It's still possible to buy very bad displays

[Andropov]

A friend is looking for a new laptop on a budget (about $800) and asked me to give an opinion on a possible choice. It was pretty average laptop, with an average display as well (or so I thought!): 1080p on 15.6", IPS and 144Hz refresh rate. Brightness was definitely on the low side (250 nits), but nothing particularly terrible. He ended up not buying the computer, but I later realized that the fine print of the display specs said "45% coverage of NTSC".

That's about 62% coverage of sRGB! What!? I genuinely didn't even know it was possible to purchase a new display with significantly less than 100% coverage of sRGB, much less a IPS and 144Hz one. But apparently that's something companies routinely do on cheap gaming laptops. I'm guessing the panel has been engineered to meet the buzzwords people look for (FullHD, 144Hz, IPS, slim borders...) and cheap out as much as possible on absolutely everything else (in case you're curious, this is likely the panel used).

Sharing because I was honestly surprised this was still a thing. I thought of sRGB as the minimum baseline for all displays manufactured on the last decade.

 

[leman]

This illustrates how customers care more about 144Hz displays than color accuracy. Undoubtedly targeted at young gamers with small budgets.

 

[Andropov]

This illustrates how customers care more about 144Hz displays than color accuracy. Undoubtedly targeted at young gamers with small budgets.

I think customers do care about color space as well, it’s just not something they know how to look for in the specs, and at the same time most panels do have an acceptable baseline (100% sRGB) beyond which you get diminishing returns and other specs of the display become more important.

Reddit is full of posts about these “45% NTSC” displays and people complaining that it’s so bad they returned the computer or won’t buy another laptop with such a display ever again. There’s even this post of a user that got their display replaced under warranty for one of this “45% NTSC” panels instead of a panel with the original specs, also not happy.

I think they get away with selling this panels because people look for specs rather than comparing the displays in person. But I think almost no one would pick this panel seeing it side by side along a 60Hz 100% sRGB panel. IMO this is so bad it’d be tempted to call it a scam. That it’s likely targeted to young gamers doesn’t help.

 

[leman]

Oh, I fully agree. I am just talking about subjective biases and how people are primed to certain choices by the low quality of discussion, peer pressure, subculture fashion etc. For example, not long ago I was having this discussion with a bunch of gamers who were absolutely convinced that OLED displays are better for HDR than zoned miniLED backlights because OLED is pixel-dimmable. And of course, marketers can take advantage of this lack of education.

 

[Roller]

I think customers do care about color space as well, it’s just not something they know how to look for in the specs, and at the same time most panels do have an acceptable baseline (100% sRGB) beyond which you get diminishing returns and other specs of the display become more important.

Reddit is full of posts about these “45% NTSC” displays and people complaining that it’s so bad they returned the computer or won’t buy another laptop with such a display ever again. There’s even this post of a user that got their display replaced under warranty for one of this “45% NTSC” panels instead of a panel with the original specs, also not happy.

I think they get away with selling this panels because people look for specs rather than comparing the displays in person. But I think almost no one would pick this panel seeing it side by side along a 60Hz 100% sRGB panel. IMO this is so bad it’d be tempted to call it a scam. That it’s likely targeted to young gamers doesn’t help.

I don't think most buyers know what these specs mean in terms of what they'll see on the display. They either buy the laptop sight unseen or maybe take a quick look in a store without doing a side-by-side comparison. Vendors are happy to keep selling as long as they're profiting.

 

[Andropov]

I did some investigation, the first Apple display for which I could find data on sRGB coverage is the 2007 Apple Cinema Display, which already mentions 86% coverage of sRGB. And the last display with bad sRGB coverage I could find from Apple was the 1400x900 panel of the 2017 MacBook Air (non-Retina), with an atrocious 49% coverage of sRGB. That’s not that long ago! Although I remember that at the time the quality of the MacBook Air display was heavily criticized.

Oh, I fully agree. I am just talking about subjective biases and how people are primed to certain choices by the low quality of discussion, peer pressure, subculture fashion etc.

Yeah fully agree with this.

