LCD v. LED v. OLED: Understanding Different Display Panel Types

[Guest]

What’s the difference between LCD, LED and OLED displays? What about TN, VA and IPS? And which features really matter? We break it all down.

LCD v. LED v. OLED: Understanding Different Display Panel Types : Read more

 

[RAZ3RX]

Can someone elaborate on the little note about the HDR colorspaces? My LG OLED acquired nearly 2 years ago has Dolby Vision and HDR10 capability. Both of which, if I recall correctly, exceed the BT.2020 spectrum? Also, where is the comparisons of HDR technology in all this? It is only mentioned in the OLED section. The brightness of each technology has a significant impact on the panel being able to pass an HDR standard, as there is the brightness per pixel requirements.

 

[Deleted member 2449095]

The author should mention that human vision is continuous and we don't see in refresh rates. The 500Hz means that your brain and body went highwire, probably because you are running from something that's about to eat you, and it's not possible to sustain it for a prolonged period of time. Seeing how human vision works it just shows that spending millions dollars on marketing is indeed worth it. The facts don't matter, they said it makes one better, so it must be so.

 

[BryanFRitt]

"Humans perceive flicker artifacts at 500?Hz"
Skip 500Hz and go for positive integer multiples of 600Hz
since 600Hz matches nicely as a multiple of most video sources
factor(600)=2^3 * 3^1 * 5^2
15*40=600, 24*25=600, 25*24=600, 30*20=600, 50*12=600, 60*10=600, 100*6=600, 120*5=600, ...

oh wait... "several viewers reported visibility of flicker artifacts at over 800?Hz"
might have to go for 1200Hz now..., or if you believe in doing everything at least 2x just to be sure then 2400Hz.
[p.s. they only used like 2-10 subjects for these tests]

Anyway the true question is always "is the difference worth the cost?", not can it be measured that you can see the difference in some way, although this knowledge can be helpful in determining rather or not "the difference worth the cost".

 

[rantoc]

Choosing an LCD Panel... You mean "Choose PC or Console" up there with Ideal Image vs Blurred mess? =P

 

[NinjaNerd56]

I have an LG LED UHD set (55) in the bedroom, connected to an Apple TV 4K and TiVo Bolt 4K DVR. Looks good...calibration is close to the suggested ones at rting.com for this set.

OTOH, I have a new Sony A8F OLED set (65) in the living room home theatre setup, also with an Apple TV and TiVo box as well as a Sony BR player.

The Sony replaced a Panasonic VT60 plasma set recently...and is stupidly good. Again, followed MOST of the suggestions from rtings.com and a couple of others, and it is the best TV I’ve ever owned.

I have an AOC IPS display (27) for my PCs (KVM setup) and while only 1080P, it looks quite nice married to a GTX1060 on my main gaming tower.

All have their merits. For pure movie/TV content, the Sony is the clear choice and winner. For everything else...I don’t much care.

I think my next monitor will be either OLED or microLED...30-34 inch.

LED is just “nice, but...” or as I like to say, “For a fat girl, you don’t sweat much, do ya?”

 

[Dantte]

MicroLED... First, lets define what is a "MicroLED", and no, your WIKI that you linked does it no justice.

LED displays exist today and are commercially available. Planar has one of the smallest pitch displays at .7mm, and many others exist. Is this what you mean by "MicroLED", if not, when does it become "Micro..."?

 

[nitrium]

I think my next monitor will be either OLED or microLED...30-34 inch.

Good luck on getting that non-existent OLED monitor. Dell recently cancelled, AFAIK, the only OLED monitor in any manufacturers pipeline. What the article above doesn't mention is that OLED suffers from burn in - i.e. if you retain the same image too long it becomes a permanent ghost. This is not a problem for TVs or mobile phones, since the entire image regularly changes (+ mobiles are rarely left on for very long anyway). For a desktop monitor not so much - i.e. you will see the Windows taskbar ghosted onto everything (e.g. games and video) before very long.

 

[guadalajara296]

Agree on the burn-in

 

[dabeargrowls]

I love my OLED. I can never go back to anything else after experiencing it. Its on my Alienware 13R3 laptop. Yes, the screen is small compared to other but man its so awesome. As for 90hz max... ohh well. Just remember with the current HDMI standard that 99.9% of us have the max you get is 60FPS in UHD. (HDMI limitations, not the TV or the card)

 

[gasaraki]

This article is not that well written with some inaccurate info.

 

[AgentLozen]

I appreciate the effort of trying to piece together a beginner's display guide. I think this would be a great article for someone that doesn't know anything about display technologies.

I'm seeing a lot of dissent from other readers and I agree with them to some extent. Some of these details misrepresent the facts. Human vision is tricky and we don't perceive light in Hz the way a display shows it. Also, OLED monitors do have a burn in problem, the extent of which is debatable. Another person posted that linking to a Wikipedia article doesn't do the topic of MicroLED justice.

I don't want to be a jerk and complain about how much fail is going on here. I think this article gets 90% of the way to its goal but stops a little short.

 

[newsonline5000000]

I dont understand how you missed the Most Important CONS in OLED panels ? BURN INS !!!!

And you are Mistaken about Iphone X screen being the reason behind its High price . You can find Samsung Phones with AMOLED displays for as low as $250

 

[DrakeFS]

TN, VA, IPS or OLED, I will choose OLED everytime. I recently upgraded my phone from a Moto X 2013 to an Essential PH-1 and the only thing I miss is the display. A 720p OLED just looks better than a 1440p (nearly) IPS LCD. It may be a bias, that I just like the saturation OLED screens provide. That being said I will buy a TN panel from gaming everytime (the cost bump does not justify the benefits of not getting a TN panel). If there where OLED PC monitors @ 90HZ, I would probably have a crisis on cost vs how it "looks".

 

[Andy_K]

"And you are Mistaken about Iphone X screen being the reason behind its High price . You can find Samsung Phones with AMOLED displays for as low as $250"

Yup the high price is because apple are literally bumming every penny out of the fools that think it's worth that amount of money. the profit per device is ridiculous.

 

[stevewood963]

I personally could care less about the type of monitor I buy, if it looks good to me then thats all I need but what I want to see is monitors that are more than 2" tall an 24' wide nobody needs a picture they can only see in heir own perception in the corner of their eyes. I have a 22" 16x9 that seems like a postage stamp compared to a old sony 21" 4:3 so even if the picture is better I still can't see a thing on it because its to small lets make some monitors real people can see stuff on not ones hollywood wants you to use huh.