I currently have the 24G2 which is 24 inch and 1080P. It was great but it unfortunately kind of died. White lines, lagging with tougher games and such. So I was researching for a good gaming (and productivity) monitor and found the DELL G2724D. The DELL looked gorgeous compared to the old 24G2. Unfortunately though, insane amount of glow – to the point I just returned it and asked money back.
Now I’m kind of uncertain which monitor to get, I read reviews and all reviews on IPS panels have a lot of complains about the glow. I then researched about OLED, Q-OLED and kind of fell in love. Was ready to purchase one until, I was not. I found out it’s not a good match for productivity usage due to burn-in issue (Excel and Word). So kind of stuck now.
I was thinking about the ASUS ROG Strix XG27ACS or LG UltraGear 27GR83. But I have bad experience with the ASUS before (bought it and would not turn on, might be just bad luck?) and I read different opinions on the UltraGear one. I’m still on the fence for an OLED/Q-OLED but don’t want to purchase another monitor after 1-2 years of gaming and office work. Got told about Mini-LED but they seem not really available in my country.
Any recommendation, tips and such would be really appreciated!
Note: There are many communities about gaming, so was not sure in whcih to post. This one seemed to fit the most since the others were mostly posts with news articles regard gaming and technology.
I had some 1080p asus gaming monitor with high refresh rate but terrible ghosting and colors, colors were especially noticably bad compared to my tablet. I just got a yesteryears top tier 2k ultrawide 34" from LG for 200 bucks and I’m really happy. 4070ti super manages to runs games on it fine and it takes less space than 3 monitors would.
I have been using IPS displays for many years, and I had to look up what is IPS glow. now I see it, but it doesn’t bother me. what bothers me is that my dell monitor is absolutely garbage on reproducing dark colors, while my much older cheap LG is very good in that. like, the black background of the terminal shows a very visible difference
I have been using IPS displays for many years, and I had to look up what is IPS glow.
I was the same as you with my old (still current) monitor but then, I bought the DELL and it was well, very notable: DELL IPS Glow (IPS Bleed?). To the point it was not a black screen anymore. It never really bothered me until, I had the DELL for a short time.
This site does detailed reviews, including measurements, photos, and comparisons:
https://www.rtings.com/monitor
https://www.rtings.com/review-pipeline/monitor
https://www.rtings.com/vote/monitorThis one is good for digging up details about specific models, such as what panel is used or where it was made, also with comparisons:
https://www.displayspecifications.com/
Simon over at TFTCentral used to do the best monitor reviews. Sadly, he quietly replaced his site with an OLED-focused blog a few years ago, perhaps because catering to gamers with disposable income makes more money. Nevertheless, he knows what he’s talking about when it comes to displays, his tech articles are still good (if you can find them on the new site), and he might still review IPS models once in a while:
For me, IPS beats OLED, because:
- OLED suffers from burn-in after enough years pass. Some vocal gamers on Reddit don’t seem to care about this, arguing that you’ll throw away the monitor before the burn-in becomes a problem. I think this is irresponsible (unnecessary environmental damage), and wasteful (I keep using my tools until they die).
- A good IPS panel will have only mild glow at off-angles. It’s visible around the corners if I’m playing very dark games in a very dark room and sitting close to the screen, but even then, it’s never bothersome, since I don’t spend much time staring at the corners of the screen.
- In addition to gaming, I spend lots of time reading text. IPS is generally great for this. OLED panels vary in this area, in some cases even using weird subpixel layouts (e.g. BGR) that defeat font rendering systems like ClearType, making the text anything but sharp. Eye strain sucks.
I haven’t been following display news in the past year or so, but when I was, LG.Display’s “IPS Black” panels were on their way to market with a promise of higher contrast ratios than traditional IPS. I think Dell or HP were going to use them. By now, more of their kind might exist.
When I was last shopping for a 27" gaming/productivity display, I narrowed it down to the Asus ROG Strix XG27AQMR, Dell G2724D, and Acer Predator XB273U V3bmiiprx. That was roughly a year ago. I don’t know if those models are still on the market, or if better ones are available now.
The monitors unboxed youtube channel does really good in-depth reviews and includes mixed usage. They also have good buying guides at various price points.
They also said in their last Q&A that there isn’t a non oped monitor on the market that they can recommend for this use case ☹️
Yeah, so from them (Monitor Unboxed) and Rtings I had gotten to the point to purchase the DELL G2724D but unfortunately that ended in bad luck.
Hp Omen 34c user here. I’m quite happy with it, even though HDR is not the best. it does a pretty good job in general and is fairly well balanced for the asking price.
