Quick Answer
With hardly any room for arguments, OLED gives you that extra push as far as monitor technology is concerned. You get to have a more enhanced Contrast ratio as well as a better pixel response time. Nonetheless, considering the price it goes for, OLED monitor is not worth the price. This is because at a significantly lower price, you can get a great LCD monitor that will offer an excellent experience.
It will only be an over echoing to say that technology moves at the speed of sound. The speed has deafened all the technologies that only 10 years ago, we were made to believe were the future. In the world of gaming and computers, it seems like it is even entirely in its lane altogether. One of such new technologies is the OLED monitor that has come to take the baton from LCD/LED monitors.
Just as it is with most other newer technologies, OLED monitor has come more expensive than the older technologies. However, considering that you will hardly get an OLED monitor at less than $1500 with many going as high as over $7000, many have considered it to simply be a luxury that is not worth it.
Let’s go back to 2013. That was when OLED made the first break as the thing to sweep out LED/LCD TVs. While they got to trump over LED/LCDs in many ways, the thin and light TVs bowed to the older versions. Years down, the line, they are now brighter and still above the LED/LCD, but the problem that remains is that on the back of their hype, they come at a price that is completely outrageous- at least for many. The big question that remains is that considering the place of premium LED/LCD, is OLED monitor worth the price?
Is OLED Monitor Worth The Price?
In order to answer the question on whether or not it is worth it, we placed OLED up against the premium LED/LCD monitors looking at the most important things that make a good monitor including display, color, price, and much more.
Brightness
The original sin of OLED apart from the crazy price it first came with has always been its brightness. Things have gotten much better for it, but it is still yet to beat LEDs. That is not to say that they are completely lost when it comes to brightness, as OLED monitors can also get really bright but then, it will take a little long for it to get back to total black.
At the end of the day, when you bring brightness to question, LED/LCD and OLED both have a good level of brightness. In fact, with the newer OLED TVs introduced by Sony, the screen is chopping more into the forest.
LED wins for brightness
Contrast
The thing with monitor technology is that the deeper black you get, the better the contrast you get. That being said, OLED offers a deeper black since they are able to turn off pixels. In contrast (pun intended) to what you get with LCD, the black is not deep, hence there are questions to be asked on the contrast you are able to get with it.
More so, what you get with OLED is infinite contrast ratio as against 1,000:1 that you may get with a rather decent LCD screen.
OLED is the better one looking at the contrast
High dynamic range (HDR)
HDR or High dynamic range comes very handy when you want to have images that greatly imitate reality or as almost as real as reality. Because OLED comes with greater contrast and contrast is one of the things that make for good HDR, OLED is able to offer close to real images.
Nonetheless, LED monitors are even better when it comes to HDR thanks to their brightness which is another thing important for the realistic image.
Since OLED is the better of the two when it comes to contrast (which is enhanced by its deep blackness), the HDR image you get will have deeper black and lower peak brightness. The exact opposite of this is what you get with the HDR image you see on LED screens.
Result – They appear to be tied on HDR
Color Reproduction
Thanks to very small semiconductor particles known as quantum dots, this is a tight race between the two monitors. OLED had been the one with the say when it came to color volume, accuracy, and brightness, but with the emergence of the aforementioned technology, the two now stand close enough.
The panel you use can also affect the color reproduction your monitor gives. For example, while TN panels are lazy with color reproduction, VA and IPS panels get the job done in an excellent way.
Its a draw here
Viewing Angles
There are no two things here as OLED takes the day when it comes to viewing angle. This is mainly because going by as much as 84 degrees, you can view OLED screen without experiencing luminance degradation
With LCD, on the other hand, you get color distortion when you make it more than 54 degrees. However, it still depends on the display technology you are using. For those using in-plane switching (IPS) technology, you are sure of getting better viewing angles than those making use of twisted nematic (TN) which is mostly used in budget monitors.
OLED wins with viewing angles.
Refresh Rates and Response Times
When it comes to response time and refresh rates, which has to do with the time taken between blurring and giving a clear image, OLED is the better of the two. This is because its smaller diodes work as a pixel, hence the refresh time is as low as 0.1ms compared to the much higher rate you get with LED monitors.
As a result of this, OLED will be good for gamers since the lag time is greatly improved. That is not, however, to claim that LED monitors are doing a poor job in that regard because there are also many that offer great refresh rates.
Refresh rate goes to OLED
Price
With all that has been presented, it is obvious that OLED has outpaced LED/LCD as far as picture quality is concerned. When it comes to the question: Is OLED monitor worth the price? LED/LCD will not only give OLED a run for its outrageous money, but it is even much more valuable.
See Also: Best Dual Monitor Stands and Mounts – Complete Buying Guide
What is even more interesting is that with a very good LED/LCD, you should be able to get a very good monitor that will be able to drive you into the close future when OLED will come down to a point where its price will realistically meet the value it offers because for now, the value and the price still remain in two different parts of the world.
Recommendation
At the end of the day, there is the class of those whose question is not: Is OLED Monitor worth the price? Rather, it is: what is the best. They are the people who want the best of everything no matter the cost. For such people, there is no reason why you should not go for the OLED monitor over the LCD/LED since it easily out beats the other in many things than a couple.
For the rest who look at the value above everything else, we recommend that you wait a few more years and hopefully then, the price of OLED will go down to a reasonable level. Even for someone looking for a good monitor for 4K experience, there are a good number of LED monitors available that can offer that.
