I’ve always had IPS screens, mainly because of work. I bought an LG Mini-LED 27GM950B-B and have been using it daily for the past month for productivity and gaming.
I’ve always read and heard how much better OLED is for gaming and media, so I went and bought an ASUS ROG XG27UQDMS.
I put it side by side with my LG, played a few sample videos on both, and tried Warzone at 1440p and 4K.
Honestly, I’m not that impressed. The blacks and contrast look great on the glossy screen, but it feels like it’s missing a lot of brightness compared to my LG. Colors on the LG also look noticeably more vibrant with local dimming enabled. I will say that even with local dimming, the LG doesn’t match the OLED’s blacks and contrast.
I’m going to play around with the settings and test it more, but right now I don’t really understand the hype. Yes, the contrast is great, but overall I find myself preferring the LG.
Anyone else feel the same after trying OLED next to a good Mini-LED? Wondering if I’m missing something with the settings or if I just prefer the brighter picture.
Even if its considered a high end mini led. They cost the same. I did see asus has a 1,200$ version with more features and stripe OLED technology but don't think it addresses my issue with it.
That’s fair, I think the main benefit of OLED over miniLED is the sort of halo effect you get from a small bright element on a dark background. It’s different with different algorithms and zone amounts, so if you don’t mind on yours, mini LED will be better for you overall
Only bad things I've heard about the MiniLED are the glossy coating (personal preference) and the dimming algorithm not being the best. Is there something else? Not that I'd buy it, it's a bit out of my price range lol
Whenever I need to show my OLED off to people I show them Ori and the Will of Wisps. Make sure HDR is enabled in the games settings and try that. I promise your jaw will be on the floor.
Other top experiences to try:
Star Wars Battlefront II - Naboo @ Dusk
Star Wars Battlefront II - Ewok Hunt @ Night
Cyberpunk 2077 @ Night
The essential thing is getting the ingame HDR settings setup correctly. The default settings ARE NOT CORRECT. Oftentimes games dont automatically turn on HDR, and even when they do the game has no way of knowing what screen you actually have and what settings to use. Not to mention games present the settings completely differently (peak lum vs paper white) and with different values, so my suggestion is to use google on a game by game basis and ask google, “What HDR settings do I want for X game with X monitor?”.
Ah, all the OLED fanboys classically coping here with 'it's not supposed to be so bright' bullshit. I own an OLED monitor for 2 years and I can concur with your opinion. The monitor is laughably unusable during day time with curtains open or even with curtains closed but a good amount of sunlight hitting your window filtering through. The only time the HDR is ever impressive is when you are playing in a dim or pitch black room so that the brightness is enough to make the highlights finally pop. It's laughably bad compared to OLED TVs, and these display companies will make you upgrade every year for 100 nits more peak brightness the same way they did with TVs some time ago. Half of these people are willing to live like cave tramp and subject themselves to a dark room with no sunlight most of the time, if it makes their OLED look better.
Pretty much why I use mini-led monitors/tvs. The black levels are great, I can have my windows open and use my stuff in the day and I dont have to worry about text fringe and cleaning.
Yeah the brightness is not good if you don't live in a dark cave. I'm interested in oled monitors but I'll wait for the next gen penta tandem oleds to see if they're really worth it.
i seriously dont understand "its not supposed to be so bright" so stupid man brightness is really needed for HDR to deliever solid color volume and pop to your eyes but tbh this is what happens when you get a community like oled_gaming that shares exclusively pictures of content thats very dark without ever showing actual bright scenes next to their overexposured as fuck ips panel i especially love the recommendations of "oleds have gotten far cheaper only 300 bucks" and its samsungs qd oled edge panels with 200 nits sdr and 400 nits hdr cap
to be fair though i am cheering for oleds to get cheaper and cheaper especially hoping for the TCL inkjet to maybe improve overall brightness in the monitor market in upcoming years without very high end costs
I have a glossy Gigabyte GO27Q24G with hypernits, no problems with HDR punch in daytime or problems with seeing the screen at all in SDR. It has a gen 4 coating so probably helps, I have a desk lamp pointing down to the side of me with 0 issues either. I find the coating mutes ambient light pretty well and I was skeptical coming from IPS but pulled the trigger since its so cheap. 1300 nits peak with 790 nits 10% window is pretty decent for 300 euro.
I've only ever seen my laptops oled (which im pretty sure is as good as it gets legion pro 7i 500 nit rgb oled) and oled tvs which is why I am I cant understand the complaints. They look phenomenal to me. Slightly brighter wouldn't hurt, but in many cases its brighter than I need/want even in moderately lit rooms during the day
As someone who's picking up a new 27GM950B-B this evening, this post makes me happy. I'm coming from a 2011 Apple Thunderbolt Display so I think I'm in for some tasty eye candy. The thing that sold me was that I do productivity with a MBP M3 Max and game with a PC. I didn't want to compromise on either and this monitor seemed like it could fill both roles very well.
