New monitor time, thought I had it sorted but ...

[CompleteUtterNonsense]

After looking at a whole bunch of monitors and crawling through a rabbit warren of monitor sites and reviews, Thought I had decided to go with 4K on a 32 inch monitor. My eyes aren't getting any better and I want all the screen space I can get for photo editing.

I'm stepping up from a 10 year old Phillips va monitor with no real control for calibration, so almost anything I choose will be a big step up.

The LG 32UP83A seems to be a newer version of a model a few people here have used that compares favourably to much more expensive displays.

Hmm, thought I had decided but ...

Another display I had looked at but at $1,500 CDN was outside my budget was the MSI MAG 321UPX QD-OLED. I see it on sale on Amazon at just over $1,000 now. That is pushing things budget wise, but OLED, true local dimming, much better colours, ... hmm.

In general, I keep my hardware as long as possible and monitors regularly last 10 years now. I'm not sure about OLED.

I'm also wondering how quickly photography and the low end monitor market will move on trm sRGB. I don't think that sRGB mapping to wide gaumet colour spaces is all that common yet and hdr content is sparse. I'm wondering if the MSI might be a good transition monitor because it supports sRGB for editing in todays world, but also has decent hdr support.

FWIW my current computer is next to a rather bright plant table. I like to sit there and ponder my plants while at the computer, but I'm flexible as to setup.

Thoughts?

 

[Austinian]

After looking at a whole bunch of monitors and crawling through a rabbit warren of monitor sites and reviews, Thought I had decided to go with 4K on a 32 inch monitor. My eyes aren't getting any better and I want all the screen space I can get for photo editing.

I'm stepping up from a 10 year old Phillips va monitor with no real control for calibration, so almost anything I choose will be a big step up.

The LG 32UP83A seems to be a newer version of a model a few people here have used that compares favourably to much more expensive displays.

This looks like a newer, fancier version of my LG 32UN650-W for a lower price than I paid. I've found this a satisfactory monitor for years.

Hmm, thought I had decided but ...

Another display I had looked at but at $1,500 CDN was outside my budget was the MSI MAG 321UPX QD-OLED. I see it on sale on Amazon at just over $1,000 now. That is pushing things budget wise, but OLED, true local dimming, much better colours, ... hmm.

In general, I keep my hardware as long as possible and monitors regularly last 10 years now. I'm not sure about OLED.

Me either, but I've ordered an Asus 32" WOLED monitor that should be here next week. I briefly had an LG WOLED that developed a mosquito-like whine after a few days and was returned. It did have a lovely screen, though it also had other non-visual peculiarities that may have been specific to that model.

I'm also wondering how quickly photography and the low end monitor market will move on trm sRGB. I don't think that sRGB mapping to wide gaumet colour spaces is all that common yet and hdr content is sparse. I'm wondering if the MSI might be a good transition monitor because it supports sRGB for editing in todays world, but also has decent hdr support.

FWIW my current computer is next to a rather bright plant table. I like to sit there and ponder my plants while at the computer, but I'm flexible as to setup.

Thoughts?

These OLED monitors don't seem to go very bright full-screen; I wonder if that would be a problem since you mention a bright nearby plant table? My computer room is pretty dark, and that LG WOLED was adequately bright though it required a higher brightness setting than my current IPS display.

For a bright room I'd be inclined to look for one of the mini-LED monitors, some of which I've read can be quite bright, though I haven't personally investigated any of them.

 

[CompleteUtterNonsense]

After looking at a whole bunch of monitors and crawling through a rabbit warren of monitor sites and reviews, Thought I had decided to go with 4K on a 32 inch monitor. My eyes aren't getting any better and I want all the screen space I can get for photo editing.

I'm stepping up from a 10 year old Phillips va monitor with no real control for calibration, so almost anything I choose will be a big step up.

The LG 32UP83A seems to be a newer version of a model a few people here have used that compares favourably to much more expensive displays.

This looks like a newer, fancier version of my LG 32UN650-W for a lower price than I paid. I've found this a satisfactory monitor for years.

Yup, it appears to be. I flip flop between satisfactory and WOW. My current monitor was good enough for a long time, but I want a little better than that.

Hmm, thought I had decided but ...

Another display I had looked at but at $1,500 CDN was outside my budget was the MSI MAG 321UPX QD-OLED. I see it on sale on Amazon at just over $1,000 now. That is pushing things budget wise, but OLED, true local dimming, much better colours, ... hmm.

