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OLED, Not for Me

175 points by c0nsumer 9mo ago

_wire_ 9mo ago
tl;dr The display the author doesn't like is a specific model Dell QD-OLED with a sub pixel arrangement that causes a fringe above / below text. There are macro screenshots that reveal the sub pixel details of a preferred LCD compared the disliked Dell OLED, and it's easy to agree with the author's discontentment. But the categorical complaint about "OLED" is an over generalization. Treat the report as a warning to investigate the sub pixel characteristics of any monitor you may be considering.
- JoshTriplett 9mo ago
  Agreed. Personally, I find WOLED quite comfortable, especially for text, since I spend 90% of my time looking at terminals: white text on a black background. Having the vast majority of the display off feels wonderful.
  - amlib 9mo ago
    I'm also on an WOLED with no DPI scaling and also find it easy on the eyes. I do have to disable subpixel hinting though, afaik there is none optimized for anything other than traditional RGB or BGR. I don't think it's a big deal since I usually don't like it on RGB LCDs anyway...
    - JoshTriplett 9mo ago
      > I do have to disable subpixel hinting though, afaik there is none optimized for anything other than traditional RGB or BGR. I don't think it's a big deal since I usually don't like it on RGB LCDs anyway... Yeah, I've had subpixel antialiasing disabled for a long time, since before my first OLED; I prefer grayscale antialiasing.
- gonesilent 9mo ago
  Author also thought it might be a backlight failed for his first oled problem....
  - Brybry 9mo ago
    His ProArt Display PA27JCV was not an OLED monitor. I believe it is an an IPS LCD w/ LED backlight.
    - c0nsumer 9mo ago
      Yep -- it's an IPS LCD. And based on the failure more (here's a video of it [1]) with a vertical bar dark and the whole screen blinking when large white sections are displayed, I believe it's likely a power supply problem, maybe coupled to draw from the backlight. (Localized smaller LEDs, more get turned on when things are white.) I'd been having an issue with a vertical dark bar during wakeup for a few months, but it'd go away after the whole screen came up so I pushed off opening a case. Then one day the whole thing started having problems. [1] https://youtu.be/JtbTQ4ldSkI https://youtu.be/JtbTQ4ldSkI
- theshackleford 9mo ago
  > specific model Dell QD-OLED with a sub pixel arrangement that causes a fringe It’s in fact most, if not all of the PC display OLEDs on the market today because they almost all use non standard subpixel arrangements, but will change soon with the introduction of newer generation panels. > But the categorical complaint about "OLED" is an over generalization It’s really not, given again we are talking about the majority of PC OLEDs in production today having subpixel layouts that cause issues for users with text rendering.
- duckfruit 9mo ago
  +1. While the author's complaint is perfectly valid, in practice the advantages of even current OLEDs - for me - far outweigh any disadvantages due to subpixel layout fringing and everything else. Even for programming, the lack of backlight and resulting infinite contrast makes such a huge difference in my day to day life that I refuse to use a non-OLED monitor anymore for any purpose whatsoever. Heck it could be half the DPI and I'd still go for OLED anytime. The only reason LCDs still exist is price, nothing else.
- duskdozer 9mo ago
  Yeah. In fairness this may be irrelevant as I've only had OLED on phone screens and not monitors, but for me OLED is about reducing the light coming off the panel. Any IPS I've tried just hurts even on the lowest brightness. The push against #000000 in recent years in favor of brighter dark modes and reducing contrast by making the background lighter instead of the foreground darker has been a big aggravation.
LoganDark 9mo ago
It's so hard to find OLEDs with a sensible subpixel layout these days. I wish this stuff were documented and that you could find traditional horizontal subpixel layouts in the OLED mass market. I have at least one friend who wants individually-addressible bayer layouts, but that likely won't happen.
InTheArena 9mo ago
I picked up the same monitor as the author. I'm pretty happy with it myself - I have the Pro-Art display that the author has as well, and the volume of color makes a huge difference for me. But OLED is a remarkably personal technology. Some people also have issues with how the images are "strobed" during upgrades, etc.
diddid 9mo ago
The gaming community has known this forever, it’s a personal preference for how much it bothers someone. But fret not, they announced at CES there will be OLED with vertical pixel arrangements really soon.
dleslie 9mo ago
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 9mo ago
  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.
  - martini333 9mo ago
    lol
  - tyleo 9mo ago
    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.
glitchc 9mo ago
I experienced the same issue with the Alienware 27" 360 Hz OLED monitor. While it was great for gaming and I loved the refresh rate, it was terrible for everything else. Text always looked blurry, my eyes would keep trying to focus it and tired themselves out. I started getting headaches and began to doubt my prescription. After months of investigation, visits to the optometrist, I finally narrowed it down to the monitor being the culprit. I gave it away to my son, who on the other hand was thrilled to receive a bonafide gaming monitor. He uses it at 2x scaling and couldn't be happier. These monitors are great when scaled but have real issues rendering text and other fine details at their native resolution.
- clhodapp 9mo ago
  Given that there isn't any objective basis for the default scaling factor of a monitor being what we call 1x, I would argue that 2x scaling isn't any less native than 1x
  - glitchc 9mo ago
    The 2x scaling refers to the OS UI being set to 200%. That means each UI pixel is rendered by 2x2 physical pixels of the monitor. It has a very clear and objective definition. Did you mean something else?
    - clhodapp 9mo ago
