tech Stack, UI, Buildings anything could be better.
Some say it is a gift, I think it is more of a curse. And it is a struggle and tiring. I then discovered my retreat for peace was to go out to nature and enjoy the creation of god.
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beaugunderson
30hz is so painfully slow, I can always tell when I'm in power saving mode on the iPhone by that alone. On desktop I can't even do 60hz anymore after switching to a 144hz monitor.
altairprime
> 10 times out of 10 I could tell an OLED font rendering to LCD. I wish I couldn't.
I second this. I can tell, and I would never wish that ability on my worst enemy. Very glad there's a (slim, but exists) market catering to that — and that I no longer have to buy a monitor that costs as much as a small motorcycle to not be constantly infuriated at everything in my field of vision when working.
skullt
> He's also got Cleartype on and set to RGB stripe even though the OLED is not RGB stripe (though to be fair, Windows doesn't really make it clear what each page of the ClearType tuner does).
I doubt it's Cleartype, the close up photo of the U3223QE show all subpixels uniformly dimmed on the fringes. The post also says the monitor is attached to a Mac mini and a previous post about OpenSCAD has a screenshot with MacOS window decorations.
c0nsumer
Yep -- you've got it exactly. macOS and no Cleartype.
Had I been using this on Windows I would have started to solve it by trying to tune that.
theshackleford
> In practice for me, it's been unnoticeable.
You act like being able to see this a minority opinion, it’s not, and it’s a known issue. And you don’t need to be sitting close, or using a tiny font to notice it.
My 4K OLED is noticeably less clear compared to an IPS display and I’d never use it for productivity as a result, because why would I willingly subject myself to an objectively worse experience?
aappleby
It's a tradeoff - if you want a fast clear gaming monitor with pure blacks, you get an OLED. If you want the clearest text and are OK with middling response time, you get an IPS.
theshackleford
I went the opposite route because I don't like compromise in either domain and so just bought separate displays. Not an option for all obviously.
It actually helped me enforce a separation between WFH/where I relax anyway, so not the worst.
badsectoracula
There is also VA which provides deep (though not pure) blacks, clear text and decent response time though you get some slight smearing on high contrast edges.
Personally i prefer VA to IPS by far because IPS looks washed out to me.
kstenerud
Whether it's a minority opinion or not, I really can't see the difference. Even when he posted highly zoomed images of VS Code ("Visual Studio Code does a wonderful job demonstrating this problem"), the only thing I noticed is that the image on the right looks slightly brighter than the image on the left.
Then as I went back to where he was describing the problem ("fringing"), I kept forgetting when I scrolled back to the images which was which (and which image was supposed to be "worse").
I'm on a 2025 Macbook, so maybe the laptop's monitor masks the issue?
c0nsumer
(Author here.)
That's an interesting point you mention about not seeing it, because prior to buying an OLED I'd read a bunch about fringing and in many articles I just... couldn't see it. I couldn't tell what was being illustrated in the images.
It wasn't until I sat in front of one for a few hours, in my room and lighting and with my apps and had funny-feeling eyes and a this-seems-off feeling that I decided to investigate. And yes, those macro photos show fringing, but it /is/ hard to understand how the subpixel pattern translates to on-screen weirdness until you've seen it for yourself.
writebetterc
I'm on a M4 Macbook, and I can see it. I'm inclined to totally accept the blog author's experience as true for them, I'd probably experience the same thing.
WithinReason
The image on the right was also out of focus which hides color fringing on the LCD
c0nsumer
(Author here.)
There's no Cleartype in use here, as the first paragraph says, it's macOS.
And I'm using the default font sizes because they work well for me on an LCD. The point of this post is to document my experience with trying a current-gen generally-available OLED and how it did not work out well because of the subpixel arrangement.
It's also not just an issue on text, it affects any high contrast edges, especially perfectly vertical or horizontal ones. This meant that CAD stuff, spreadsheets (the grid), and large colored sections in graphic design software looked off as well.
c0nsumer
Author here.
