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Mini LED has a marketing issue in my opinion. Afaict it is a rebranding of FALD. Rumors several years ago made it seem like "mini LED" would be LCD with per-p

Mini LED has a marketing issue in my opinion. Afaict it is a rebranding of FALD. Rumors several years ago made it seem like "mini LED" would be LCD with per-pixel backlighting. "Mini LED" turned out to be a nothingburger. We have nearly the same number of dimming zones as we did 5 years ago. It's woefully insufficient. The real story in monitors this week was the alienware QD-OLED 32" ultrawide (ugh) curved (ugh) for only $1300.

shadowoflight 5y ago
Eh, the only "ugh" thing about that new Alienware monitor, to me, is the low resolution - 1440p at 27"/34"? No thank you, 2160p or better + fractional scaling just looks so much better for those of us editing text and/or code all day.
- Filligree 5y ago
  200% scaling might be fine, but fractional scaling still isn't well supported on Linux. I'd prefer such a monitor, yes, if it wasn't going to limit what systems I can run.
  - shadowoflight 5y ago
    That's totally fair! I'm still waiting on Linux to get its act together with fractional scaling, but until then, Mac works fantastic for my work with its fancy brand of fractional scaling w/ supersampling and better font rendering.
    - danuker 5y ago
      Hint hint, monitor manufacturers. Maybe your target market might become larger through some free software contributions.
      - NavinF 5y ago
        Linux desktop has <2% market share. A monitor manufacturer would have to be suicidal to try fixing a platform that doesn’t even have proper support for basic features like display scaling.
        danuker 5y ago
        1% could be the difference between breakeven and loss. I am a Linux user with 2 "low" resolution monitors, because I don't trust software support for higher resolutions, but admittedly also because 1080p is fine for me.
        NavinF 5y ago
        That’s fair, but with consumer electronics you need to sell at 2.5x BoM cost. Breakeven is death. It’s worth mentioning that display scaling was one of many dealbreakers that made desktop Linux unusable for me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28490753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28490753 I’m pessimistic about any of this getting fixed in the next few years.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
- kongolongo 5y ago
  It's probably more geared towards the gaming market then. 1440p/27 inch is a sweet spot for gaming because you can actually drive that resolution at a decently high fps. Even the latest (if you can get your hands on then) gfx cards still struggle at 2160p for upwards of 100fps, whereas you can hit that in most games at 1440p even on several years old hardware now. For 34 inch I think 1440p will start to look a bit cramped, but at least it's not the usual 2560x1440, it will be 3440x1440.
  - shadowoflight 5y ago
    Just to clarify, 34” 21:9 is the same height (and pixel density) as 27” 16:9 - and it’s definitely just on the cusp of noticeably not-pixel-dense when editing text, but I can see how it would be ideal for PC gaming where you sit a bit further back.
  - thisisonthetest 5y ago
    this right here. I went from a 1080p 24” @144Hz to a 1440p 27” @160Hz and it’s night and day. It was in that perfect sweet spot for size too, not just performance and quality. The bigger you go the further you have to sit from the screen, but 27” is just right.
- babypuncher 5y ago
  1440p at 27" still seems like the sweet spot to me. Image looks crisp, I don't have to turn on any janky DPI scaling features, and games actually run well. That Alienware monitor is clearly targeted for gaming. Regular 4k is already difficult enough to achieve in AAA games, expanding that to an ultrawide aspect ratio would only make getting acceptable performance harder.
deergomoo 5y ago
> Rumors several years ago made it seem like "mini LED" would be LCD with per-pixel backlighting That has since become “micro LED”. Samsung makes a micro LED TV, but it costs six figures, and is only available in something like 80” and above. When it’s finally affordable it will almost certainly unseat OLED as quality king though. All the upsides with no burn in or peak brightness issues.
- pkulak 5y ago
  Seems like the transition is from OLED to QD-OLED to micro LED. Mini-LED seems to really have no place to live here, as far as I can tell.
  - fomine3 5y ago
    Possibly current OLED burn in within a decade. I don't buy for family TV that don't be replaced frequently. MiniLED is suitable offering for them. Micro LED TV is a future product for home, maybe takes over a decade to be shipped.
- wmf 5y ago
  It looks like QD-OLED with a heatsink is actually better than MicroLED in almost every way. The MicroLED hype "forgot" to mention that it consumes kilowatts of power.
- fomine3 5y ago
  Micro LED is completely different to LED LCD TV. It use tremendous amount of RGB LED to make display, without LCD. Mini LED is improved FALD LCD.
valcron1000 5y ago
For me that's the perfect gaming monitor. Ultrawide is just chef kiss and the resolution is high enough to be sharp but not so high that you need a 3090 to run it.
sp332 5y ago
Mini LED is FALD, but the LED parts are physically smaller. Roku's current FALD TVs top out at 80 zones. This monitor has over 500.
alvarlagerlof 5y ago
The "per-pixel" one is now called micro led
ksec 5y ago
>Rumors several years ago made it seem like "mini LED" would be LCD with per-pixel backlighting. It never did. Not on any reputable rumours site and as far I am aware not even on non-reputable ones like wccfTech. >Afaict it is a rebranding of FALD. We have nearly the same number of dimming zones as we did 5 years ago. You will need to find me a 500 local dimming zone in a 27" Monitor 5 years ago. I can assure you there is none.
diffeomorphism 5y ago
> made it seem like "mini LED" would be LCD with per-pixel backlighting. I thought that was microled? Which does all that and seems like a strict upgrade over oled. However, there are currently just about 4 models on the market and starting prices are at 100k.

shadowoflight 5y ago

Eh, the only "ugh" thing about that new Alienware monitor, to me, is the low resolution - 1440p at 27"/34"? No thank you, 2160p or better + fractional scaling just looks so much better for those of us editing text and/or code all day.