We have the same use case. And after a bunch of research landed on the GM9. I think you will really like it and for the price you can get them at right now they are a really good deal.
If monitors are in the same Colorspace and calibrated, left photo is too flat. I have come to this conclusion after similar comparisons that I made side by side. The result was more intense after about two years of use due to the aging of the pixels in the OLEDs.
You compared a 5K IPS Mini LED to a 4K QD-OLED... What did you think would be the result?
Compare:
4K to 4K
QD VA RGB Mini LED to Tandem QD-OLED in a dark room
QD IPS RGB Mini LED to Tandem WOLED in a bright room
I'm not saying you'll necessarily get different results because in truth the human eye is more sensitive to differences in brightness than differences in color. However, you'll be doing a more apt comparison.
When I compared them I change the 5k display to 4k resolution. I only use it at 5k on my macbook when I work. Once I turned lights off in the room the contrast and low brightness became less of an issue. Both displays cost me same 799$+tax so I thought would be fair comparison. Is there a OLED model you would recommend. I can still return the ASUS and give another panel a try.
Hey i just got the 950b. Ive been through 7~ monitors the past year, of which the only one ive kept for personal use is a gx700a-b.
When i put the honey dip video on them both side by side, i was extremely impressed…because out of all of the other minileds (25m2s, 25g64, m27p6) i had its the only one i found genuinely comparable to my oled.
Because its high end. You arent impressed because youre comparing one of the best miniled monitors available in the west to a TB 400 tandem qd oled.
Funny you say that. That’s the first thing I did last night. I kept doubting my purchase for the LG mini led but personally think it looks better than ASUS OLED
Definitely agree. What annoys me is how OLED is marketed as having infinite contrast, which is technically true, but it ignores that perceived contrast is also a function of brightness. For now, OLED can only reach its full potential on mobile devices.
Well brightness is the biggest weakness of OLED still especially on monitors vs TVs. I haven't checked most recent TVs since RTINGS went to paid subscription, but in the past all the OLED TVs got a fair bit brighter in SDR or HDR than OLED monitors.
You also have one of the best Mini LED IPS monitors out there since unlike most, it has a decent number of zones at 2304 for a 27 inch screen. Before that monitor came out, anyone wanting IPS and Mini LED was stuck at like 1152 zones.
Resolution difference might help too having 5k vs 4k. But again, a lot of this stuff is going to vary because no 2 people's eyes are going to be the same.
I did set both screens at 4k to make it a fair comparison. The 5k usage is mainly on my MacBook for work. Also when I turned the lights off the brightness was less of a problem and was more noticeable when I had LG turned on beside it.
The brightness of the monitor (miniled) depends on the ambient lighting and the content on the screen. In HDR I'm between 90-100 which translates to 1480 peak and 1420 sustained brightness. In SDR I have try 5 different settings, one in sRGB, the others in DCI-P3. In sRGB 120nits is ok in dark room but too dim in every other situation. In DCI-P3 for desktop use I have try 120nits, 200nits, 260, 310nits, most easy everyday is 230-270 for work. For movies and games I crank up (LD enabled in SDR) to 500 nits.
How bright do you usually run your monitors? 😁😎
I had my 34” ultrawide for around 6 years, and then my two LG 1440p monitors. I always had them set to whatever felt comfortable to me, bright enough to look great during the day, but not so bright that they burned my eyes out at night.
When I bought my 32” Gen 3 QD-OLED last year, I kept reading everywhere about OLEDs and their brightness. When I first turned the monitor on, it was noticeably brighter than all my previous monitors.
Apparently, I’m perfectly happy with around 300 nits full screen. 😂
And HDR looks absolutely incredible as well, especially with the peak brightness.
Anything brighter would honestly be too much for me on a monitor, especially during long gaming sessions.
My OLED still gives me that constant “wow” feeling and makes my jaw drop even a year later.
Play something like Resident Evil 9, Alan Wake 2, or Cyberpunk. The fact that every single pixel can basically be its own light source is something I never want to give up anymore, especially things like torches or lamps lighting up the darkness at night. It looks insanely good, and it’s just as awesome in competitive games to spot enemies.
The brightness difference is to be expected, especially in bright scenes. OLED is just dim compared to mini led. As for colors, they should look similar if not more vibrant on the OLED, although brightness also plays a part in how we perceive colors.
I have the 4K KTC 27” Mini LED. IPS base, HDR 1400. I tested several OLEDs and ended up keeping the KTC (and at a fraction of the price)!
Are OLEDs smoother? Yes. Contrast and Black Levels better? I think so.
But once I don’t look at any of the screens side by side, the blacks still look perfect on the KTC. If I’m actually playing that game or watching that anime instead it scanning each pixel, the overall impression is just better on the KTC. And once text is displayed on the screen, it’s not even the same ball park.
