Whenever I review OLED gaming displays, which have gained popularity this year, I consistently receive the same response. The complaint detracts from the otherwise striking contrast and color. The brightness readings, which indicate that they occasionally offer more than half as much brightness as a conventional LCD, certainly seem to confirm that hypothesis. Are they truly so dark, though?
I spoke with OTI Lumionics’ vice president and co-founder Jacky Qiu to have a deeper understanding of how OLED varies. Although OTI doesn’t produce panels, its technological research is essential to the way that large corporations employ OLEDs in their products today. Furthermore, Qiu says there’s a solid reason why OLEDs are dim, so watch what you ask for.
OTI is a business that specializes in OLEDs. According to Qiu, the company deals with materials or “anything to do with, like, hard science stuff” related to OLED technology. CPM patterning, which creates a “window” in the material to allow sensors to be positioned beneath the display, is its primary claim to fame. Qiu gave the example of a Face ID solution using a camera, an IR emitter, and an IR camera.
However, for our purposes, the company—which has support from businesses like Samsung, LG, and the Universal Display Corporation—investigates OLED technology. Thus, the first inquiry I asked was centered on the complaints I frequently see about how dull OLED displays are. Qiu highlighted a key distinction between OLED and LCD monitors, saying that with an LCD, “you’re essentially having a backlight.” and you are free to make them as brilliant as you like.
Qiu notes that there are basic differences between LCD and OLED. This makes it difficult to compare the brightness of LCDs with OLEDs: “You’re comparing something that can be extremely bright or used for lighting to something that is OLED, which is essentially every single cell in your monitor functioning as a single tiny light-emitting diode.”
Because OLEDs are dependent on more than just a strong backlight, they will always be dimmer. Qiu gestured to some LED lightbulbs that you may have lying around your home.
“You can simply blast that light to be very strong by using LED light bulbs to light your room.” The contrast is then increased by LCD monitors with dimming zones that choose where on the screen to blast that strong light. Certain technologies, like mini-LEDs, have a plethora of dimming zones that allow you to precisely adjust the contrast.
That is not how an OLED display operates. Because every pixel is a self-emitting diode—basically, a tiny channel that can carry an electrical current—you cannot simply turn on a backlight to increase brightness. The backlight is absent.
The next step, in the absence of LCD backlight, would be to simply increase the electrical current flowing through the diode in order to boost brightness; however, this is where OLED can encounter problems.
Inadvertent outcomes
The first complaint regarding OLED monitors is their excessive dimmerness. The second thing you’ll learn is that burn-in occurs with OLED monitors. Here, static elements gradually become more and more visible on the screen and cannot be removed. In a recent analysis on burn-in for OLED gaming monitors, Rtings discovered that certain displays could exhibit burn-in after just 700 hours. Put an end to the presses!
More Read: How to Maintain the Best Condition for Your Laptop or Desktop
OLED burn-in is overly dangerous. Qui stated that burn-in is not a problem in the majority of application situations.
“Burn-in is not a major issue peruse for most stuff in the field, even from ten years ago — like your PlayStation Vita,” Qiu remarked. “The burn-in is not as noticeable as long as you’re not using your OLED TV to watch sports or CNN, like, 24/7, nonstop.” “We work on OLED, do always take anything I say with a small grain of salt,” Qiu made sure to clarify.
The degree of degradation that a single diode has experienced leads to burn-in. A static element on a set of pixels will cause those pixels to degrade more quickly than the rest of the display, where the colors and content are always changing. However, there are solutions for modern OLED monitors to avoid this risk.
Qiu also brought up the way that contemporary OLED screens handle the danger of burn-in. First, when you watch material, the pixels on static items will move about to gradually degrade the pixels and prevent burn-in from being apparent. The monitor will then modify the voltage threshold to the diodes to make them uniform, around once a day. Lastly, the panel will go through each diode and update it for uniformity throughout the screen after roughly 1,000 hours of use. There is no escaping the fact that the material is still deteriorating. However, these characteristics guarantee even deterioration, preventing unsightly burn-in from ever occurring.
The goal of all of this work is to postpone the organic substance that makes up OLED’s final demise. It will eventually deteriorate, although burn-in shouldn’t be noticeable as long as the deterioration is consistent.
The risk of burn-in increases with display brightness.
What role does this play in brightness? Degradation is inevitable, but it can be accelerated by giving the diodes more current and making them brighter. According to Qiu, “You essentially get to choose between living a longer life and becoming brighter.” “Usually, there is a trade-off.”
Qiu used the theoretical 20% brightness increase as an example. “I assume that the final users desire a 20% brightness increase? Consequently, it might only need to be 1.5 times longer to reach its full potential rather than 20% brighter.
That’s when the danger of burn-in becomes significant. You may be looking at a life of only a few years, as opposed to a life span of six years. OLED manufacturers must strike a compromise between longevity and brightness.
Moreover, this is not a brand-new issue. Caleb Denison, the resident TV specialist at Digital Trends, informed me that LCD panels have comparable issues when the backlight brightness is increased. LCDs experience a decrease in image quality as brightness increases rather than burn-in. Although the approaches to brightness taken by LCD and OLED are essentially different, both must balance brightness against other considerations.
Reality vs perception
OLED monitors will always be less bright than LCD ones, but burn-in is not inevitable if you want a good experience. It appears to your eyes that an OLED emits less light than it does.
By his admission, Qiu made a point about a topic in which he lacks expertise. But there’s a lot of truth to it. “Using OLED allows you to have sharper contrast, which can give you an effect of higher perception of brightness because it’s a self-emitter.”
Context is important for brightness, but when comparing two luminance meter readings, it is ignored. Although OLED appears darker, does it look that way? Generally speaking, it doesn’t.
Let’s start with contrast. Although OLEDs have theoretically infinite contrast, the amount of light that can enter your eye at once is limited. Your 2,000-nit LCD TV will appear brighter in a dark room, but it will be considerably brighter on a sunny, bright day. Greater localized contrast is present. With OLED, the same holds. In contrast, the bright areas appear brighter because of how dark the darker areas are.
The perception of brightness is also influenced by a number of other factors. The first is the distance between your eyes and the light source. Caleb mentioned the example of one light bulb left on in a huge room. You risk hurting your eyes if you approach it closely. Just a foot’s distance away and you can read a book. You might not be able to see well enough to tie your shoelaces if you move to the opposite side of the room.
This also applies to your monitor. Since it’s never farther than a few feet from your face, you see a lot more light. When I asked Caleb how much viewing distance affects brightness, he answered straight. “It’s quite large, I think.”
You’re usually sitting no closer than two feet away from a gaming monitor.
The size of the light source is another consideration here. Many people complained that the Samsung Odyssey OLED G9 was too dim for its price when I recently reviewed it. The large size of the physical light source ensures that the gigantic monitor never feels dull. No matter what the brightness meter indicated, it felt unbelievably bright.
A number of variables, including viewing distance, screen contrast, color purity, and ambient light, affect how bright the screen seems to you. OLED only experiences problems in that final region.
OLEDs can only get so bright before they are overwhelmed by the ambient light in your space, but there are a number of other variables that affect how bright a monitor seems in real life. Furthermore, there’s not much need to worry about it when it comes to a gaming display, from which you’ll likely be sitting no more than two feet away without direct sunlight.