      I think it's definitely a clear definition of what you're doing, but I still take some issue with the framing of "UI pixels". I would argue that it's more like abstract "UI distance units." Most UI's are designed to be "right-sized" for humans with a "distance unit" being about 1/96th of an inch (when the display is the designer-expected distance from the user). If you deviate too far from this, things end up being really big or really small and the display is harder to use. What you're effectively doing when you enable "2x scaling" is setting the "abstract distance unit" that gets applied to UIs to be the size of two display pixels, rather than one display pixel. Whether this is a good thing to do and is more or less "native", IMO, depends on the DPI of the display.
turtlebits 9mo ago
I just recently picked up a 49" Samsung G9 OLED and also had a similar experience. It felt like the picture was moving and I couldn't focus correctly. I first chalked it up to the low PPI, but after some googling, it was text fringing.
girvo 9mo ago
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)
- jedbrooke 9mo ago
  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 9mo ago
    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 9mo ago
      > 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.
      - kllrnohj 9mo ago
        Pentile typical omits subpixels to achieve the resolution, so yes if you have an LCD and an AMOLED with the exact same resolution and the AMOLED is pentile, it won't be as sharp because it has literally fewer subpixels. But that's rapidly outpaced by modern pentile AMOLEDs just having a pixel density that vastly exceeds nearly any LCD anymore (at least on mobile). There's RGB subpixel AMOLEDs as well (such as on the Nintendo Switch OLED) even though they aren't necessarily RGB strip. As in, just because it's not RGB strip doesn't mean it's pentile. There are other arrangements. Those other arrangements being for example the ones complained about on current desktop OLED monitors like the one in the article. It's not pentile causing problems since it's not pentile at all.
herf 9mo ago
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-issues/ 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.
gyomu 9mo ago
Yes, I noticed this on OLED laptops. OTOH the OLED panels on Apple's iPad Pro series are outstanding, and I'm excited for them to come to MacBooks. Yet another example of Apple's hardware team taking its time to do things right.
bob1029 9mo ago
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 9mo ago
  QD OLED doesn’t actually have different colored OLED elements though. Does this apply to that tech?
  - bob1029 9mo ago
    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 9mo ago
      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.
aappleby 9mo ago
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.
- theshackleford 9mo ago
  > 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?
  - UltraSane 9mo ago
    Every 4k OLED I've used has been perfectly adequate for programming.
    - dpark 9mo ago
      > perfectly adequate Exactly what I want for the thing I stare at for 8 hours/day. Not great. Not good. Perfectly adequate.
      - dylan604 9mo ago
        That reminds me of the swearing in speech of the new VP in The West Wing.
      - UltraSane 9mo ago
        Adequate as I can't really tell the difference but with OLED you get perfect blacks which make dark mode and white text on black background look much better.
modeless 9mo ago
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.
- glemion43 9mo ago
  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 9mo ago
    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 9mo ago
  It will probably be microLED rather than OLED in current form
  - modeless 9mo ago
    I've been waiting for microLED for years but it doesn't seem to be getting any closer.
- marticode 9mo ago
  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 9mo ago
ziml77 9mo ago
I haven't really noticed color fringing since changing from a 1st gen panel to a 3rd gen panel at a higher PPI. What I've been curious about though is why the fringing on vertical stripe RGB isn't as noticeable. I would expect to see fringing horizontally for that layout.
- dpark 9mo ago
  Probably because ClearType and equivalent tech are specifically tuned to maximize legibility on this type of layout.
UltraSane 9mo ago
OLED is the best current display technology and I can never go back to IPS panels, and VA panels are right out.
chatmasta 9mo ago
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 9mo ago
  > The other doesn’t have an integrated webcam. Are you saying this is a con as it sounds like a pro to me.
  - chatmasta 9mo ago
    I’m saying the reason the vertical line appeared is likely due to the crappy webcam bolted onto it.
- usagisushi 9mo ago
  > 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 9mo ago
  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.
namuol 9mo ago
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?
- jonny_eh 9mo ago
  > 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 9mo ago
    Others can fix it too and they have. See: https://github.com/snowie2000/mactype https://github.com/snowie2000/mactype https://github.com/CoolOppo/GDI-PlusPlus https://github.com/CoolOppo/GDI-PlusPlus I use MacType and it works really well. You can tune many more things than with ClearType.
    - wildredkraut 9mo ago
      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 9mo ago
      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.
ianbutler 9mo ago
I really love my qd-oled but the eye strain over the last 2 years when using this particular monitor is quite a bit more than my previous monitors. I just recently got better backlighting and went through some settings tweaking but it's still a bit harsh. The tradeoff is worth it in a lot of scenarios, but I've been thinking about getting a "coding only" monitor that I use for long sessions instead.
ggm 9mo ago
I have sympathy because it's the kind of problem you probably cannot pick up in the shop, or quickly. You need time in your home, with your HDMI or D-Link, your ambient lighting, your settings. I begin to feel like we may need the equivalent of what audio shops used to have: a listening room with normal furniture and a big switch to test different things, but for eyes not ears. I only buy s/h Dell monitors 3-5 years behind bleeding edge because I am a cheapskate with old eyes, who can't see past the dust on my glasses anyway. But I genuinely can relate to this problem. It would suck to invest in the best you can afford and find it's not doing what the dollars expect for you.
