If you follow display technology, you probably “know” that “OLED is best”. It has the deepest, most “inky” blacks, fast response rates, vivid colors, and makes HDR look uhh-uhhh-mazing. OLED screens show up in smart phones, watches, gaming consoles, and high-end TVs. They’re now becoming common in laptop and desktop displays: already available on PCs and likely coming to MacBook Pros next year. I recently had a brief experience owning one and, tldr, I wasn’t impressed.

Farewell LG 32GR93U-B

I gushed about my purchase of a 32″ 120Hz LG gaming display in late 2023. It fit all of my needs – it was big, bright, high resolution, high refresh rate, and color accurate. I absolutely loved it.. until it broke in May. Horizontal lines suddenly appeared on the screen and even affected the menus when nothing was connected. It was out of warranty and LG wouldn’t cover it. Reddit was littered with threads about panel reliability issues. Barely two years and dead. My basement of old CRTs and flat panels tells me that display quality isn’t what it used to be. Ugh.

So I dug into said basement and pulled out my decade-old 27″ HP 4K display from work while I searched for a new display to purchase. Turns out there aren’t many displays on the market that are 32″, 4K, and high refresh rate with solid reliability records after the first couple years. I searched and searched until I came across Dell’s Alienware AW3225QF, a 32″ 4K curved OLED gaming display that supported up to 240 Hz refresh rates. Originally released for $1,299 it was selling for $999 and had already been on sale for less in the past. It was well reviewed across the internet, had a 3 year warranty with burn-in protection, and was one of RTINGS top gaming displays. It went on sale a few weeks ago for $799 and I bought it from Best Buy.

It’s no larger or higher resolution than my LG but it’s curved. I never had an issue seeing content on the edges of the LG so the curvature didn’t do anything for me. It was actually a small distraction, but one I could have dealt with over time. The biggest issue I had was that it just… wasn’t… bright. My office has shaded side lighting coming in from the windows, but it’s pretty diffused. Even with the lights are down low, whites looked dull and gray no matter how high I cranked the brightness, what HDR settings I used (or disabled) on the monitor or my Mac or my PC, how many firmware updates I installed, or how many Reddit threads I read about it.

The kicker was that it also had viewing angle issues. If I stood up and looked down on the screen it was as bright as I expected it to be, matching my MacBook Pro. If I looked it from the extreme side it was also brighter. But if I sat directly in front of it as one would 99% of the time, it went back to dull. I struggled with this for over a week telling myself that it had to be a good display because it was OLED. I dropped the brightness of my Mac so that it didn’t compete, I tried Windows to see if it was an Apple issue, and I continued to tell myself that it was a “me” problem. I got such a great deal on such a great monitor that I couldn’t just return it!

But here’s the other thing… I didn’t actually find the contrast that life changing. I played Silent Hill 2 on it, which is basically just fog and darkness, and didn’t notice that much of a difference. Sure, there was a bit more detail in some of the shadows but I didn’t find it life changing and I appreciate the brightness of a “worse” display more than I appreciate deep blacks. Maybe I’m not as much as a displayphile as I think I am. With 2 days left on my 14 day return window, I brought it to Best Buy and got a full refund.

It’s disappointing because I really liked my LG. Even with the reliability issues I might have considered buying one again with an extended warranty, but they are no longer on the market. They’ve been replaced by… OLEDs. After trying so hard to like this Alienware display I found others on Reddit that shared my lack of enthusiasm for OLED. What’s really confusing is that the OLED displays on my iPhone, Watch, and retro handhelds are great. They’re bright, crisp, fast, and have deep blacks. I’ve read that full size displays are a different implementation and that you need tandem OLED (like the iPad Pro) to get equivalent brightness to an IPS display.

I’ll be interested in how Apple’s OLED on the MacBook Pro comes out as I doubt they’d replace it with a display that’s less bright than what they are selling today. I’d guess they will use tandem OLED there too. Until then I’m keeping an eye on displays; there are tandem OLEDs coming out this year as well as Mini LED IPS displays. Guess I’ll keep this old HP around for bit longer.