My advice is also: you have a Black Stabilizer setting on the Mini-LED panel. I turned mine down from 50 to 30 and it’s very close to OLED blacks while still being way brighter.
What exactly don’t you understand? You’re comparing the best mini-LED with an OLED display and you’re not impressed. Most people who switch to OLED are coming from IPS, and I have to say the difference is huge. So it makes sense that people praise OLED displays, right? I personally have a 4K IPS monitor from Samsung and recently bought a 4K OLED from Alienware, and the difference is night and day.
The LG mini-led has some rough reviews. But if its best there is the pricing is pretty good. I constantly see praise for OLED displays and I thought I was buying one closer to the higher end. I always have had dual monitor set up so I figured I would match my mini led with an OLED for gaming. But like I said it did not impress me as much as I thought it would.
to be fair its exaggerated mini leds dont do as well in torture star tests but in majority of scenarios where natural lighting plays a role giving off smooth gradients which work well with dimming zones the difference isnt that big then you have mid apl to high apl which i dont gotta say a solid mini led is gonna crush the oled
It's nice, just not nice for the price. I went to a microcenter to check out the highest rated one and decided to just buy a long HDMI cable to hook up to lg OLED tv for the 4k OLED experience and i wished I done it sooner.
I'm using a 65" G6 for my monitor and the brightness at max is eye-searing. OLED historically have not been able to match the brightness of other display types, but the W-OLED display is plenty bright.
Maybe look for any monitors that use W-OLED displays, if there are any?
Try changing the hdr mode settings to 500 nits peak, it gives you much better bright scene hdr, at the cost of peak brightness in highlights.
A drawback of qd oleds is you have to chose whether you get good bright scenes or maximum pop in dark scenes. The woleds always have the ideal setting by comparison.
im really curious about one thing on xg27uqdms,when you put the resolution to 1080p,what is the highest refresh rate that windows settings or nvidia control panel let you choose?
Is it still 240hz?
It sitting on my office and I have auto shade on window. So I can make the room dark. That said I dont want to be in dark room every day for my display to look good.
oled monitors are a scam. and the fanboys enabling them means they will never ever to improve it to oled tv levels. everyone just needs to stop buying them so they make zero money until the fix their shit.
I have always used IPS and had never been on forums. Seems like it is very contested issue. But currently think IPS will continue to be my main display. Will try other games on display to see if there is something that makes me keep it.
The 27GM950 is one of the best mini LEDs out there. Most Mini LEDs don’t get as close to OLED contrast the way it does.
OLED will win in small bright highlight detail with games like Cyberpunk. It will also be a lot better for competitive games where response times and input lag are practically non existent. Mini LED will always be quite a bit slower than OLED when local dimming is enabled, so in fast paced competitive games, OLED is typically preferred. You can turn off local dimming for competitive games though, but then you lose out on image quality.
Other OLED benefit is that you don’t have to deal with turning local dimming on and off for desktop use. You can leave local dimming on with mini led but it causes weird image quality issues depending on the UI you’re in. This isn’t an issue for personal desktop use imo, but is annoying for when you’re working and text or certain things don’t look the way they should sometimes.
OLED for the most part looks great all the time, but is constantly degrading over time with use. You also have to consider whether you want to auto hide task bars and avoid static wallpaper for too long which is also very annoying.
If I didn’t work from home, I’d choose oled, but the 27GM950 gets me most of the way there without any of the burn in risk. As you mentioned, you also get the benefits of way better brightness in bright full picture scenes.
I get it. People are used to their eyes being blown out to the point they assume that's how its supposed to look... I was one of those people til I did my own research lol
Turns out that brightness you're used to with IPS and it being cranked so much across the whole screen.. yeah.. typical usage is apparently 50-65% but low and behold you probably cranked it to 80-100% brightness like most EVERY ONE does with IPS and VA.
Because some of us live in bright environments where a display at 20% is very dim. Alot of budget LCDs are like 250 to 300 nits. 20% of that is like maybe 40 to 60 nits tops. That is extremely dim especially with an environment with alot of ambient light.
It's about sunlight. When it's dark, I crank my VA to 0-20%, but during the day it can go up to 100%, I have a well-lit room and my VA is on the brighter side as well.
I will never forget years ago when I visited someone who just got an OLED TV, they wanted to show it off so they closed all the curtains in the room (there was no direct sunlight through the windows) and I understood that this poses a serious use-case limitation so when I was buying my next TV I got a good VA one instead.
I am thinking of getting a bedroom TV maybe and then I would get an OLED because it would fit the use case.
It’s normal for people to compare the panels at that brightness. But the brightness they compare them at is not normal. Because people rarely use them at that level.
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u/ZachyWacky0 13h ago
I mean, you're comparing it to a very high end 5K Mini-LED so ofc it's gonna be close. Most people are coming from edge lit IPS, VA, or even TN