- lostlogin 9mo ago
  > I begin to feel like we may need the equivalent of what audio shops used to have: a listening room with normal furniture and a big switch to test different things, but for eyes not ears. It doesn’t even need this. The old way of buying stuff was from a shop. With big ticket items you build a relationship with staff and their recommendations helped. Now it’s all shipped or bought from faceless big box stores.
mahirsaid 9mo ago
I use two monitors, one is a MSI and the other is a Samsung NVIDIA g sync. The MSI is fed through a PD cord and the Samsung is fed through a HDMI cable. I see the OLED at best buy and while they look great I'm not thrilled about the price tag attached to them. I have broken monitors from moving or accidentally dropping them. I don't feel bad about buying another for $250 and replacing it after two years.
pansa2 9mo ago
> OLEDs make great TVs and gaming monitors [...] But on desktop monitors for still things — text and fine lines — OLEDs currently just aren’t great It seems that LCD has long been the best technology for desktop monitors - but interestingly, despite its popularity, may never have been the best technology for TVs. CRT, plasma and now OLED have all had better image quality than contemporary LCDs.
CrossVR 9mo ago
I never had any problems with QD-OLED and never saw any color fringing. But it turns out I'm red-green colorblind, so I probably just can't see enough contrast between red and green to notice the fringing.
mikelabatt 9mo ago
I guess that's why the two most important suppliers of OLED panels for PC monitors (LG and Samsung) are rearranging their subpixel to use LCD-like RGB stripes: https://www.heise.de/en/news/OLED-with-true-RGB-LG-and-Samsung-make-monitors-more-Windows-friendly-11127454.html https://www.heise.de/en/news/OLED-with-true-RGB-LG-and-Samsu...
cheema33 9mo ago
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 9mo ago
  What are those settings? I have the same TV as my monitor.
  - legitronics 9mo ago
    probably something to do the with RGB sub-pixel order/layout being different. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering 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 9mo ago
  How close are you sitting to those monitors?
hank808 9mo ago
Oh my god! Why such a long-winded product review/ complaint story with 65 upvotes? Jesus.
wafflemaker 9mo ago
Got a nice swyve 34 inch UWQHD with a Samsung panel that is really nice for gaming, and really bad for coding/studying. It's not nice on eyes either. Not making the same mistake again. I know it's the panel, because I have an office BenQ 21 inch with technology called sth like EyeCare on the side as the second monitor. Compared to the gaming one - it's a balm on my eyes. Sometimes I'd put a document or LLM window there even when the main screen is empty, just because of how nice it feels on the eyes. Except for few situations where the poor man's HDR does help me see more details in the dark (small edge in multiplayer), I believe that I would be better off with a monitor engineered for office work. Think about it, I got lured by all the gaming hype, but what I really needed is a monitor that is 80% office and 20% gaming, not 100% gaming. And I believe that's the case with others complaining about the eye strain. Moisturizing eye drops and Safeeyes (eye exercising Linux app) help a lot though. Safeeyes has an alternative on Mac called EyeLeo (but never used that). Recommend them both to everyone in this thread. Take care of your eyes. They are the most suspectable to drying part of our body - eye exercises help for that. And they are fed with only a miniscule artery, eye exercises help keep a good throughput on that too.
- aappleby 9mo ago
  That's not a high-dpi monitor, the fringing is less noticeable at 140+ dpi.
eddd-ddde 9mo ago
I always find these articles really interesting, maybe it's just the way my brain works but I can't ever find any meaningful differences or issues with any of the examples. > but as noted we found this quite obvious to the eye as well ... and then 2 images that look exactly the same to me :(
andhuman 9mo ago
I’ve recently bought the LG with 4th generation OLED, and for me that works for long coding sessions (I use it for work). They shifted or did something with the pixel arrangement for this generation just for text legibility.
anal_reactor 9mo ago
Buying an OLED screen three years ago was the best tech investment in a long time. Nowadays most tech is "the same, but 5% faster" while OLED truly felt like a revolution. For a year after buying it I was still excited about it. Whenever I use LCD panels I feel pain in my everything. The fact that Ally X uses an LCD panel is its worst problem. > but sir, what about fringing Skill issue. Just configure your text rendering correctly. > but sir, what about burn-in Didn't happen to me.
wronex 9mo ago
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. https://youtu.be/c90FLTWQiSY https://youtu.be/c90FLTWQiSY 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.
- altairprime 9mo ago
  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-worlds-first-240hz-rgb-stripe-oled-panel/ https://news.lgdisplay.com/en/2025/12/lg-display-unveils-wor... https://www.analyticsinsight.net/news/ces-2026-first-rgbstripe-qdoleds-from-msi-asus-can-finally-fix-text-fringing 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!
- MIL-STD 9mo ago
  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/ssdsNews-260101.jsp https://www.samsungdisplay.com/eng/media/news/detail/ssdsNew...
anon84827820 9mo ago
The text fringing can be an issue, but the benefits of OLED more than make up for it. Going from IPS to OLED was a step-function improvement, like upgrading from a HDD to SSD.
gitttnwmrlg 9mo ago
tldr; ms cleartype isn’t always compatible with oled.
- c0nsumer 9mo ago
  This article is about a machine running macOS. Nothing to do with Cleartype in here at all.
  - nottorp 9mo ago