In general, I keep my hardware as long as possible and monitors regularly last 10 years now. I'm not sure about OLED.

Me either, but I've ordered an Asus 32" WOLED monitor that should be here next week. I briefly had an LG WOLED that developed a mosquito-like whine after a few days and was returned. It did have a lovely screen, though it also had other non-visual peculiarities that may have been specific to that model.

I'm also wondering how quickly photography and the low end monitor market will move on trm sRGB. I don't think that sRGB mapping to wide gaumet colour spaces is all that common yet and hdr content is sparse. I'm wondering if the MSI might be a good transition monitor because it supports sRGB for editing in todays world, but also has decent hdr support.

FWIW my current computer is next to a rather bright plant table. I like to sit there and ponder my plants while at the computer, but I'm flexible as to setup.

Thoughts?

These OLED monitors don't seem to go very bright full-screen; I wonder if that would be a problem since you mention a bright nearby plant table? My computer room is pretty dark, and that LG WOLED was adequately bright though it required a higher brightness setting than my current IPS display.

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure how that would work out for regular viewing. I can always throw on a hood for photo editing. I also don't really know how to simulate my environment in a store. The best I can do is go into a local Best buy and get them to take an OLED off torch mode.

For a bright room I'd be inclined to look for one of the mini-LED monitors, some of which I've read can be quite bright, though I haven't personally investigated any of them.

I think its down to a choice of two. The sensible me says a lot of things in the monitor market seem to be in transition and I should wait a year or four to let 4k become standard and OLED to settle out a little more. The 'you're not spring chicken' side of me says go for it now. Conundrum, that is ...

 

[BobKnDP]

One datum:

I've had a Philips 27E1N8900 OLED display for 18 months.

Most of the time, it's used for Web browsing.

It has suffered no burn-in or image retention issues so far. Whether it'll be good for 10 years, I can't guess. It lacks any built-in function to ameliorate image retention, which (I hope) means that it's not a problem.

I can't speak to using it in a bright space. I have it in a dimly lit room, and it's profiled at 120 nits.

I haven't measured its uniformity, but it seems very good to my eye.

If you're obsessive about "perfect" blacks, OLED is the choice at the moment. Future self-emissive displays may be better, but I have no idea when they might come to market.

My secondary system uses an Asus PA329c (32" 4k). I get some angle of incidence effects at my normal viewing distance, even though it's an IPS display.

 

[Austinian]

After looking at a whole bunch of monitors and crawling through a rabbit warren of monitor sites and reviews, Thought I had decided to go with 4K on a 32 inch monitor. My eyes aren't getting any better and I want all the screen space I can get for photo editing.

I'm stepping up from a 10 year old Phillips va monitor with no real control for calibration, so almost anything I choose will be a big step up.

The LG 32UP83A seems to be a newer version of a model a few people here have used that compares favourably to much more expensive displays.

This looks like a newer, fancier version of my LG 32UN650-W for a lower price than I paid. I've found this a satisfactory monitor for years.

Yup, it appears to be. I flip flop between satisfactory and WOW. My current monitor was good enough for a long time, but I want a little better than that.

Hmm, thought I had decided but ...

Another display I had looked at but at $1,500 CDN was outside my budget was the MSI MAG 321UPX QD-OLED. I see it on sale on Amazon at just over $1,000 now. That is pushing things budget wise, but OLED, true local dimming, much better colours, ... hmm.

In general, I keep my hardware as long as possible and monitors regularly last 10 years now. I'm not sure about OLED.

Me either, but I've ordered an Asus 32" WOLED monitor that should be here next week. I briefly had an LG WOLED that developed a mosquito-like whine after a few days and was returned. It did have a lovely screen, though it also had other non-visual peculiarities that may have been specific to that model.

I'm also wondering how quickly photography and the low end monitor market will move on trm sRGB. I don't think that sRGB mapping to wide gaumet colour spaces is all that common yet and hdr content is sparse. I'm wondering if the MSI might be a good transition monitor because it supports sRGB for editing in todays world, but also has decent hdr support.

FWIW my current computer is next to a rather bright plant table. I like to sit there and ponder my plants while at the computer, but I'm flexible as to setup.

Thoughts?

These OLED monitors don't seem to go very bright full-screen; I wonder if that would be a problem since you mention a bright nearby plant table? My computer room is pretty dark, and that LG WOLED was adequately bright though it required a higher brightness setting than my current IPS display.

