This is my first blog in 5 years. I wanted to talk about a bunch of interests, but have settled on something I've looked for slightly longer than a month: Screens

While on PC I've only used a run-of-the-mill 1080p 75hz LCD (and a bulky CRT monitor), I've had experience with better displays, but only on mobile devices: from half a dozen tablets, to recently a 3K OLED laptop that gave me a first taste of HDR. But I was still looking to have something nice on my desk.

So, since December last year I've been analyzing all the different technologies and all their specs and quirks. Even though I might not get a new display until next year.

This blog was written on january 19th, but hasn't come out since I didn't have a proper publishing setup ready. I needed to get it out now because Computex and Display week is making this blog DOA.

1. Link

2025, though not big in resolutions, saw huge increases in refresh rates because new GPUs finally have enough link bandwidth, thanks to DP2.1 being widespread. Every monitor now has a dual-mode where you can make the screen blurry but have impractically-high refresh rates. We ended the year with a 720p 700hz oled, nearing UFO guys' dream as uncs retell their Xbox lobby stories.

However, 2026 is seeing almost the opposite: Every manufacturer at CES gives bumped up pixel counts. 2160p ultrawides, 5K becoming mainstream outside of macs, and a return of 3D?

There is a stereoscopic version of a 5K Samsung monitor, but I don't see its point when it's only usable by one person. You may as well put on a VR headset that is cheaper, more effective, has existing support, more functions, and also doesn't glue you to a chair. I guess those things might have an edge in color gamut, useful for mastering maybe?

We also finally see the first (LCD) 1000hz displays, with the 3 panel manufacturers one-upping each other with 40hz increments. The UFO test can't even run at those framerates…

On the TV side there is some irony. I remember 8 years ago, 8K being advertised very heavily. Meanwhile, with the ridiculous size inflation of TVs that cost tens of thousands of $$$, that are taller than most humans, every big reveal is only about 4K. Larger resolution screens ARE still made, but released more quietly.

2. LCD

While OLEDs ought to kill the technology for a long time, the ol' reliable crystals are still competitive, and giving some foreshadowing, might be better than they've ever been before.

They are still more affordable, and with local dimming, could do good-enough HDR with higher brightness, while with Quantum dots, they still have good colors. They also have a trick up their sleeves: backlight strobing Because the backlight and the panel are driven independently, you can turn it on and off every frame, emulating a CRT's clarity without a drop in refresh rate.

This year there are a couple breakthroughs.

2.1. Mini LED

Mini LEDs break ground by overcoming decade-old limitations. HDR standards were created all these years ago future-proofing with colors and brightness that can't be achieved: 10,000 nits peak brightness, and full, 100% BT.2020 coverage.

There are two competing technologies: SQD and RGB backlights.

RGB backlights (also called micro rgb), make away with traditional color filtering to get pure color and high efficiency, but there is some color bleed and less zones (though still a ton of them).

TCL's quantum dots have improved enough to catch up, getting nearly the same colors but with up to 20,736 zones, exactly 1/10th of 1080p, in each direction. They claim better colors "in practice" and also brute-force themselves to the 10k nits peak.

Of course, they are still mini-LEDs, and the "purity" of the colors can always be disputed. But I think the existance of new colors is cool enough, and you can always just zoom in the high-contrast image if you need to, right?

2.2. Pulsar

The second technology is G-Sync Pulsar. While NVIDIA's presentation was talking about anything but consumer devices, youtubers were given new monitors to shill.

Backlight strobing was a thing for a while, but it was flawed. VRR was either unsupported or highly flawed, and most implementations only improved clarity in the center. Nvidia released a new technology that gives you perfect smoothness on LCDs without compromises. And with "only" 360hz, they have beaten the fastest, 700hz OLED, with double the resolution.

The only catch is: you need an nvidia GPU, turing or later. There is no "gsync module", but an average MTK SoC with special software sauce. I hope someone reverse-engineers the protocol so one could patch the Linux kernel to give access to the technology from AMD, as I don't have NVIDIA.

