4 ms·

> 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 b

> 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.
aappleby 9mo ago
It's a tradeoff - if you want a fast clear gaming monitor with pure blacks, you get an OLED. If you want the clearest text and are OK with middling response time, you get an IPS.
- theshackleford 9mo ago
  I went the opposite route because I don't like compromise in either domain and so just bought separate displays. Not an option for all obviously. It actually helped me enforce a separation between WFH/where I relax anyway, so not the worst.
- badsectoracula 9mo ago
  There is also VA which provides deep (though not pure) blacks, clear text and decent response time though you get some slight smearing on high contrast edges. Personally i prefer VA to IPS by far because IPS looks washed out to me.
kstenerud 9mo ago
Whether it's a minority opinion or not, I really can't see the difference. Even when he posted highly zoomed images of VS Code ("Visual Studio Code does a wonderful job demonstrating this problem"), the only thing I noticed is that the image on the right looks slightly brighter than the image on the left. Then as I went back to where he was describing the problem ("fringing"), I kept forgetting when I scrolled back to the images which was which (and which image was supposed to be "worse"). I'm on a 2025 Macbook, so maybe the laptop's monitor masks the issue?
- writebetterc 9mo ago
  I'm on a M4 Macbook, and I can see it. I'm inclined to totally accept the blog author's experience as true for them, I'd probably experience the same thing.
- WithinReason 9mo ago
  The image on the right was also out of focus which hides color fringing on the LCD
- c0nsumer 9mo ago
  (Author here.) That's an interesting point you mention about not seeing it, because prior to buying an OLED I'd read a bunch about fringing and in many articles I just... couldn't see it. I couldn't tell what was being illustrated in the images. It wasn't until I sat in front of one for a few hours, in my room and lighting and with my apps and had funny-feeling eyes and a this-seems-off feeling that I decided to investigate. And yes, those macro photos show fringing, but it /is/ hard to understand how the subpixel pattern translates to on-screen weirdness until you've seen it for yourself.

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.

aappleby 9mo ago

It's a tradeoff - if you want a fast clear gaming monitor with pure blacks, you get an OLED. If you want the clearest text and are OK with middling response time, you get an IPS.

theshackleford 9mo ago
I went the opposite route because I don't like compromise in either domain and so just bought separate displays. Not an option for all obviously. It actually helped me enforce a separation between WFH/where I relax anyway, so not the worst.
badsectoracula 9mo ago
There is also VA which provides deep (though not pure) blacks, clear text and decent response time though you get some slight smearing on high contrast edges. Personally i prefer VA to IPS by far because IPS looks washed out to me.

kstenerud 9mo ago

Whether it's a minority opinion or not, I really can't see the difference. Even when he posted highly zoomed images of VS Code ("Visual Studio Code does a wonderful job demonstrating this problem"), the only thing I noticed is that the image on the right looks slightly brighter than the image on the left. Then as I went back to where he was describing the problem ("fringing"), I kept forgetting when I scrolled back to the images which was which (and which image was supposed to be "worse"). I'm on a 2025 Macbook, so maybe the laptop's monitor masks the issue?

writebetterc 9mo ago
I'm on a M4 Macbook, and I can see it. I'm inclined to totally accept the blog author's experience as true for them, I'd probably experience the same thing.
WithinReason 9mo ago
The image on the right was also out of focus which hides color fringing on the LCD
c0nsumer 9mo ago
(Author here.) That's an interesting point you mention about not seeing it, because prior to buying an OLED I'd read a bunch about fringing and in many articles I just... couldn't see it. I couldn't tell what was being illustrated in the images. It wasn't until I sat in front of one for a few hours, in my room and lighting and with my apps and had funny-feeling eyes and a this-seems-off feeling that I decided to investigate. And yes, those macro photos show fringing, but it /is/ hard to understand how the subpixel pattern translates to on-screen weirdness until you've seen it for yourself.