    Didn't MacOS remove any form of subpixel hinting like 6 OS versions ago? The OP seems to have a problem not only with fonts but also with straight lines in CAD.
    - c0nsumer 9mo ago
      OP is me, and yeah, AFAIK they did. It's a problem with how this subpixel problem aligns with my use (mostly static content with high contrast edges) at the display scaling I'm using. It just doesn't work for me, so until I can get a more traditional pixel pattern OLED at a price I'm willing to pay I'll just go back to LCD.
Aissen 9mo ago
It's a bit sad to see hardware manufacturers changing the pixel layout because we weren't able to adapt modern software to do sub-pixel font rendering that works with different layouts out of the box.
- willis936 9mo ago
  On the other hand: it's nice to see the march of pixel density increasing which makes this problem go away entirely. I used an LG C2 42" as a monitor for a few years. The color fringing was particularly bad for me because I like yellow text and LG uses RWBG. 4K 42" and 1440p 27" are about 110 DPI. This is not enough. 4K 27" is about 160 DPI. That is enough. We've already pushed past needing to care about subpixel layouts if you properly weight pixel density in your selection.
WithinReason 9mo ago
New WOLED panels from LG have an "RGWB" pixel layout so this is no longer an issue.
eviks 9mo ago
It's a pity such basics as displaying text properly are not prioritized by the OS vendors (one of the many ignored Windows issues https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/25595 https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/25595) while a lot of effort is wasted on stuff users dislike
mathisd 9mo ago
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 9mo ago
  (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 9mo ago
  Thank you. BetterDisplay is exactly what I need for my 4K 32 inch screen.
upofadown 9mo ago
For me the solution to subpixel issues with tiny fonts is to not do subpixels. I have been looking at bitmapped fonts my whole life so I don't see any reason to give up all that perceptual context. Which is why I ended up buying a replacement 24" 1920x1080 recently. I needed pixels large enough to distinguish with my fave small font. If I want more pixels at once on the screen I need a larger screen.
quitit 9mo ago
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 9mo ago
  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 9mo ago
    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 9mo ago
      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.
m-schuetz 9mo ago
Not on Oled issue but I've noticed that vscode fonts appear much sharper than visual studio fonts. It's subtle, but just enough to make me dislike looking at code in visual studio.
DiabloD3 9mo ago
I love how he blames OLED for this, but doesn't care to learn the actual cause: that isn't an RGB subpixel orientation. There are many OLEDs with correct subpixel orientation. He bought a factory defective monitor. LCDs like this exist, Samsung sold them as AMOLEDS called Pentile. They are hideous. Until subpixel is eradicated from existence, we shall continue to suffer this. The problem is such: 1) Windows exists. 2) Windows invented Cleartype for Vista, it was ugly and fringed hard because they misunderstood human perception, the sRGB standard, and math. 3) Windows then readjusted Cleartype for DirectWrite. OSX before Retina and Freetype use subpixel tuning also compatible with human perception, sRGB, and math. 4) Many applications on Windows do not know how to ask Windows what the subpixel orientation is; either they assume RGB all the time (do not do this!) or they only read the first monitor (do not do this!). Windows can tell you per monitor, this is the only correct way. This API has existed since Vista. 5) This problem also effects DPI: they either cannot scale or only scale for the first monitor. Windows scaling for you causes _exceptionally bad_ color fringing for subpixel rendering. Again, the API for that has existed since Vista. 6) Many monitors do not list their subpixel orientation in their EDID. Ones that do and also are rotation sensitive do not set their EDID for RGB->VRGB->BGR->VBGR as you rotate them. Windows assumes RGB for any monitor missing that EDID field. 7) Windows only knows (V)RGB and (V)BGR. It does not know W+RGB, it doesn't know any sort of complex multi-row arrangement (such as Pentile). 8) Many applications ignore your Cleartype settings in Windows, and use RGB at default color weights no matter what you do, even if you turn subpixel off and do greyscale only. 9) And the worst sin of all: people embed screenshots in their documentation and websites, and they never update them. The Internet is full of Vista-era fringe-filled Cleartype text. This ties into 5, but is worth mentioning as its own. Edit: On second reading, the author says they're on a Mac. Macs don't have subpixel rendering anymore. I don't understand the author's complaint, they have greyscale and avoid all these problems. I will bitch about Apple's mistakes over the past decade, but removing subpixel rendering from their ecosystem was a smart move: makes all their text rendering compatible with all future monitors forever, and moving to HiDPI eliminates the need for it anyways.
- c0nsumer 9mo ago
  Do tell, how does one avoid this problem on macOS when needing to use colored fonts and lines? (That is, flipping to greyscale isn't an option.)
QuiEgo 9mo ago
If the author is sensitive to this level of detail, they should just get a color calibrated high-DPI screen (like an Apple Studio Display) and call it a day.
Marsymars 9mo ago
I recently replaced my Google Pixelbook with a Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 with a 1920x1200 14" OLED screen. The text definitely feels off to me. It's bearable, but I wouldn't want this effect on a primary device.
seec 9mo ago
While OLED definitely has this problem, his real issue is using a too small DPI monitor. It's not a real problem in OLED equiped smartphones with high DPI so it really shouldn't be a problem on monitors as well. If you wan to point out that there is no large OLED display with a DPI > 200, yes that's the real issue at the moment but since 5K displays are becoming more common, I think it will be solved in relatively short time.