There is no Cleartype; this is macOS. And as mentioned I couldn't see the fringing from normal use, that only became evident with macro photos. During normal use it just looked sparkly or weird or artifacted.
And yes, the fonts are small, but that default size in VS Code or Numbers.app -- the example photos -- work well for me. And look fine on an LCD.
cube2222
I bought a w-oled monitor for office work and gaming, very happy with my oled tv. I returned it after a couple days.
I got unbearable eye strain from it, even though I use rather large fonts, and the ppd was the same as with my previous IPS. Yes, the “more fuzzy” text was very much noticeable too.
Maybe it varies by person, maybe it’s influenced by things like astigmatism, but I totally see where the author is coming from, and I too am waiting for the new OLED panels to see if there’s an improvement.
c0nsumer
(Author here.)
I do have astigmatism. You do make me wonder if this plays a part as well...
ghusbands
In my experience, it seems to. My astigmatism (or other eye stuff) seems to move different colours different amounts, leading to wider RGB pixels and making things like Cleartype so much worse. So people were enjoying Cleartype and I was hating the obvious colour-changes and fringes that somehow they weren't seeing. I assume some people are lucky enough to have aberrations that actually make cleartype more pleasant.
SomeHacker44
I do too. Combined with progressive lenses and I have significant chromatic aberration issues. Blue and red pixels require different focus, which is sometimes an issue when solid blues and reds are on screen in close proximity. I turn off pure blue colors in my terminal emulator, for example.
kalleboo
He's using a Mac, Apple removed support for subpixel rendering many years ago, it's not ClearType, the display shows color fringing even with grayscale antialiasing, that's what he's complaining about.
ghusbands
It's not like the Cleartype tuner actually does what the pages claim - you can go through and use the magnifier to choose the grayscale-only outcomes and still see Windows doing RGB stripe cleartype throughout. People literally have to install third-party tools like MacType or GDI-PlusPlus to get solid font rendering. So blaming users for using it wrong (especially when they're not even on Windows) is odd.
Also, many people can see and are bothered by particular non-rectangular pixel layouts - it doesn't require doing odd things.
quitit
If your job involves detailed text review (such as coding) then splash out on a display with a pixel density of at least 250 PPI.
The screen shown in this blog looks like it's ~140 PPI. Sure these screens are cheap, but they're best used for moving graphical content.
In the demonstration image the text is just 9 pixels tall, while thatis legible, it is unacceptable for long term reading and is completely reliant on subpixel rendering to produce an impression of smoothness.
WilcoKruijer
Totally agree. I’ve been using the Asus ProArt PA32QCV (6k monitor) for the past few months, and it has been great for coding. It’s about 220 PPI, or what Apple calls “retina”.
ak217
I've had my eyes on this Asus for a while now, but the rtings review mentions aggressive matte coating that seems like it might negate the high PPI advantage by randomly blurring the result. What's your impression?
calebh
I bought the 6K ProArt on launch, replacing an older 4k 27" Dell monitor. The new monitor is definitely an upgrade, but not as great as I was hoping. Like you said, the matte coating is by far the worst part of this monitor. I would say that it isn't bad enough to return the monitor, but it's definitely noticeable on white windows.
I've definitely enjoyed having the extra screen real estate over the 27" monitor, and the extra resolution has been very helpful for having a bunch of windows open in Unity.
This year at CES there were a number of new monitors unveiled that compete in this space. There's a new Samsung monitor (G80HS) that is a 32" 6k with a higher refresh rate than what you'd find with existing offerings. Unfortunately it has the matte coating instead of glossy, so clarity will suffer.
Also of interest are the new 27" 4k offerings with true RGB stripe subpixel layout. This should fix text rendering problems, especially on Windows. Both Samsung and LG are making these OLED monitors with the true RGB layout. There will almost certainly be glossy coatings offered with these panels, and they'll have higher refresh rates than IPS. The main downside will be brightness for full screen white windows. I think the Samsung panel is a bit better than LG in terms of brightness.