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure how that would work out for regular viewing. I can always throw on a hood for photo editing. I also don't really know how to simulate my environment in a store. The best I can do is go into a local Best buy and get them to take an OLED off torch mode.

That should do it, I had a hood custom-made by the sheet-metal shop at the last place I worked. It was a great improvement (back in the CRT days!).

When you go to BB, check out the text clarity as well if you do a lot of non-photo work. I had a look at a (non-MSI) QD-OLED last time I was there and text didn't look as good as an ordinary IPS monitor. I spend more time with text than images.

For a bright room I'd be inclined to look for one of the mini-LED monitors, some of which I've read can be quite bright, though I haven't personally investigated any of them.

I think its down to a choice of two. The sensible me says a lot of things in the monitor market seem to be in transition and I should wait a year or four to let 4k become standard and OLED to settle out a little more. The 'you're not spring chicken' side of me says go for it now. Conundrum, that is ...

For me, 4K has been standard for years. I'll never go back to less.

 

[CompleteUtterNonsense]

After looking at a whole bunch of monitors and crawling through a rabbit warren of monitor sites and reviews, Thought I had decided to go with 4K on a 32 inch monitor. My eyes aren't getting any better and I want all the screen space I can get for photo editing.

I'm stepping up from a 10 year old Phillips va monitor with no real control for calibration, so almost anything I choose will be a big step up.

The LG 32UP83A seems to be a newer version of a model a few people here have used that compares favourably to much more expensive displays.

This looks like a newer, fancier version of my LG 32UN650-W for a lower price than I paid. I've found this a satisfactory monitor for years.

Yup, it appears to be. I flip flop between satisfactory and WOW. My current monitor was good enough for a long time, but I want a little better than that.

Hmm, thought I had decided but ...

Another display I had looked at but at $1,500 CDN was outside my budget was the MSI MAG 321UPX QD-OLED. I see it on sale on Amazon at just over $1,000 now. That is pushing things budget wise, but OLED, true local dimming, much better colours, ... hmm.

In general, I keep my hardware as long as possible and monitors regularly last 10 years now. I'm not sure about OLED.

Me either, but I've ordered an Asus 32" WOLED monitor that should be here next week. I briefly had an LG WOLED that developed a mosquito-like whine after a few days and was returned. It did have a lovely screen, though it also had other non-visual peculiarities that may have been specific to that model.

I'm also wondering how quickly photography and the low end monitor market will move on trm sRGB. I don't think that sRGB mapping to wide gaumet colour spaces is all that common yet and hdr content is sparse. I'm wondering if the MSI might be a good transition monitor because it supports sRGB for editing in todays world, but also has decent hdr support.

FWIW my current computer is next to a rather bright plant table. I like to sit there and ponder my plants while at the computer, but I'm flexible as to setup.

Thoughts?

These OLED monitors don't seem to go very bright full-screen; I wonder if that would be a problem since you mention a bright nearby plant table? My computer room is pretty dark, and that LG WOLED was adequately bright though it required a higher brightness setting than my current IPS display.

Yeah, I'm not entirely sure how that would work out for regular viewing. I can always throw on a hood for photo editing. I also don't really know how to simulate my environment in a store. The best I can do is go into a local Best buy and get them to take an OLED off torch mode.

That should do it, I had a hood custom-made by the sheet-metal shop at the last place I worked. It was a great improvement (back in the CRT days!).

I can McGuiver something out of cardboard, some casting acrylic for stiffness and black cloth I have kicking around.

When you go to BB, check out the text clarity as well if you do a lot of non-photo work. I had a look at a (non-MSI) QD-OLED last time I was there and text didn't look as good as an ordinary IPS monitor. I spend more time with text than images.

rtings.com shows it has good text clarity.

For a bright room I'd be inclined to look for one of the mini-LED monitors, some of which I've read can be quite bright, though I haven't personally investigated any of them.

I think its down to a choice of two. The sensible me says a lot of things in the monitor market seem to be in transition and I should wait a year or four to let 4k become standard and OLED to settle out a little more. The 'you're not spring chicken' side of me says go for it now. Conundrum, that is ...

For me, 4K has been standard for years. I'll never go back to less.

I suspect I will feel the same.

 

[CompleteUtterNonsense]

One datum:

I've had a Philips 27E1N8900 OLED display for 18 months.

Most of the time, it's used for Web browsing.