175 points by c0nsumer 9mo ago

tl;dr The display the author doesn't like is a specific model Dell QD-OLED with a sub pixel arrangement that causes a fringe above / below text. There are macro screenshots that reveal the sub pixel details of a preferred LCD compared the disliked Dell OLED, and it's easy to agree with the author's discontentment. But the categorical complaint about "OLED" is an over generalization. Treat the report as a warning to investigate the sub pixel characteristics of any monitor you may be considering.

JoshTriplett 9mo ago
Agreed. Personally, I find WOLED quite comfortable, especially for text, since I spend 90% of my time looking at terminals: white text on a black background. Having the vast majority of the display off feels wonderful.
- amlib 9mo ago
  I'm also on an WOLED with no DPI scaling and also find it easy on the eyes. I do have to disable subpixel hinting though, afaik there is none optimized for anything other than traditional RGB or BGR. I don't think it's a big deal since I usually don't like it on RGB LCDs anyway...
  - JoshTriplett 9mo ago
    > I do have to disable subpixel hinting though, afaik there is none optimized for anything other than traditional RGB or BGR. I don't think it's a big deal since I usually don't like it on RGB LCDs anyway... Yeah, I've had subpixel antialiasing disabled for a long time, since before my first OLED; I prefer grayscale antialiasing.
gonesilent 9mo ago
Author also thought it might be a backlight failed for his first oled problem....
- Brybry 9mo ago
  His ProArt Display PA27JCV was not an OLED monitor. I believe it is an an IPS LCD w/ LED backlight.
  - c0nsumer 9mo ago
    Yep -- it's an IPS LCD. And based on the failure more (here's a video of it [1]) with a vertical bar dark and the whole screen blinking when large white sections are displayed, I believe it's likely a power supply problem, maybe coupled to draw from the backlight. (Localized smaller LEDs, more get turned on when things are white.) I'd been having an issue with a vertical dark bar during wakeup for a few months, but it'd go away after the whole screen came up so I pushed off opening a case. Then one day the whole thing started having problems. [1] https://youtu.be/JtbTQ4ldSkI https://youtu.be/JtbTQ4ldSkI
theshackleford 9mo ago
> specific model Dell QD-OLED with a sub pixel arrangement that causes a fringe It’s in fact most, if not all of the PC display OLEDs on the market today because they almost all use non standard subpixel arrangements, but will change soon with the introduction of newer generation panels. > But the categorical complaint about "OLED" is an over generalization It’s really not, given again we are talking about the majority of PC OLEDs in production today having subpixel layouts that cause issues for users with text rendering.
duckfruit 9mo ago
+1. While the author's complaint is perfectly valid, in practice the advantages of even current OLEDs - for me - far outweigh any disadvantages due to subpixel layout fringing and everything else. Even for programming, the lack of backlight and resulting infinite contrast makes such a huge difference in my day to day life that I refuse to use a non-OLED monitor anymore for any purpose whatsoever. Heck it could be half the DPI and I'd still go for OLED anytime. The only reason LCDs still exist is price, nothing else.
duskdozer 9mo ago
Yeah. In fairness this may be irrelevant as I've only had OLED on phone screens and not monitors, but for me OLED is about reducing the light coming off the panel. Any IPS I've tried just hurts even on the lowest brightness. The push against #000000 in recent years in favor of brighter dark modes and reducing contrast by making the background lighter instead of the foreground darker has been a big aggravation.

LoganDark 9mo ago

It's so hard to find OLEDs with a sensible subpixel layout these days. I wish this stuff were documented and that you could find traditional horizontal subpixel layouts in the OLED mass market. I have at least one friend who wants individually-addressible bayer layouts, but that likely won't happen.

InTheArena 9mo ago

I picked up the same monitor as the author. I'm pretty happy with it myself - I have the Pro-Art display that the author has as well, and the volume of color makes a huge difference for me. But OLED is a remarkably personal technology. Some people also have issues with how the images are "strobed" during upgrades, etc.

diddid 9mo ago

The gaming community has known this forever, it’s a personal preference for how much it bothers someone. But fret not, they announced at CES there will be OLED with vertical pixel arrangements really soon.

dleslie 9mo ago

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 9mo ago
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.
- martini333 9mo ago
  lol
- tyleo 9mo ago
  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.

glitchc 9mo ago

I experienced the same issue with the Alienware 27" 360 Hz OLED monitor. While it was great for gaming and I loved the refresh rate, it was terrible for everything else. Text always looked blurry, my eyes would keep trying to focus it and tired themselves out. I started getting headaches and began to doubt my prescription. After months of investigation, visits to the optometrist, I finally narrowed it down to the monitor being the culprit. I gave it away to my son, who on the other hand was thrilled to receive a bonafide gaming monitor. He uses it at 2x scaling and couldn't be happier. These monitors are great when scaled but have real issues rendering text and other fine details at their native resolution.