WilcoKruijer
To be honest, it’s probably the worst 6k monitor out there, but I’m still enjoying it. I got it basically before any reviews were out and I initially thought I had a defective model. The matte coating is pretty bad, and the screen being darker near the edges is also very noticeable when you look for it. It’s also 60hz which is pretty disappointing.
With all that said, I would still recommend it over anything not retina.
Melonai
Wait, I do my work on a 4K display, according to a calculator I have a PPI of 150, but I already find my 4K display completely overkill!
Now, I spent an amount of my work life staring at a company-issued 27 inch 1080p display, and that was absolutely horrible, but with 4K, I'm not sure if I would even be able to see the improvement if I went to 6K or 8K even, which I always thought was mostly useless outside of gigantic television sets. Is it really worth it? Can you really genuinely see the text blurring on a 4K monitor?
ebbi
I went from a 27" 4k display to my 5k iMac I converted to work as an external display. You can definitely see the difference, especially with text. The 4k - although a HUGH improvement over 1080p monitors - will still have that fuzziness on fonts.
ghusbands
I would probably see text quality issues on that setup. It depends on how far away the monitor is. PPI on phone screens tends to be much higher than PPI on laptops which tends to be higher than PPI on monitors, because each is typically used at a different distance.
If you're not using text around 9 pixels tall, as in the article, you're probably going to be okay. On a 27 inch screen at a typical office screen distance, I'd probably want 6k, but 4k is pretty good and 1080p is terrible.
_DeadFred_
<Laughs in 1990s 12 inch IBM blurry CRT>
namuol
The issue is with font rendering software not properly accounting for the subpixel arrangement of the display. I guess it’s a valid concern from a simple pragmatic perspective as a consumer, but as an enthusiast it’s not strictly a problem with OLED. Surely there’s some work out there that tries to improve font rendering on nonuniform subpixel layouts, right?
c0nsumer
(Author here.)
The other issue is that it's not just a text problem. It affects any high color contrast edges, especially directly vertical or horizontal ones. So subpixel rendering tweaks for text rendering (eg: Cleartype) don't solve the whole problem.
jonny_eh
> Surely there’s some work out there that tries to improve font rendering on nonuniform subpixel layouts, right?
Only Microsoft can fix it, and as far as I know, they don't seem interested.
vlabakje90
Others can fix it too and they have. See:
https://github.com/snowie2000/mactype
https://github.com/CoolOppo/GDI-PlusPlus
I use MacType and it works really well. You can tune many more things than with ClearType.
wildredkraut
Same here, running MacType/Windows on a 65" LG 4k OLED C5 TV with 100% scaling as my main display for all kind of stuff incl. coding. But i must admit that fonts on Linux looks noticeable better out of the box and MacType/Windows does not apply to all applications. E.g. for LibreOffice i had to change the rendering engine(disable skia) under options and on PDFGear MacType does not apply at all.
Anyway, OLED is great, I'm sitting 2 arm length away from the panel.
People complaining are probably Gen.Z that never sat in-front of an ol' CRT in the 90s and are spoiled by smartphones running 4k on minuscule 7" displays with 460ppi.
debazel
I've tried MacType before but sadly it came with significant slow down in many applications, lists would lag while scrolling, etc.
It's really annoying because all I really want is to disable ClearType on my primary high DPI monitor while keeping it with default settings for my two side monitors, but Windows does not let you configure it per monitor.
montag
I guess we need a font rendering engine for arbitrary subpixel layout...
girvo
As the article states, this is why RGB Stripe layouts are the next big things in OLED. Quite exciting, and sub pixel layouts that aren't good for text are exactly why I have an XG27AQMR in front of me for work/gaming instead of an OLED (27" IPS LCD, 1440p, 300hz)
magicalhippo
I upgraded my 27" 1440p LCD to a 27" 4k OLED (PG27UCDM) and for me text rendering was a big upgrade.
Yes there is color fringing if I take a zoomed in picture with my camera, but nothing I notice in day to day use. And I've been highly annoyed by missing or bad ClearType rendering.
