LG has announced the production of some exciting new panels that could be the future of gaming monitors, although they won’t be released to the general public for a while. The company has announced that it’ll start mass production of its 540Hz Gaming OLED panel in the second half of this year, and it has already begun manufacturing its super-bright screen.
“OLED monitors are rapidly expanding their market share thanks to perfect black levels and fast response times — capabilities fundamentally unattainable by LCD monitors,” said Hyeon-woo Lee, Head of the Large Display Business Unit at LG Display.
The company describes its display breakthroughs as the “triple crown.” LG Display is pushing the limits of brightness, refresh rate and response time, all of which could lead to an enhanced PC gaming experience.
LG Display’s brightness breakthrough
The first panel, and the one that’s already entered mass production, is all about pushing the limits of brightness (while still offering well-rounded specs across the board).
According to LG Display, the 27-inch OLED monitor panel offers a peak brightness of 1,500 nits. It utilizes the firm’s fourth-generation OLED technology, known as Primary RGB Tandem (which the company announced a few months ago), to achieve this enhanced level of brightness. Bumping the brightness is intended to increase the contrast ratio, which in turn allows it to produce more vivid images.
Outside of the absurd brightness, the display will also offer a 280Hz refresh rate and a color reproduction rate of 99.5%, which is the highest among OLED panels.
Another key feature of this new panel is an almost glare-free experience. It is supposedly designed to block 99% of internal and external light reflections. There’s meant to be no color distortion, even under lighting conditions of 500 lux, which is approximately the brightness of a living room in broad daylight.
The need for speed
LG also announced a speed breakthrough that will allow it to make a 540Hz monitor with a QHD resolution, a first in the OLED space. Whether you need a 540Hz refresh rate is another issue, but the fact that LG managed to pull it off is impressive either way (especially for gamers who enjoy fast-paced games like first-person shooters).
Both the 540Hz display and the super-bright one above feature an industry-leading response time of 0.03 milliseconds, further enhancing the speed offered by the company’s next-generation OLEDs.
“With proprietary technologies like fourth-generation OLED and DFR, which competitors cannot replicate, LG Display will enhance its competitiveness in the premium monitor market and deliver differentiated value to customers,” LG Display’s Hyeon-woo Lee continued.
New LG Display panels: Outlook
While these monitors sound exciting — and they are — it’s important to remember that bleeding-edge tech like this doesn’t come cheap. OLED monitors already cost more than others, and an OLED with 1,500 nits or 540Hz is going to push the price barrier even further.
I say this to remind you that these monitors aren’t for everyone, but for gamers who want the best monitors available, these might just be the right choice.
Time will tell how much these sell for, but with LG already starting production on the incredibly bright one, we should know more about the 27-inch screen soon enough.
Will these make the cut as among the best monitors? We’ll see.