It has suffered no burn-in or image retention issues so far. Whether it'll be good for 10 years, I can't guess. It lacks any built-in function to ameliorate image retention, which (I hope) means that it's not a problem.

This is a pretty fancypants monitor. It has all sorts of burn in protection including pixel shift and logo dimming.

I can't speak to using it in a bright space. I have it in a dimly lit room, and it's profiled at 120 nits.

I haven't measured its uniformity, but it seems very good to my eye.

Uniformity of this panel is very good according to rtings.com

If you're obsessive about "perfect" blacks, OLED is the choice at the moment. Future self-emissive displays may be better, but I have no idea when they might come to market.

My secondary system uses an Asus PA329c (32" 4k). I get some angle of incidence effects at my normal viewing distance, even though it's an IPS display.

I'm not particularly obsessed by blacks, but when editing, local dimming should help with shadow detail and near black gradients. It just seems like a very good 'nice to have'.

 

[BobKnDP]

(snip)

I'm not particularly obsessed by blacks, but when editing, local dimming should help with shadow detail and near black gradients. It just seems like a very good 'nice to have'.

To be (overly?) precise, OLEDs have no local dimming. They're not like IPS displays with LED array backlighting. Edges should be maximally sharp.

I haven't done spec checking to see whether QD does much for the gamut of OLEDs. Sounds cool, though.

 

[CompleteUtterNonsense]

(snip)

I'm not particularly obsessed by blacks, but when editing, local dimming should help with shadow detail and near black gradients. It just seems like a very good 'nice to have'.

To be (overly?) precise, OLEDs have no local dimming. They're not like IPS displays with LED array backlighting. Edges should be maximally sharp.

Haha, yes. Pixel dimming? Micro dimming? I have no idea what they call it.

I haven't done spec checking to see whether QD does much for the gamut of OLEDs. Sounds cool, though.

I went way down the rabbit hole. Its pretty good. The Q-dots transform light from one wavelength to another, so it is very efficient. Much more efficient than Woled. It looks like colour accuracy is better as well.

In theory, the qdoled should also be brighter, but this panel is set to max out at 250 nits. That may be a design decision to extend panel life.

 

[BobKnDP]

(snip)

I'm not particularly obsessed by blacks, but when editing, local dimming should help with shadow detail and near black gradients. It just seems like a very good 'nice to have'.

To be (overly?) precise, OLEDs have no local dimming. They're not like IPS displays with LED array backlighting. Edges should be maximally sharp.

Haha, yes. Pixel dimming? Micro dimming? I have no idea what they call it.

I haven't done spec checking to see whether QD does much for the gamut of OLEDs. Sounds cool, though.

I went way down the rabbit hole. Its pretty good. The Q-dots transform light from one wavelength to another, so it is very efficient. Much more efficient than Woled. It looks like colour accuracy is better as well.

In theory, the qdoled should also be brighter, but this panel is set to max out at 250 nits. That may be a design decision to extend panel life.

It's spec'd at 1000 nits peak. 31.5" MSI MAG 321UPX - Specifications

I compare that to my 26.9" Philips 27E1N8900 - Specifications, which peaks at 540 nits.

Doesn't look like there's a large difference in gamut, though. But $1k for the MSI monitor seems like a good deal. (I paid more than that for the 27".)

 

[Chris Noble]

After looking at a whole bunch of monitors and crawling through a rabbit warren of monitor sites and reviews, Thought I had decided to go with 4K on a 32 inch monitor. My eyes aren't getting any better and I want all the screen space I can get for photo editing.

Thoughts?

After many single and multiple monitor configurations, I transitioned 18 months ago to a single 38" curved IPS monitor from LG, and I will never go back to a single or double flat monitor. Better in every way. I need enough width to keep three windows open, so dual flat screens with a gap in the middle makes no sense (imagine a gap in the middle of your desk!). And a single flat screen that is wide enough would be ridiculously tall.

But to each their own.

 

[Austinian]

It's spec'd at 1000 nits peak. 31.5" MSI MAG 321UPX - Specifications

I think that peak value is for very small screen areas in HDR mode:

MSI MPG 321URX QD-OLED Review

The MSI MPG 321URX is a flat 32-inch, 4k gaming monitor with a 240Hz refresh rate. As a part of MSI's Performance Gaming (MPG) lineup, it sits alongside other QD...

www.rtings.com

(*URX seems to be much the same as *UPX plus a few extra bells 'n whistles)

 

[CompleteUtterNonsense]

It's spec'd at 1000 nits peak. 31.5" MSI MAG 321UPX - Specifications

I think that peak value is for very small screen areas in HDR mode:

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/msi/mpg-321urx-qd-oled

(*URX seems to be much the same as *UPX plus a few extra bells 'n whistles)

Correct. The upx/urx/up are all HDR 400 certified so not even 1000 nits in that small patch, but 400. The panel also has to do a sustained 320 nits over the full panel.