For example, not long ago I was having this discussion with a bunch of gamers who were absolutely convinced that OLED displays are better for HDR than zoned miniLED backlights because OLED is pixel-dimmable. And of course, marketers can take advantage of this lack of education.

Well if the backlight zones aren’t small enough you’d get blooming and that’s detrimental to the quality of the HDR content. But miniLEDs can be much brighter, so unless OLED evolves to allow for higher brightness, it’s never going to be the best option for HDR.

I’m sure dimming zones is something manufacturers will botch in the future, offering fake miniLED displays that actually only have a handful of dimming zones. In fact, they already do this for TVs, with hilarious results (it’s actually quite distracting).

I don't think most buyers know what these specs mean in terms of what they'll see on the display. They either buy the laptop sight unseen or maybe take a quick look in a store without doing a side-by-side comparison. Vendors are happy to keep selling as long as they're profiting.

I think what a good chunk of buyers do is get a list of buzzwords the monitor must mention (FullHD, IPS, 144Hz…) and get the cheapest option that mentions all or most of them.

 

[exoticspice1]

This illustrates how customers care more about 144Hz displays than color accuracy. Undoubtedly targeted at young gamers with small budgets.

You don't need colour accuracy for e-sports. What matters is response times

 

[exoticspice1]

The best "monitor" is the LG C3 OLED 4k 42". Better than any Apple/PC display.

 

[jbailey]

The best "monitor" is the LG C3 OLED 4k 42". Better than any Apple/PC display.

At 105 PPI. No thanks.

 

[exoticspice1]

At 105 PPI. No thanks.

PPI isn't everything. It's sharp for a TV monitor

 

[Andropov]

You don't need colour accuracy for e-sports. What matters is response times

Note that the issue is not color accuracy but rather color gamut. I agree that color accuracy is unlikely to be an issue for gaming except in rather extreme scenarios, but a very limited color gamut definitely can be an issue for gaming. A 60% coverage of sRGB likely means that colors that were meant to look very different from each other are going to look very similar in the monitor, which is basically a long way of saying that the screen is going to have low contrast overall, which 100% affects your ability to visually “parse” what’s happening onscreen quickly, which in turn is an issue for gaming.

Reddit users with similar panels were commenting that playing horror games and stuff like that was downright impossible, precisely due to the low contrast / everything looking washed out. But I can imagine the same issues hold in games that require parsing a lot of things onscreen in a short amount of time (for example: teamfights in games like DOTA and League of Legends).

 

[Roller]

PPI isn't everything. It's sharp for a TV monitor

It depends what you mean by a TV monitor. For example, I need high resolution for my work, which mostly involves working with text, though a lesser display might be fine for watching video. Of course, this partly depends on your visual acuity, which tends to decline with age, even with correction.

 

[theorist9]

The best "monitor" is the LG C3 OLED 4k 42". Better than any Apple/PC display.

PPI isn't everything. It's sharp for a TV monitor

There is no single best monitor, just as there is no single best vehicle. That depends entirely on the intended usage. And here we are talking about usage as a computer monitor, not a TV display.

And while PPI isn't everything (that's just a truism—there's no one thing that's "everything"), it's very important if you are using the computer monitor to do text work.

My main display is 218 ppi (27" 2019 iMac). Then I have two side displays, one with ≈100 ppi, and one with ≈160 ppi. I do not like spending time working on that 100 ppi display—text is just not sharp enough— so I use it mostly to display reference info. that I just need to glance at, or as a docking place for windows I want to keep open but am not using right now (e.g., Outlook & Teams).

 

[exoticspice1]

For me a display should be glossy, color accurate, 100% sRGB, minimum of 500 nits of SDR and 120hz minimum. OLED/miniLED.

 

[Andropov]

For me a display should be glossy, color accurate, 100% sRGB, minimum of 500 nits of SDR and 120hz minimum. OLED/miniLED.

For me, the list of priorities is:

100% sRGB (bare minimum) > IPS (wide viewing angles, also bare minimum) > Retina (218 ppi, can't really go back to non-Retina displays) > 400 nits of SDR brightness > HDR capable (preferably miniLED) > Color accurate > P3 coverage > 120Hz

Which leaves me with a grand total of zero displays available in the market. I have a 24" LG UltraFine 4K right now, but it seems to be dying (I get heavy image retention sometimes), I think I'll go with the Apple Studio Display as it's the closest to what I look for in a display, but lack of HDR stings.

