When it comes to PC monitors, there’s always a temptation to spend big. If you’re into gaming, a huge display improves immersion, especially if it’s an ultrawide that wraps around your field of view. If you’re trying to get work done, having a large workspace isn’t just convenient, it’s more efficient. I can write from my laptop’s 16-inch screen, but it’s so much faster when I don’t have to flip back and forth through tabs to read research material, or block my view simply to save a song on Spotify.
One temptation you should probably resist is buying an OLED monitor. It’s undoubtedly the peak in image quality — but there can be some serious tradeoffs if your lifestyle doesn’t align with their limitations. You may already have a sense of what I mean, but there are plenty of details to elaborate on, some of which may be unfamiliar.
The big one is burn-in
There’s more to worry about, though
Anyone who owns an OLED TV is well aware of the threat of burn-in. In case you’re new to the party, though, the major downside to OLED is the “O” part of the acronym: its organic electroluminescent layer. This material is more prone to visible degradation, particularly if static objects appear in the same place onscreen for hours at a time.
Both OLED monitors and TVs employ a variety of technologies to deter burn-in, such as pixel shifting, automatic logo dimming, and the occasional pixel refresh cycle. Yet there’s no denying the fact that monitors are different. Whereas the pixels on a TV are almost always in motion, unless perhaps you’re playing a game or watching a 24-hour news channel, computers are practically dependent on static graphics. On my laptop, for instance, I need the Windows taskbar open to rapidly switch between apps, and all my productivity tools have static menus and toolbars. Worse, a lot of apps have bright white backgrounds, no matter if I’ve set the rest of my interface to a dark shade.
When you spend several hours a day working with the same apps, the risk of burn-in increases substantially, and could become noticeable in just a few years.
You’ll probably be fine if you only hop on your computer after work for browsing, email, gaming, and other tasks that only last an hour or two. When you spend several hours a day working with the same apps, however, the risk of burn-in increases substantially, and could become noticeable in just a few years.
There are additional steps you can take to reduce the chance of burn-in. Those include turning down brightness, using an OS’s dark mode, hiding taskbars and menu bars, and setting your screen to shut off after a short period of inactivity, maybe as little as two or three minutes. That said, there’s only so much you can do, and none of this is necessary with an LCD.
There’s more. The red, green, and blue elements in an OLED panel can degrade at different rates, leading to color shifting. Also, on a long enough timeline, peak brightness will gradually decrease to the point where your display can’t compensate with extra voltage. OLED displays can actually last quite a long time when they’re treated well — but if you’re the sort of person who wants to hold onto a monitor for a decade, OLED probably isn’t for you.
OLED image quality isn’t always what it’s cracked up to be
Put your money where it counts
Make no mistake, I love using OLEDs. They tend to have vibrant colors, and more importantly, perfect contrast. Since individual pixels are self-illuminating, they can shut off completely, enabling true blacks. This makes graphics “pop,” especially when HDR is working as intended. In fact if you’ve never played Cyberpunk 2077 on an OLED, you’re missing out, since the highlights from neon signs at night can almost be blinding — which actually suits the mood of the game quite well.
My issue is that it’s not necessarily that much better than the best LCDs. Indeed the contrast and color accuracy on modern LCDs is still pretty great, and the benefits of HDR tend to be overrated on any PC. By default, Windows 11 only seems to support HDR10, not dynamic standards like Dolby Vision or HDR10+. Many games don’t offer native HDR support at all, forcing you to use Windows’ Auto HDR option, which can be very hit-or-miss. I actually ended up disabling it for a while because of Cyberpunk. While the game does look great in night scenes, if you’re driving through a tunnel midday, the contrast can be so intense that it’s impossible to see where you’re going.
If you choose a gaming monitor, there’s little meaningful difference in response times, either. It is true that OLEDs can get down to ridiculously quick times, like 0.03 or even 0.01ms, but a 1ms LCD is still going to show very little motion blur. It’s far more important that a monitor support 120Hz-plus refresh rates, and some form of rate sync compatible with your computer’s GPU.
Another thing worth considering is general brightness. Admittedly, many people use a monitor in a room with covered or non-existent windows. With a little sunlight shining through however, LCD wins. Mini-LEDs in particular can achieve over 1,000 nits, a threshold OLEDs are lucky to approach, never mind exceed. When you pair that brightness with the number of dimming zones mini-LEDs use, the contrast of an OLED may not matter that much.
This part of the discussion would be mostly academic if it weren’t for the price premium OLED commands. Better models tend to cost a few hundred dollars more than their LCD counterparts, and the largest ones can top $1,000, which is way too much to spend unless your livelihood depends on it.
So does OLED ever make sense for a monitor?
Don’t fret about it too much
Most definitely. For entertainment or other casual purposes, it’s usually the best you can get, and your monitor will probably last long enough that by the time burn-in or diminished brightness rears its head, you’ll want a new screen anyway. It’s mostly a question of whether you’re willing to spend extra for the privilege.
There are also legitimate work uses, namely anything requiring color accuracy. You can do excellent work in an app like Photoshop or DaVinci Resolve with a mini-LED panel — if there’s a chance you might take flak for your color grading or shadow detail though, both the upfront cost and the danger of a short lifespan may be minor quibbles. Hypothetically, an OLED monitor can pay for itself if you’re getting steady income.
If there’s a chance you might take flak for your color grading or shadow detail, both the upfront cost and the danger of a short lifespan may be minor quibbles.
You may still want to consider OLED if you’re shopping with remote work in mind. A mini-LED monitor may be the safer investment, but if you feel your lifestyle is a good fit, I don’t want to discourage you from buying something that’s going to be extremely satisfying to stare at every day.