I specifically went for the 27" to get the extra pixel density though. I might not have been happy with the 32" variant.
That said, the true blacks and bright whites is something else. For me a very significant upgrade both on the desktop and in games, despite the previous being an upper-level LCD when I bought it 4-5 years ago.
girvo
Yeah I'm quite excited to move to the 34" ultra-wide 1440p RGB stripe 360hz monitor they announced! OLED is an amazing technology, and this was IMO the final barrier to overcome to beat IPS on nearly all axes.
sirfz
I just ordered this monitor earlier this week (still waiting for it to be delivered), did you need to tweak it or use some thing like MacType like others are suggesting in this thread?
magicalhippo
I'm on Windows. Didn't tweak it much, I changed the color settings slightly according to this video[1].
jedbrooke
I wonder if the RGB strip layout has some downsides, and why such a no brainer idea hasn’t been tried before.
If I had to guess it could be something in the manufacturing process is more difficult.
kllrnohj
RGB strip isn't really better, it's just what cleartype happens to understand. A lot of these OLED developments came from either TV or mobile, neither of which had legacy subpixel hinting to deal with. So the subpixel layouts were optimized for both manufacturing but also human perception. Humans do not perceive all colors equally, we are much more sensitive to green than blue for example. Since OLED is emissive, it needs to balance how bright the color emitted is with how sensitive human wet wear is to it.
kalleboo
> A lot of these OLED developments came from either TV or mobile
I remember getting one of the early Samsung OLED PenTile displays, and despite the display having a higher resolution on-paper than the display on the LCD phone I replaced it with, the fuzzy fringey text made it far less readable in practice. There were other issues with that phone so I was happy to resell it and go back to my previous one.
girvo
The article shows mac, it's not just ClearType...
PenTile for example (as another commenter pointed out) was woeful with text, and made things look fuzzy.
I'm not a fan of ClearType, but even on Linux OLED text rendering just isn't as good in my experience (at normal desktop monitor DPI)
Perhaps its down to the algorithms most OSes use instead of just ClearType, but why hasn't it been solved by this point even outside Windows?
moogly
They've just have had issues manufacturing it, but there were several monitors from MSI, Asus and Gigabyte with Samsung's latest gen QD-OLED display announced (and reviewed) this week with RGB stripe subpixel layout, so we are there now (as soon as they are available), and this article is somewhat poorly timed.
c0nsumer
(Author here.)
I'd say that because the article documents my experience at this point in time, the only poor timing is when my old-ish monitor died and I went looking for a replacement. And this article documents my experience with that.
omcnoe
Originally OLED TVs used different sized subpixels for different colors as part of their wear management. Red wears out the fastest so it would have the largest subpixel.
seanalltogether
The problem with strip layouts is if you rotate the monitor (or phone) you lose all the subpixel rendering benefits. OLED pentiles work better in all rotations.
zokier
Peak brightness is most likely to suffer.
dleslie
This was a validating read. I used a Samsung G9 OLED for the better part of a year and eventually had to stop because the eye strain was terrible. I found myself avoiding my desk because it was a chore to look at the display.
I've moved back to using a pair of 4K LCDs that I had, and honestly the resolution and aspect ratio are better for text and programming anyhow.
on_the_train
LCD is just the better technology. Besides what this article is about, OLED have awful burning and longevity problems. They're great for watching movies on the first month (and that's what gets them sold), but really not much else.
tyleo
That’s not my experience. I've had an OLED TV going on 7 years now and it still looks better than any of my LCD screens.
My PC monitors are my only remaining LCD screens largely due to the text fringing issues mentioned in this article and bezel size.
martini333
lol
bob1029
Something to consider is that the sub pixel layout of OLED is an engineering necessity to achieve longevity and cost (panel yield) objectives.