I have that Asus XG27ACS, bought it a couple of months this ago. I’ve been very happy with it. I’ve not used the stand it came with as I have desk mounted arms. The screen itself is very nice and works for both a free sync gaming monitor and the colours are good for my photo editing. It didn’t cost a fortune either. I think its the cheapest monitor I’ve bought in 20 years but it’s as good as any I’ve had before.
I have that Asus XG27ACS, bought it a couple of months this ago. I’ve been very happy with it.
How’s the IPS glow/ backlight bleed in dark scenes and games?
It didn’t cost a fortune either. I think its the cheapest monitor I’ve bought in 20 years but it’s as good as any I’ve had before.
I’m tempted to either get an W-OLED (ASUS ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDMG) or re-purchase the Asus XG27ACS in a different store with the hope it will work.
There is some risk of burn in, but it’s pretty manageable for modern OLED monitors with normal usage. Like, it should last closer to a decade than a year, especially if you lower the brightness a little.
As you rightly point out, both IPS screens and OLED screens (plus related technologies) have their problems. Unfortunately, IPS still has that glow effect and OLD risks burn-in for productivity work. Since there is no readily-available technology that fixes both of these issues, you will ultimately have to consider what you value more and make a compromised decision. Take a look at comparison articles (example linked here is authored by one of the people from Hardware Unboxed) to see what they recommend within various categories of monitors.
I’ve been using VA Panels for a long time because of that IPS glow. My current main monitor is a iiyama GCB3480WQSU-B1 and I’m pretty happy with it.
How’s gaming on the monitor? I kept reading about how VA isn’t good for gaming due to black smearing and motion blur issue.
Yeah, the IPS glow is a major issue. When I bought the 24G2 4 years ago, it was on a whim and probably had luck. Now it’s tough to find a good IPS monitor.
Smear and ghosting are bad on VA in my experience. I had one around when Miles Morales first came out and it was so bad I thought my tv was broken, and Samsung agreed and sent a guy to replace the panel. The new panel did the same thing though, and at that point I just sold it and bought an OLED.
Smear and ghosting are bad on VA in my experience. I had one around when Miles Morales first came out and it was so bad I thought my tv was broken, and Samsung agreed and sent a guy to replace the panel.
That’s what I have been reading here and there, that VA are good for visuals (movies, tv shows and such) but bad for gaming. Though it seems that some people have a decent experience with VA panels when gaming but I don’t want to risk it (yet). Unfortunate that the new panel did the same thing.
bought an OLED.
How has the OLED monitor been for you when gaming (and either general usage or office work)? Response time, text clarity, motion and actual black screen? Since like another person said that there’s not really one-fit and always have to have a compronis (IPS with glow and OLED with possible burn-in), I’m tempted to purchase* an OLED monitor for around €600 and then just save up money for when the burn-in happens. I have been trying to find a decent monitor for quite a few months, so I have become a bit impatient and just want a good monitor to game mostly (say 80% gaming and the 20% is either browsing, movies, tv shows and office work).
I absolutely love my VA monitor. Never had an issue with motion blur (although I always turn it off in games) nor smearing to a noticeable degree, but I wonder if higher refresh rates can help alleviate it. I have a 165hz for reference
Gaming is fine, I haven’t noticed any issues but I have to admit that I’m a casual gamer at most. The monitor supports FreeSync and refresh rates up to 165Hz.
I haven’t compared VA to OLED yet, but the latter costs at least twice as much where I live. For me personally, I don’t think that’s worth it. My previous monitor was a Samsung CF791 with Quantum-Dot but honestly I find the iiyama to have nicer colors. That’s highly subjective of course and the CF791 was released roughly 10 years ago, so take this with a grain of salt.
There are some high performance VA panels that are good for gaming. Samsung Odyssey Neo G7/G8 for example.
Are there really no mini-LED monitors in your country? I’m a really big advocate of them. As close to OLED HDR performance as you can get without burn-in and with better peak brightness. I’m currently using a Cooler Master GP27Q that I got for cheap as an opened box, which has been a really solid monitor for the cheap cheap price I got it for (couple hundred euros).
I think a 27 inch 1440p monitor with 2000+ dimming zones will be the sweet spot between performance and affordability, though none like that are on the market yet.
I have an LG 38GN950-B, 1600p Ultrawide, IPS, 144Hz, and really like it.
For productivity, I think Ultrawide is great. WFH on this is really nice.
For gaming, it’s kinda hit-and-miss. Many games just don’t support UW, so you’re stuck with black bars or have to mess around with mods, fixes or tools. While not a dealbreaker, when I upgrade in a couple of years, I’ll probably just go back to 16:9, because of that.
IPS glow is there, but not really noticeable. I’m usually in a well-lit room, so that cancels out any glow I could notice out anyway, so it doesn’t really matter.