The remaining problem for me is that, for monitors specifically, turning on local dimming will add up the latency to 20ms. TVs, with usually more conservative zone counts and better processors otherwise have no latency impact on that feature.

3. OLED

OLEDs, once touted as the pinnacle of displays with perfect contrast, has been steadily descending in price. For mobile, they now completely dominate the market, and for PC, you might actually afford one, if you accept the sacrificed brightness.

Historically, the technology was divided in two: WOLED, which uses color filters and an extra white subpixel, and QD-OLED, which converts colors and had a diamond subpixel pattern. The difference was between them was in color volume, brightness, subpixel rendering, and ambient light behaviour.

However, this year, the OLEDs have converged: QDs got the stripe pattern and new coat, while W/Tandem OLEDs have removed the white subpixel. And with better brightness from improved manufacturing, the differences are shrinking and they really do compete very well with LCDs.

They still have a problem though (besides degradation): motion clarity. While OLED is by default 50% more clear than LCD in motion, LCDs outperform OLEDs with good backlight strobing. OLEDs can do BFI, but only at the cost of refresh rate. Halve your refresh rate and brightess for the original's smoothness, or emulate a 60hz CRT TV with perfect smoothness and boosted brightness. If you want to replace a 2003 monitor's 160hz mode, you cannot do it with OLEDs (yet).

3.1. addednum: XR and mobile

This year we also finally got micro oled bright enough to drive pancake lens glasses with HDR support. Currently though it's only inside the glasses.

At the same time.. The diamond-shape subpixels inside smartphone OLEDs have upgraded to triangle shapes that were previously found on larger screens.

4. CRT

They are an old technology, but still have a niche. CRTs scale near-perfectly with resolution, have smooth motion, and the pixels are emissive. If you live in the west, such monitor or even a basic TV will cost from hundreds to well over a thousand bones, while in places like Russia, Ukraine or Philippines, you can have one for pennies, and seeing a low-resolution game in its greatest form is just so, so worth it…

Of course, they have their own problems. CRT is dying, aging tech. You need to boost brightness to see dark shades, the colors aren't great, the contrast is compromised by light bleed, it has years of burn-in, and the damn thing takes up your entire desk. Your decades-old box might not live much longer, so take care of it.

And sadly, we don't have a way to perfectly replicate it. Of contrast, latency and motion, you can only choose two. IPS has motion and latency without contrast OLED has contrast and latency without the (high refresh rate) motion Mini-LED has good motion and contrast but at high latency.

And even if we did.. the software side is lacking too. There needs to be some software that would turn your monitor into a CRT, which would handle mode switching with automatic shader reconfiguration. It probably needs to be container-based to stay latency-free and with less hassle of DLL injection.

Of course, if you just want to play old console games, or something fixed to 60hz, just use OLED. Boot up retroarch, configure blurbusters' rolling BFI and lotte's CRT shader, and you will be happy.

5. Conclusion

I think I spent too much time going through rabbit holes of things I end up not buying anyway…

If I bought a monitor now, it would be a Titan Army P27MV MAX. There's no western equivalent but Asus PA32UCXR comes close.

But really, the thing I'd want the most is a Looking Glass 27". A display with true depth would really be the endgame. Though it's hard to drive, costs $10k, and is limited to 60hz…

If I had the money and willingless for a TV I'd make a conscious choice about, I'd get something like a Z95B panasonic, or one of those flagships. Monitor brightness is only made to meet or slightly exceed a VESA spec, TVs go far beyond, at the same or lower price than BVMs, at the cost of calibration and very specific features. (and being full of malware)

No sources or images for this one, but they could come in later posts.

6. Addednum: cinema

Since writing the original, I've learned a bit about projectors. They apparently have problems with contrast since CRT's were phased out.

Recently though Barco started making "HDR capable" DLP projectors (LS4K), which show certain movies, in certain theaters, at much better quality. They don't sell those to anyone just yet.

At the same time.. Video walls became much better. A microLED 4k screen costs as much as a high-end projector (without the screen). It has perfect contrast, and already HDR capable. So it's already a good solution for home theaters.

But will they take over the commercial theaters?