LCD can have a uniform layout because it's a passive layer doing the filtering. In OLED, each pixel is active and that blue one is trying to burn itself out much faster than the other two.
dpark
QD OLED doesn’t actually have different colored OLED elements though. Does this apply to that tech?
bob1029
QD is one big blue emitter. The geometry has to be optimized to spread the wear out accordingly. WOLED has a 4th large, white sub pixel because the RGB filters cannot pass enough light for high luminance scenes.
dpark
Right. The monitor here is a QD OLED so all emitters are actually blue. That’s why I’m not sure if the physical size concern is as legitimate.
cheema33
I have been using a 48" LG OLED TV as a monitor for about 2 years. I thought I would love it. But I hated it. Text looked horrible. I was going mad and then Google'd a bit to see if others hated it too. And found that they did. But luckily there are settings that can be changed to turn it into an excellent computer monitor. Once I changed the right settings, it was love. I have 3 monitors on my desk. 32" LG LEDs on the side, 48" OLED in the middle. All 4K. I love this setup. I do occasionally think about replacing the LEDs. I just need the OLED pricing to drop a little more.
mirsadm
What are those settings? I have the same TV as my monitor.
legitronics
probably something to do the with RGB sub-pixel order/layout being different. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering
When the OS assumes correctly what the monitor actually looks like, you get even better text rendering. When it guesses wrong you get a horrible mess.
piyuv
How close are you sitting to those monitors?
modeless
I can't bring myself to get an OLED when I know it will get the taskbar and window decorations burned into it after a few years. One day if they invent one with truly zero burn-in I'll consider it.
marticode
Same here. OLED is fine for gamers who use it a couple hours here and there but for a system that's on 8+ hour per day with a taskbar and the usual work apps, this is just not adequate.
thebruce87m
Yep, my LG TV got noticeable burn in after 5 years - Minecraft hearts and other gaming related things from my son. 9 years in and the colours in the middle of the screen are terrible too - I think the self-generated heat has caused this. It’s unwatchable for me but my wife doesn’t seem to mind.
jwrallie
I like to use monitors for a very long time, knowing it will have burn in and lower brightness over time does not sit well with me. I had a phone with the burger menu of AnkiDroid permanently burned in, I am trying to stick to IPS screens after that one.
glemion43
While it may be a concert, you might play in full screen for example or have other stuff full screen.
It will take so long for burn in that you probably want to buy something new anyway.
My LG OLED 4k tv is by far the best picture I ever had.
My Samsung 4k 27" gaming OLED is beautiful when gaming too
spartanatreyu
Nah, my 2 year old phone is OLED and has the top of my browser burnt into the screen. And I'm someone who has their screen turn off quickly to save battery.
I can't imagine how annoying it would be to watch a movie or play a game and see something burnt into the white parts of what I'm supposed to be looking at.
I don't want to be purchasing a new gaming monitor every two years.
boguscoder
It will probably be microLED rather than OLED in current form
modeless
I've been waiting for microLED for years but it doesn't seem to be getting any closer.
wronex
According to Hardware Unboxed this problem goes away with the new generation displays. They are switching over to using a standard (LCD-like) striped pixel layout.
Must say my first generation Samsung display looks amazing both for gaming and programming though. If it wasn’t for the annoying smart-tv stuff, and the mini connectors, it’s a perfect monitor.
MIL-STD
If only the PG34WCDN was actually available.. Asus appears to be very tight-lipped about when it will even go on sale.
There are three upcoming monitors that take advantage of this new Samsung ultrawide 360Hz V-Stripe QD-OLED monitor- the Asus ROG Swift PG34WCDN, MSI 341CQR X36, and the Gigabyte MO34WQC36. They are all roughly on-par, with the exception of MSI, who cheaped out on their DisplayPort 1.2a specification (UHBR13.5 instead of UHBR20) requiring the use of DSC to drive the 3440x1440 resolution at the full native refresh rate of 360Hz.
I have decided it is time to update my aging Asus PG348 34" Ultrawide (which has been one of the best monitors I've ever owned, and served me very well) - and will be replacing it with the PG34WCDN as soon as it is available.