clhodapp 9mo ago
Given that there isn't any objective basis for the default scaling factor of a monitor being what we call 1x, I would argue that 2x scaling isn't any less native than 1x
- glitchc 9mo ago
  The 2x scaling refers to the OS UI being set to 200%. That means each UI pixel is rendered by 2x2 physical pixels of the monitor. It has a very clear and objective definition. Did you mean something else?
  - clhodapp 9mo ago
    I think it's definitely a clear definition of what you're doing, but I still take some issue with the framing of "UI pixels". I would argue that it's more like abstract "UI distance units." Most UI's are designed to be "right-sized" for humans with a "distance unit" being about 1/96th of an inch (when the display is the designer-expected distance from the user). If you deviate too far from this, things end up being really big or really small and the display is harder to use. What you're effectively doing when you enable "2x scaling" is setting the "abstract distance unit" that gets applied to UIs to be the size of two display pixels, rather than one display pixel. Whether this is a good thing to do and is more or less "native", IMO, depends on the DPI of the display.

turtlebits 9mo ago

I just recently picked up a 49" Samsung G9 OLED and also had a similar experience. It felt like the picture was moving and I couldn't focus correctly. I first chalked it up to the low PPI, but after some googling, it was text fringing.

girvo 9mo ago

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)

jedbrooke 9mo ago
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 9mo ago
  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 9mo ago
    > 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.
    - kllrnohj 9mo ago
      Pentile typical omits subpixels to achieve the resolution, so yes if you have an LCD and an AMOLED with the exact same resolution and the AMOLED is pentile, it won't be as sharp because it has literally fewer subpixels. But that's rapidly outpaced by modern pentile AMOLEDs just having a pixel density that vastly exceeds nearly any LCD anymore (at least on mobile). There's RGB subpixel AMOLEDs as well (such as on the Nintendo Switch OLED) even though they aren't necessarily RGB strip. As in, just because it's not RGB strip doesn't mean it's pentile. There are other arrangements. Those other arrangements being for example the ones complained about on current desktop OLED monitors like the one in the article. It's not pentile causing problems since it's not pentile at all.

herf 9mo ago

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-issues/ 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.

gyomu 9mo ago

Yes, I noticed this on OLED laptops. OTOH the OLED panels on Apple's iPad Pro series are outstanding, and I'm excited for them to come to MacBooks. Yet another example of Apple's hardware team taking its time to do things right.

bob1029 9mo ago

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 9mo ago
QD OLED doesn’t actually have different colored OLED elements though. Does this apply to that tech?
- bob1029 9mo ago
  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 9mo ago
    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.

aappleby 9mo ago

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.

theshackleford 9mo ago
> 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?
- UltraSane 9mo ago
  Every 4k OLED I've used has been perfectly adequate for programming.
  - dpark 9mo ago
    > perfectly adequate Exactly what I want for the thing I stare at for 8 hours/day. Not great. Not good. Perfectly adequate.
    - dylan604 9mo ago
      That reminds me of the swearing in speech of the new VP in The West Wing.
    - UltraSane 9mo ago
      Adequate as I can't really tell the difference but with OLED you get perfect blacks which make dark mode and white text on black background look much better.

modeless 9mo ago

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.

glemion43 9mo ago
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 9mo ago
  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 9mo ago
It will probably be microLED rather than OLED in current form
- modeless 9mo ago
  I've been waiting for microLED for years but it doesn't seem to be getting any closer.
marticode 9mo ago
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 9mo ago

ziml77 9mo ago

I haven't really noticed color fringing since changing from a 1st gen panel to a 3rd gen panel at a higher PPI. What I've been curious about though is why the fringing on vertical stripe RGB isn't as noticeable. I would expect to see fringing horizontally for that layout.

dpark 9mo ago
Probably because ClearType and equivalent tech are specifically tuned to maximize legibility on this type of layout.

UltraSane 9mo ago

OLED is the best current display technology and I can never go back to IPS panels, and VA panels are right out.

chatmasta 9mo ago

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 9mo ago
> The other doesn’t have an integrated webcam. Are you saying this is a con as it sounds like a pro to me.
- chatmasta 9mo ago
  I’m saying the reason the vertical line appeared is likely due to the crappy webcam bolted onto it.
usagisushi 9mo ago
> 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 9mo ago
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.

namuol 9mo ago

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?

jonny_eh 9mo ago
> 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 9mo ago
  Others can fix it too and they have. See: https://github.com/snowie2000/mactype https://github.com/snowie2000/mactype https://github.com/CoolOppo/GDI-PlusPlus https://github.com/CoolOppo/GDI-PlusPlus I use MacType and it works really well. You can tune many more things than with ClearType.
  - wildredkraut 9mo ago
    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 9mo ago
    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.

ianbutler 9mo ago

I really love my qd-oled but the eye strain over the last 2 years when using this particular monitor is quite a bit more than my previous monitors. I just recently got better backlighting and went through some settings tweaking but it's still a bit harsh. The tradeoff is worth it in a lot of scenarios, but I've been thinking about getting a "coding only" monitor that I use for long sessions instead.

ggm 9mo ago

I have sympathy because it's the kind of problem you probably cannot pick up in the shop, or quickly. You need time in your home, with your HDMI or D-Link, your ambient lighting, your settings. I begin to feel like we may need the equivalent of what audio shops used to have: a listening room with normal furniture and a big switch to test different things, but for eyes not ears. I only buy s/h Dell monitors 3-5 years behind bleeding edge because I am a cheapskate with old eyes, who can't see past the dust on my glasses anyway. But I genuinely can relate to this problem. It would suck to invest in the best you can afford and find it's not doing what the dollars expect for you.