Filligree 5y ago
200% scaling might be fine, but fractional scaling still isn't well supported on Linux. I'd prefer such a monitor, yes, if it wasn't going to limit what systems I can run.
- shadowoflight 5y ago
  That's totally fair! I'm still waiting on Linux to get its act together with fractional scaling, but until then, Mac works fantastic for my work with its fancy brand of fractional scaling w/ supersampling and better font rendering.
  - danuker 5y ago
    Hint hint, monitor manufacturers. Maybe your target market might become larger through some free software contributions.
    - NavinF 5y ago
      Linux desktop has <2% market share. A monitor manufacturer would have to be suicidal to try fixing a platform that doesn’t even have proper support for basic features like display scaling.
      - danuker 5y ago
        1% could be the difference between breakeven and loss. I am a Linux user with 2 "low" resolution monitors, because I don't trust software support for higher resolutions, but admittedly also because 1080p is fine for me.
        NavinF 5y ago
        That’s fair, but with consumer electronics you need to sell at 2.5x BoM cost. Breakeven is death. It’s worth mentioning that display scaling was one of many dealbreakers that made desktop Linux unusable for me: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28490753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28490753 I’m pessimistic about any of this getting fixed in the next few years.
        deleted 5y ago
        [deleted]
kongolongo 5y ago
It's probably more geared towards the gaming market then. 1440p/27 inch is a sweet spot for gaming because you can actually drive that resolution at a decently high fps. Even the latest (if you can get your hands on then) gfx cards still struggle at 2160p for upwards of 100fps, whereas you can hit that in most games at 1440p even on several years old hardware now. For 34 inch I think 1440p will start to look a bit cramped, but at least it's not the usual 2560x1440, it will be 3440x1440.
- shadowoflight 5y ago
  Just to clarify, 34” 21:9 is the same height (and pixel density) as 27” 16:9 - and it’s definitely just on the cusp of noticeably not-pixel-dense when editing text, but I can see how it would be ideal for PC gaming where you sit a bit further back.
- thisisonthetest 5y ago
  this right here. I went from a 1080p 24” @144Hz to a 1440p 27” @160Hz and it’s night and day. It was in that perfect sweet spot for size too, not just performance and quality. The bigger you go the further you have to sit from the screen, but 27” is just right.
babypuncher 5y ago
1440p at 27" still seems like the sweet spot to me. Image looks crisp, I don't have to turn on any janky DPI scaling features, and games actually run well. That Alienware monitor is clearly targeted for gaming. Regular 4k is already difficult enough to achieve in AAA games, expanding that to an ultrawide aspect ratio would only make getting acceptable performance harder.

deergomoo 5y ago

> Rumors several years ago made it seem like "mini LED" would be LCD with per-pixel backlighting That has since become “micro LED”. Samsung makes a micro LED TV, but it costs six figures, and is only available in something like 80” and above. When it’s finally affordable it will almost certainly unseat OLED as quality king though. All the upsides with no burn in or peak brightness issues.

pkulak 5y ago
Seems like the transition is from OLED to QD-OLED to micro LED. Mini-LED seems to really have no place to live here, as far as I can tell.
- fomine3 5y ago
  Possibly current OLED burn in within a decade. I don't buy for family TV that don't be replaced frequently. MiniLED is suitable offering for them. Micro LED TV is a future product for home, maybe takes over a decade to be shipped.
wmf 5y ago
It looks like QD-OLED with a heatsink is actually better than MicroLED in almost every way. The MicroLED hype "forgot" to mention that it consumes kilowatts of power.
fomine3 5y ago
Micro LED is completely different to LED LCD TV. It use tremendous amount of RGB LED to make display, without LCD. Mini LED is improved FALD LCD.

valcron1000 5y ago

For me that's the perfect gaming monitor. Ultrawide is just chef kiss and the resolution is high enough to be sharp but not so high that you need a 3090 to run it.

sp332 5y ago

Mini LED is FALD, but the LED parts are physically smaller. Roku's current FALD TVs top out at 80 zones. This monitor has over 500.

alvarlagerlof 5y ago

The "per-pixel" one is now called micro led

ksec 5y ago

>Rumors several years ago made it seem like "mini LED" would be LCD with per-pixel backlighting. It never did. Not on any reputable rumours site and as far I am aware not even on non-reputable ones like wccfTech. >Afaict it is a rebranding of FALD. We have nearly the same number of dimming zones as we did 5 years ago. You will need to find me a 500 local dimming zone in a 27" Monitor 5 years ago. I can assure you there is none.

diffeomorphism 5y ago

> made it seem like "mini LED" would be LCD with per-pixel backlighting. I thought that was microled? Which does all that and seems like a strict upgrade over oled. However, there are currently just about 4 models on the market and starting prices are at 100k.