 

[Citysnaps]

I think I'll go with the Apple Studio Display as it's the closest to what I look for in a display, but lack of HDR stings.

That's what I went with a year ago and have never looked back.

Editing in Lightroom with that display is pure joy.

EDIT: Also... the three USB-C sockets on the back of the display came in very handy as I used all of the sockets on the back of my computer for three 32" X-Plane displays, and of course driving the Studio Display. Yeah...a Pro Display XDR would have been nice, mostly for the display size (but couldn't justify the cost). Now that I've used the Studio Display everyday for a year, there's no way I'd give it up. It's that nice.

 

[theorist9]

For me, the list of priorities is:

100% sRGB (bare minimum) > IPS (wide viewing angles, also bare minimum) > Retina (218 ppi, can't really go back to non-Retina displays) > 400 nits of SDR brightness > HDR capable (preferably miniLED) > Color accurate > P3 coverage > 120Hz

Which leaves me with a grand total of zero displays available in the market. I have a 24" LG UltraFine 4K right now, but it seems to be dying (I get heavy image retention sometimes), I think I'll go with the Apple Studio Display as it's the closest to what I look for in a display, but lack of HDR stings.

The XDR mets more of your criteria than the ASD, since it has HDR.

A glossy XDR would be the best display for me at this point, because I'm pretty happy with the 27" Retina display on my iMac except that it's too small for the kind of work I do—I need to view a lot of data at once, which means big spreadsheets, and with my 27" I sometimes have to use such a low zoom that the text is at the edge of readability.

Though I can't currently justify the cost. Plus this probably isn't a good time to buy the XDR, since I think we'll be seeing a replacement in 2024.

Actually, the 8k Dell might be even better for me, since it's also glossy, and has even higher ppi (280), except that it's not well-supported by MacOS--at 2x integer scaling the menus will be too small, and Apple doesn't offer 3x integer scaling.

I'm not sure if I'd want an OLED display as a computer monitor. Sure, the black levels would be awesome, but early in the morning and late at night I use my display highly dimmed, and if Apple uses PWM for this dimming the resulting flicker might be noticeable to me.

 

[Andropov]

The XDR mets more of your criteria than the ASD, since it has HDR.

Yes, technically, however I guess there’s another thing even higher in the priority list: costing less than $6500

TBH if it were 120Hz and had higher density lighting zones I’d entertain the possibility but at this point it feels like a massive amount of money to spend in display tech that even if it’s still the best commercially available is several years old. The MacBook Pro display has more lighting zones for example.

 

[theorist9]

Yes, technically, however I guess there’s another thing even higher in the priority list: costing less than $6500

TBH if it were 120Hz and had higher density lighting zones I’d entertain the possibility but at this point it feels like a massive amount of money to spend in display tech that even if it’s still the best commercially available is several years old. The MacBook Pro display has more lighting zones for example.

Well, yes, there's always that . As to the rest, that's why I was thinking it makes sense to wait a year. 120 Hz and more lighting zones both seem like reasonable possibiliies for the next version.

Plus there's talk that it will be 7k, which means either they stay at the current pixel density and increase the size to 32" x 7k/6k = 37", or they stay at 32" but increase the pixel density to 218 ppi x 7k/6k = 254 ppi, which just happens to exactly match what they're using in the MBP's. Though I suspect the latter might make the UI elements too small for the XDR's likely viewing distance.

 

[mr_roboto]

Yes, technically, however I guess there’s another thing even higher in the priority list: costing less than $6500

TBH if it were 120Hz and had higher density lighting zones I’d entertain the possibility but at this point it feels like a massive amount of money to spend in display tech that even if it’s still the best commercially available is several years old. The MacBook Pro display has more lighting zones for example.

Yeah, the XDR seems to be one of those Apple side projects where they do neat and interesting things in generation 1, but also gild the lily a bit too much and take a long time updating it. See also: Airpods Max.