lostlogin 9mo ago
> I begin to feel like we may need the equivalent of what audio shops used to have: a listening room with normal furniture and a big switch to test different things, but for eyes not ears. It doesn’t even need this. The old way of buying stuff was from a shop. With big ticket items you build a relationship with staff and their recommendations helped. Now it’s all shipped or bought from faceless big box stores.

mahirsaid 9mo ago

I use two monitors, one is a MSI and the other is a Samsung NVIDIA g sync. The MSI is fed through a PD cord and the Samsung is fed through a HDMI cable. I see the OLED at best buy and while they look great I'm not thrilled about the price tag attached to them. I have broken monitors from moving or accidentally dropping them. I don't feel bad about buying another for $250 and replacing it after two years.

pansa2 9mo ago

> OLEDs make great TVs and gaming monitors [...] But on desktop monitors for still things — text and fine lines — OLEDs currently just aren’t great It seems that LCD has long been the best technology for desktop monitors - but interestingly, despite its popularity, may never have been the best technology for TVs. CRT, plasma and now OLED have all had better image quality than contemporary LCDs.

CrossVR 9mo ago

I never had any problems with QD-OLED and never saw any color fringing. But it turns out I'm red-green colorblind, so I probably just can't see enough contrast between red and green to notice the fringing.

mikelabatt 9mo ago

I guess that's why the two most important suppliers of OLED panels for PC monitors (LG and Samsung) are rearranging their subpixel to use LCD-like RGB stripes: https://www.heise.de/en/news/OLED-with-true-RGB-LG-and-Samsung-make-monitors-more-Windows-friendly-11127454.html https://www.heise.de/en/news/OLED-with-true-RGB-LG-and-Samsu...

cheema33 9mo ago

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 9mo ago
What are those settings? I have the same TV as my monitor.
- legitronics 9mo ago
  probably something to do the with RGB sub-pixel order/layout being different. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subpixel_rendering 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 9mo ago
How close are you sitting to those monitors?

hank808 9mo ago

Oh my god! Why such a long-winded product review/ complaint story with 65 upvotes? Jesus.

wafflemaker 9mo ago

Got a nice swyve 34 inch UWQHD with a Samsung panel that is really nice for gaming, and really bad for coding/studying. It's not nice on eyes either. Not making the same mistake again. I know it's the panel, because I have an office BenQ 21 inch with technology called sth like EyeCare on the side as the second monitor. Compared to the gaming one - it's a balm on my eyes. Sometimes I'd put a document or LLM window there even when the main screen is empty, just because of how nice it feels on the eyes. Except for few situations where the poor man's HDR does help me see more details in the dark (small edge in multiplayer), I believe that I would be better off with a monitor engineered for office work. Think about it, I got lured by all the gaming hype, but what I really needed is a monitor that is 80% office and 20% gaming, not 100% gaming. And I believe that's the case with others complaining about the eye strain. Moisturizing eye drops and Safeeyes (eye exercising Linux app) help a lot though. Safeeyes has an alternative on Mac called EyeLeo (but never used that). Recommend them both to everyone in this thread. Take care of your eyes. They are the most suspectable to drying part of our body - eye exercises help for that. And they are fed with only a miniscule artery, eye exercises help keep a good throughput on that too.

aappleby 9mo ago
That's not a high-dpi monitor, the fringing is less noticeable at 140+ dpi.

eddd-ddde 9mo ago

I always find these articles really interesting, maybe it's just the way my brain works but I can't ever find any meaningful differences or issues with any of the examples. > but as noted we found this quite obvious to the eye as well ... and then 2 images that look exactly the same to me :(

andhuman 9mo ago

I’ve recently bought the LG with 4th generation OLED, and for me that works for long coding sessions (I use it for work). They shifted or did something with the pixel arrangement for this generation just for text legibility.

anal_reactor 9mo ago

Buying an OLED screen three years ago was the best tech investment in a long time. Nowadays most tech is "the same, but 5% faster" while OLED truly felt like a revolution. For a year after buying it I was still excited about it. Whenever I use LCD panels I feel pain in my everything. The fact that Ally X uses an LCD panel is its worst problem. > but sir, what about fringing Skill issue. Just configure your text rendering correctly. > but sir, what about burn-in Didn't happen to me.

wronex 9mo ago

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. https://youtu.be/c90FLTWQiSY https://youtu.be/c90FLTWQiSY 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.

altairprime 9mo ago
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-worlds-first-240hz-rgb-stripe-oled-panel/ https://news.lgdisplay.com/en/2025/12/lg-display-unveils-wor... https://www.analyticsinsight.net/news/ces-2026-first-rgbstripe-qdoleds-from-msi-asus-can-finally-fix-text-fringing 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!
MIL-STD 9mo ago
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/ssdsNews-260101.jsp https://www.samsungdisplay.com/eng/media/news/detail/ssdsNew...

anon84827820 9mo ago

The text fringing can be an issue, but the benefits of OLED more than make up for it. Going from IPS to OLED was a step-function improvement, like upgrading from a HDD to SSD.

gitttnwmrlg 9mo ago

tldr; ms cleartype isn’t always compatible with oled.

c0nsumer 9mo ago
This article is about a machine running macOS. Nothing to do with Cleartype in here at all.
- nottorp 9mo ago
  Didn't MacOS remove any form of subpixel hinting like 6 OS versions ago? The OP seems to have a problem not only with fonts but also with straight lines in CAD.
  - c0nsumer 9mo ago
    OP is me, and yeah, AFAIK they did. It's a problem with how this subpixel problem aligns with my use (mostly static content with high contrast edges) at the display scaling I'm using. It just doesn't work for me, so until I can get a more traditional pixel pattern OLED at a price I'm willing to pay I'll just go back to LCD.