I can pick up the URX local for $1,200 and the UP (the one Amazon has on sale for 1,000) somewhat local for $950.

Hmm, decision time.

 

[BobKnDP]

It's spec'd at 1000 nits peak. 31.5" MSI MAG 321UPX - Specifications

I think that peak value is for very small screen areas in HDR mode:

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/msi/mpg-321urx-qd-oled

(*URX seems to be much the same as *UPX plus a few extra bells 'n whistles)

I believe the same thing.

I don't know what screen fraction can have 1000 nits.

 

[Austinian]

It's spec'd at 1000 nits peak. 31.5" MSI MAG 321UPX - Specifications

I think that peak value is for very small screen areas in HDR mode:

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/msi/mpg-321urx-qd-oled

(*URX seems to be much the same as *UPX plus a few extra bells 'n whistles)

I believe the same thing.

I don't know what screen fraction can have 1000 nits.

From the rtings review,

Peak 2% Window
1,025 cd/m²

Probably useful for brief bright spots in a HDR video, but I'd probably never see that in my normal uses. My ordinary monitor runs about 80-90 cd/m2 so I don't see OLED's brightness as a real problem for me.

 

[BobKnDP]

It's spec'd at 1000 nits peak. 31.5" MSI MAG 321UPX - Specifications

I think that peak value is for very small screen areas in HDR mode:

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/msi/mpg-321urx-qd-oled

(*URX seems to be much the same as *UPX plus a few extra bells 'n whistles)

I believe the same thing.

I don't know what screen fraction can have 1000 nits.

From the rtings review,

Peak 2% Window
1,025 cd/m²

Probably useful for brief bright spots in a HDR video, but I'd probably never see that in my normal uses. My ordinary monitor runs about 80-90 cd/m2 so I don't see OLED's brightness as a real problem for me.

And that's only in HDR mode. About 250nits across the board in SDR.

Does anyone edit in HDR mode? (I don't.)

 

[Austinian]

It's spec'd at 1000 nits peak. 31.5" MSI MAG 321UPX - Specifications

I think that peak value is for very small screen areas in HDR mode:

https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/msi/mpg-321urx-qd-oled

(*URX seems to be much the same as *UPX plus a few extra bells 'n whistles)

Correct. The upx/urx/up are all HDR 400 certified so not even 1000 nits in that small patch, but 400. The panel also has to do a sustained 320 nits over the full panel.

I can pick up the URX local for $1,200 and the UP (the one Amazon has on sale for 1,000) somewhat local for $950.

Hmm, decision time.

Good luck whatever you choose. It's great that we have choices like IPS vs. OLED in 4K flat panels. Consider the size and weight of a 32" CRT.

 

[CompleteUtterNonsense]

I went to a local Bestbuy to see what I could demo. I didn't have high hopes because a similar visit to another local location was disappointing. To my surprise, they had an Dell Alienware AW3225QF on display.

I really wanted to not like this display to save myself some money, but dang! I spent a good half hour looking at images of all sorts from dpreview including some with high contrast. This monitor is really, really good. Image detail is phenomenal.

Text is quite crisp to my eyes. Menus are somewhat small, but legible, at least from two feet away.

It's essentially the same as the MSI monitors we have been discussing. It does not have the docking station capabilities of the MSI units discussed, but it is here local where I don't have to worry about shipping damage or theft should it get delivered when I'm not home.

This is a sleep on it buy, but I'm pretty much sold.

 

[BobKnDP]

I presume you've already seen reviews for it. rtings has one.

It's curved, but with a 1.7m (66.9") radius. Hardly radical.

$900? That must be tempting.

 

[CompleteUtterNonsense]

More than tempting. I did see the reviews on rtings.com. These were all $1,500 monitors when I started looking a couple of weeks ago.

I was leaning towards the Asus Proart PA329CRV as a possible splurge, but the black levels on the Dell are stunning. Damn you black Friday.

Hmm ...

Proart: better brightness at 350 cd/msq, no burn in

Dell: better everything else, possible burn in