Question will OLED gaming monitors ever get below $300 or even $500 before OLED becomes obsolete?

I'd argue slapping "gaming" on anything hardware related somehow means manufacturers can get away with charging extra markup.

There's no reason why my 32" monitor should cost the same as a 55" TV with more features. Granted these features may not have to do with gaming, but 240Hz which even manufacturer doesn't recommend using (they say 120Hz is "optimal") is about the only plus it has against the TV.

In any case, the main trouble with OLEDs for the monitor market seems to simply be lack of demand. There are laptops with OLED panels, but they're not exactly flying off the shelves.

Is burn-in on an OLED monitor a big concern or not so much (in the context of normal PC/gaming use, not displaying a static image all day)
It's always a concern, but whether or not it significantly impacts the image quality by the time the warranty is up? Probably not.

If anything, I think the biggest factor that makes burn-in appear quicker is how bright you have the panel. I recall one time someone complained about burn-in on their phone after using it for two months. I thought that was odd, until they said they kept it at max brightness.
 
Actually easier to make larger OLED panels than small ones. The only reason small ones are so cheap is that the smartphone market drove costs down.

Also why OLED laptops aren't +$800.

Just less demand for mid-size OLEDs. The vast majority of monitor production is 24" and 27" business class monitors and small TVs
 
The won't be until they are obsolete.

Not likely in the near future. Too much sunk cost.

OLED and MicroLED may be good alternatives, but TN, VA, and IPS are still prevalent. TN panels for your ultra high refresh rate gaming displays. IPS for high end media displays, and VA is in a lot of ultrawides and most mid-range TVs these days.

Manufacturing volume and price competition drive costs down well before obsolescence.
 
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Not likely in the near future. Too much sunk cost.

OLED and MicroLED may be good alternatives, but TN, VA, and IPS are still prevalent. TN panels for your ultra high refresh rate gaming displays. IPS for high end media displays, and VA is in a lot of ultrawides and most mid-range TVs these days.

Manufacturing volume and price competition drive costs down well before obsolescence.
I thought I read somewhere that modern TN panels have as good of colors and contrast as IPS, and I thought I heard that VA panels don't handle fast motion very well.
 
Every panel is a little different. The high end TN are priced appropriately and do have decent color accuracy, but they still have poor viewing angles. The old PG278Q was the first of a new breed of TN panels from AU Optronics, and they are decent enough.

VA does tend to suffer from ghosting, yes.
 
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Every panel is a little different. The high end TN are priced appropriately and do have decent color accuracy, but they still have poor viewing angles. The old PG278Q was the first of a new breed of TN panels from AU Optronics, and they are decent enough.

VA does tend to suffer from ghosting, yes.
I thought that all LCD (or most at least) TVs were IPS (with local dimming sometimes) because of the decent colors and good viewing angles (which is necessary if you are not the only one watching TV in the room)
 
I thought that all LCD (or most at least) TVs were IPS (with local dimming sometimes) because of the decent colors and good viewing angles (which is necessary if you are not the only one watching TV in the room)

It varies by price range. High end is taken up by OLED and QD-OLED displays.

4/7 on this list are VA.


Pretty sure my Vizio is VA as well, and the viewing angles are sufficient for the way normal people would watch such a screen.

I think you will still find IPS displays in the smaller TV sizes. These are more likely to be mounted above fireplaces, up in corners of rooms, etc.
 
It varies by price range. High end is taken up by OLED and QD-OLED displays.

4/7 on this list are VA.


Pretty sure my Vizio is VA as well, and the viewing angles are sufficient for the way normal people would watch such a screen.

I think you will still find IPS displays in the smaller TV sizes. These are more likely to be mounted above fireplaces, up in corners of rooms, etc.
I don't know the panel type of my Vizio 60" smart tv is. The local dimming on it is pretty good though, it allows the black bars to pass for OLED-level blacks in a room that is not pitch black (otherwise they look like a very dark grey). It could be VA though. I am not sure how I would know without looking at the model number but the tv is wall mounted so I would have to take it off the wall and at that point it is not worth it.
 
IPS is pretty much the go to panel now for high performance gaming monitors. All but one monitor on PCPP with a 300Hz or higher refresh rate are IPS.

With regards to VA and ghosting, it depends. I've had two Samsung monitors now with VA panels that don't have any noticeable ghosting. A test I used to do to see how bad pixel response was was to go to a Wikipedia page with a table that had red and green highlighted cells. If the panel had slow pixel response, you could see the yellow where there was a red/green transition if you scrolled through the table fast enough. I don't see that with my current VA monitor.