Aissen 9mo ago

It's a bit sad to see hardware manufacturers changing the pixel layout because we weren't able to adapt modern software to do sub-pixel font rendering that works with different layouts out of the box.

willis936 9mo ago
On the other hand: it's nice to see the march of pixel density increasing which makes this problem go away entirely. I used an LG C2 42" as a monitor for a few years. The color fringing was particularly bad for me because I like yellow text and LG uses RWBG. 4K 42" and 1440p 27" are about 110 DPI. This is not enough. 4K 27" is about 160 DPI. That is enough. We've already pushed past needing to care about subpixel layouts if you properly weight pixel density in your selection.

WithinReason 9mo ago

New WOLED panels from LG have an "RGWB" pixel layout so this is no longer an issue.

eviks 9mo ago

It's a pity such basics as displaying text properly are not prioritized by the OS vendors (one of the many ignored Windows issues https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/25595 https://github.com/microsoft/PowerToys/issues/25595) while a lot of effort is wasted on stuff users dislike

mathisd 9mo ago

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 9mo ago
(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 9mo ago
Thank you. BetterDisplay is exactly what I need for my 4K 32 inch screen.

upofadown 9mo ago

For me the solution to subpixel issues with tiny fonts is to not do subpixels. I have been looking at bitmapped fonts my whole life so I don't see any reason to give up all that perceptual context. Which is why I ended up buying a replacement 24" 1920x1080 recently. I needed pixels large enough to distinguish with my fave small font. If I want more pixels at once on the screen I need a larger screen.

quitit 9mo ago

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 9mo ago
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 9mo ago
  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 9mo ago
    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.

m-schuetz 9mo ago

Not on Oled issue but I've noticed that vscode fonts appear much sharper than visual studio fonts. It's subtle, but just enough to make me dislike looking at code in visual studio.

DiabloD3 9mo ago

I love how he blames OLED for this, but doesn't care to learn the actual cause: that isn't an RGB subpixel orientation. There are many OLEDs with correct subpixel orientation. He bought a factory defective monitor. LCDs like this exist, Samsung sold them as AMOLEDS called Pentile. They are hideous. Until subpixel is eradicated from existence, we shall continue to suffer this. The problem is such: 1) Windows exists. 2) Windows invented Cleartype for Vista, it was ugly and fringed hard because they misunderstood human perception, the sRGB standard, and math. 3) Windows then readjusted Cleartype for DirectWrite. OSX before Retina and Freetype use subpixel tuning also compatible with human perception, sRGB, and math. 4) Many applications on Windows do not know how to ask Windows what the subpixel orientation is; either they assume RGB all the time (do not do this!) or they only read the first monitor (do not do this!). Windows can tell you per monitor, this is the only correct way. This API has existed since Vista. 5) This problem also effects DPI: they either cannot scale or only scale for the first monitor. Windows scaling for you causes _exceptionally bad_ color fringing for subpixel rendering. Again, the API for that has existed since Vista. 6) Many monitors do not list their subpixel orientation in their EDID. Ones that do and also are rotation sensitive do not set their EDID for RGB->VRGB->BGR->VBGR as you rotate them. Windows assumes RGB for any monitor missing that EDID field. 7) Windows only knows (V)RGB and (V)BGR. It does not know W+RGB, it doesn't know any sort of complex multi-row arrangement (such as Pentile). 8) Many applications ignore your Cleartype settings in Windows, and use RGB at default color weights no matter what you do, even if you turn subpixel off and do greyscale only. 9) And the worst sin of all: people embed screenshots in their documentation and websites, and they never update them. The Internet is full of Vista-era fringe-filled Cleartype text. This ties into 5, but is worth mentioning as its own. Edit: On second reading, the author says they're on a Mac. Macs don't have subpixel rendering anymore. I don't understand the author's complaint, they have greyscale and avoid all these problems. I will bitch about Apple's mistakes over the past decade, but removing subpixel rendering from their ecosystem was a smart move: makes all their text rendering compatible with all future monitors forever, and moving to HiDPI eliminates the need for it anyways.

c0nsumer 9mo ago
Do tell, how does one avoid this problem on macOS when needing to use colored fonts and lines? (That is, flipping to greyscale isn't an option.)

QuiEgo 9mo ago

If the author is sensitive to this level of detail, they should just get a color calibrated high-DPI screen (like an Apple Studio Display) and call it a day.

Marsymars 9mo ago

I recently replaced my Google Pixelbook with a Lenovo Chromebook Plus 14 with a 1920x1200 14" OLED screen. The text definitely feels off to me. It's bearable, but I wouldn't want this effect on a primary device.

seec 9mo ago

While OLED definitely has this problem, his real issue is using a too small DPI monitor. It's not a real problem in OLED equiped smartphones with high DPI so it really shouldn't be a problem on monitors as well. If you wan to point out that there is no large OLED display with a DPI > 200, yes that's the real issue at the moment but since 5K displays are becoming more common, I think it will be solved in relatively short time.