The actual Samsung panel being used by these three monitors: https://www.samsungdisplay.com/eng/media/news/detail/ssdsNew...
altairprime
The article concurs:
> Within the past few weeks LG has announced RGB stripe OLED panels which will resolve this problem, but there aren’t currently any monitors available using these panels
with two links to five known upcoming devices.
https://news.lgdisplay.com/en/2025/12/lg-display-unveils-wor...
https://www.analyticsinsight.net/news/ces-2026-first-rgbstri...
3440x1440 @ 34" (110ppi): Asus PG34WCDN, Asus XG34WCDMS, MSI MEG X, MSI MPG 341CQR X36
Digging into this further, I also found another Asus panel that's closer, if not all the way there yet (5K would be, but this is 4K) to the usual Mac pixel densities:
3840x2160 @ 27" (163ppi): Asus PG27UCWM
I'll still be waiting for 5K @ 27" with the new tech, but I'm really glad to see they finally solved this!
herf
It's especially important for people trying to use lower-resolution OLED (e.g., for gaming) - the text fringing can look quite bad. At higher DPI it can be less noticeable, though horizontal lines still have noticeable fringes.
Here is a more detailed look at several different subpixel arrangements: https://pcmonitors.info/articles/qd-oled-and-woled-fringing-...
And encouragingly both LG and Samsung were demoing RGB (LED-style) arrangements at CES this year.
chatmasta
Dell monitors are very hit or miss for me. I’ve got two with very similar model numbers to the OP. One of them has a straight vertical line of red pixels at (30%, 0%). The other doesn’t have an integrated webcam.
Meanwhile I’ve got an MSI OLED 32” 240Hz @ 4k monitor which was super expensive but is absolutely incredible. It takes getting used to a monitor that performs a maintenance routine on itself any time you leave it active for more than a few hours. But it’s great for work (with some aggressive zoom levels) and gaming (with some aggressive black point levels).
dylan604
> The other doesn’t have an integrated webcam.
Are you saying this is a con as it sounds like a pro to me.
chatmasta
I’m saying the reason the vertical line appeared is likely due to the crappy webcam bolted onto it.
usagisushi
> Meanwhile I’ve got an MSI OLED 32” 240Hz @ 4k monitor
Off topic, but JFYI, with last year's firmware update (OLED CARE 2.0), you can now delay the refresh notification for up to 24 hours. I haven't seen the notification pop up since updating.
ThatMedicIsASpy
What are you comparing? I only ever bought Dell Ultrasharps (Dell U).
The article also compares a budget display Dell S (OLED) vs higher end Dell U.
mathisd
Author doesn't mention it but he should try to use BetterDisplay. MacOS interface scaling works well for screens around 200 PPI (2K 13inch, 4K 24inch, 5K 27inch). 4K 32inch is 138 PPI, which likely means he is not using default interface scaling which causes some distortion and out of grid pixel rendering. BetterDisplay fixes this by using an integer multiple of intended GUI scaling resolution before projecting it (3X -> 1.5X).
c0nsumer
(Author here.)
I actually am using it, but I didn't want to go down the rabbithole of an all-encompassing article on displays, PPI, scaling, etc. Using it to scale the display really helps, but I find that for the size of things I like 3008x1692 (on a native 3840x2160 panel) and this looks fine on an LCD. And is better than native res on the OLED, but still not great. It still bugged my eyes.
I just went with native res for demoing things because it's a worst-case, but the fringing problem, because it affects all strong-contrast edges not just text. It was also really noticeable at thin/narrow lines such as when doing CAD or between cells in spreadsheets.
joeig
Thank you. BetterDisplay is exactly what I need for my 4K 32 inch screen.
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This guy is complaining about fringing...on 9- and 10-pixel high fonts. That works out to 1.6mm or 1.8mm high characters on a 140 dpi screen, or about 1/16 of an inch.
He's also got Cleartype on and set to RGB stripe even though the OLED is not RGB stripe (though to be fair, Windows doesn't really make it clear what each page of the ClearType tuner does).
But yeah, if you use a _tiny_ font and sit _really_ close to the screen, you see fringing. In practice for me, it's been unnoticeable.