VA however does have a much higher static contrast ratio (at >3000:1) than IPS or TN (typically at ~1000:1). Though "IPS Black" panels can close the gap a bit (at ~2000:1)
 
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IPS is pretty much the go to panel now for high performance gaming monitors. All but one monitor on PCPP with a 300Hz or higher refresh rate are IPS.

With regards to VA and ghosting, it depends. I've had two Samsung monitors now with VA panels that don't have any noticeable ghosting. A test I used to do to see how bad pixel response was was to go to a Wikipedia page with a table that had red and green highlighted cells. If the panel had slow pixel response, you could see the yellow where there was a red/green transition if you scrolled through the table fast enough. I don't see that with my current VA monitor.

VA however does have a much higher static contrast ratio (at >3000:1) than IPS or TN (typically at ~1000:1). Though "IPS Black" panels can close the gap a bit (at ~2000:1)
how do the blacks on a VA panel compare to OLED? (Obviously, it is worse, but how much worse?)
 
how do the blacks on a VA panel compare to OLED? (Obviously, it is worse, but how much worse?)
Presuming a ~3000:1 contrast ratio at 150 nits, you're looking at 0.05 nits vs 0 for OLED.

I don't know if there's any practical comparison to this, but if you wanted to take it as "scientifically" as possible, assuming uniform brightness throughout, a candle is 20 times brighter than 0.05 nits.
 
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Presuming a ~3000:1 contrast ratio at 150 nits, you're looking at 0.05 nits vs 0 for OLED.

I don't know if there's any practical comparison to this, but if you wanted to take it as "scientifically" as possible, assuming uniform brightness throughout, a candle is 20 times brighter than 0.05 nits.
I know that TVs generally have local dimming, but do monitors? AFAIK monitors don't have local dimming.
 
The main selling point of oled is the total black background. Is that a requirement of many or most games? Many or most gamers would probably say no, Hz refresh rates are everything to them. So I wouldn't expect oled monitors with refresh rates acceptable to gamers at any time in the future, especially at the price range you named. And I don't know enough about the time it takes a oled pixel to light up and them fade to black to know if the higher Hz refresh rates are even possible. I got into oled for the black background even though my 27" monitor cost an absurd amount of money, $900 more than my 65" oled TV. So I'm not expecting oled prices to come down much more than they already have.
 
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The main selling point of oled is the total black background. Is that a requirement of many or most games? Many or most gamers would probably say no, Hz refresh rates are everything to them. So I wouldn't expect oled monitors with refresh rates acceptable to gamers at any time in the future, especially at the price range you named. And I don't know enough about the time it takes a oled pixel to light up and them fade to black to know if the higher Hz refresh rates are even possible. I got into oled for the black background even though my 27" monitor cost an absurd amount of money, $900 more than my 65" oled TV. So I'm not expecting oled prices to come down much more than they already have.
The main selling point of OLED is not total black background, it is the detail that you get even in dark scenes where LCD monitors would have trouble with crushing the details in dark scenes AND excellent HDR due to the (near) infinite contrast. If said gamers play story-driven games or FPS games with lots of dark scenes then that may be important to them. OLED pixel response times are sub 1ms, which is great for fast paced games. I don't know when you got your OLED monitor but there are OLED monitors available for around $1k (still expensive) that have 1440p 240hz.
 
The perception of black is mostly determined by the ambient light. In a moderately lit room, black on an OLED looks about the same as black on an LCD with good contrast. In a dark environment, things change. And even then, if there's enough bright stuff on the screen, a high contrast LCD may also make blacks appear as good as OLED.

EDIT: I shouldn't say contrast, but a good black level.
 
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The main selling point of OLED is not total black background, it is the detail that you get even in dark scenes where LCD monitors would have trouble with crushing the details in dark scenes AND excellent HDR due to the (near) infinite contrast. If said gamers play story-driven games or FPS games with lots of dark scenes then that may be important to them. OLED pixel response times are sub 1ms, which is great for fast paced games. I don't know when you got your OLED monitor but there are OLED monitors available for around $1k (still expensive) that have 1440p 240hz.
Perhaps that's true for 1440p monitors but I don't consider any monitor less that 4K 3840x2160p to be a real monitor.
 
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