Samsung and LG Show are teeing as much as battle for the panel in your monitor.
Usually, you don’t want to consider the panel inside your monitor. You take a look at the model, assess the options, hunt down an unbiased overview, and make your shopping for choice. For OLED gaming screens, nevertheless, the panel couldn’t be extra vital, as LG and Samsung Show deal with the rising show know-how in very alternative ways.
After a tender launch in 2023, the battle is heating up this 12 months as these two mammoth show makers battle it out — and issues are about to get very fascinating.
The LG angle
Let’s make certain we’re all on the identical web page right here first. LG Show and Samsung Show aren’t LG Electronics and Samsung Electronics. They’re fully totally different firms. It doesn’t make sense, I do know, however I’m speaking about LG Show and Samsung Show right here. They make panels, not screens, and the electronics firms they share a reputation with are merely thought-about companions, not subsidiaries or guardian firms.
With that cleared up, LG’s up first. For 2024, LG has a spread of WOLED panels for gaming screens. These use a white subpixel — therefore the “W” — that emits white gentle. That is handed via a coloration filter that, much like an LCD show, takes some brightness away within the course of. WOLED screens aren’t historically as vivid or coloration correct as QD-OLED tech, which I’ll get to subsequent. We noticed that in motion with some LG Show panels final 12 months, such because the one featured within the Asus ROG Swift PG27AQDM.
There are two primary panels for avid gamers coming in 2024. The primary is a 4K model with a 240Hz refresh fee that has a distinctive twin refresh fee characteristic. It permits you to swap to a 1080p decision with a staggering 480Hz refresh fee with a single button. We’ve already seen a number of variations of this show, from LG Electronics, Asus, and MSI, to call a couple of.
The opposite is the killer, nevertheless. It’s a 1440p panel that may hit a 480Hz refresh fee. It seems Asus is the one model that has entry to this panel in the meanwhile, however I believe different manufacturers could have variations as soon as Asus’ monitor launches. The refresh fee is staggering contemplating we solely had 240Hz refresh fee screens final 12 months, such because the LG UltraGear OLED 27.
Outdoors of the 2 16:9 panels, LG Show additionally has a 34-inch and 39-inch panel with a 21:9 side ratio and a decision of three,440 x 1,440. We’ve seen comparable variations of this kind of panel earlier than, corresponding to on the Alienware 34 QD-OLED, however the 39-inch measurement is new for 2024.
The large deal for all of those shows is that we’ve seen peak brightness claims of 1,300 nits — the best brightness declare ever for an OLED monitor. That’s due in no small half to the truth that these panels use LG Show’s Micro Lens Array (MLA) tech. This basically places a layer of microscopic lenses in entrance of the natural materials used for OLED. It offers an enormous enhance to brightness within the course of, serving to LG catch as much as QD-OLED tech.
The Samsung angle
Samsung Show is tackling the OLED drawback in a far totally different manner. It leverages QD-OLED, or Quantum Dot OLED, tech to attain theoretically higher coloration and brightness in comparison with LG Show’s extra conventional method. There are some technical particulars right here, however they’re vital for understanding how Samsung’s method is totally different.
QD-OLED makes use of simply blue OLED materials. These blue pixels are break up up into thirds, nevertheless, with one portion going to a inexperienced quantum dot and one other going to a pink quantum dot, so that you get a real RGB structure. The large distinction right here is that there isn’t a coloration filter. The colour filter works towards brightness and coloration accuracy, so QD-OLED is brighter and extra coloration correct than the WOLED method (at the least with out MLA tech).
Samsung Show has two new panels this 12 months, they usually aren’t as thrilling as what LG Show is providing. Now we have a 4K panel with a 240Hz refresh fee and a 1440p panel with a 360Hz refresh fee. That’s it; no fancy twin refresh fee options or something like that.
The large distinction in comparison with LG is that we’ve truly examined these panels — learn our Alienware 27 QD-OLED overview and Alienware 32 QD-OLED overview — they usually’re gorgeous. They posted the very best coloration accuracy we’ve ever recorded for a gaming monitor, and reached the true 1,000 nits of peak brightness that the panel is able to. Samsung Show could not have any flashy new options, however its two QD-OLED panels are standouts.
That is the third technology of QD-OLED panels from Samsung Show, they usually deal with one of many key points with the primary two iterations. Because of how the panels break up the blue pixel, the subpixels aren’t all the identical measurement. This, in earlier variations, has created coloration fringing on high quality particulars like black textual content on a white background.
It’s not fully gone, however it’s very arduous to note any fringing on textual content in these third-gen QD-OLED panels. It was one of many key reservations we had about earlier variations, and Samsung Show has largely addressed the issue.
Who will come out on prime?
The battle between Samsung Show and LG Show is simply beginning to warmth up, and we’ve solely had an opportunity to see one facet of the battle. The early choices from Samsung Show are very spectacular, however LG has some key particulars working its favor.
Brightness is the mai issue we’ll be taking a look at this 12 months. LG Show is making increased brightness claims, however we’ll must see how these truly play out in follow. Brightness is the principle criticism of all OLED gaming screens proper now — be it WOLED or QD-OLED — so whoever wins the brightness battle will seemingly come out on prime.
LG definitely has the higher hand within the battle right here, contemplating it’s sporting refresh charges past something we’ve seen earlier than for OLED screens and its fascinating twin refresh fee characteristic. For now, it’s only a ready sport to see if LG Show can ship on brightness and coloration accuracy, which have been ache factors for the panels prior to now.
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