MSI MPG 321URX Review: The Most Affordable 4K 240Hz QD-OLED So Far

LEL DP 1.4a. May as well include VGA.

The thing I dont like about these OLED panels is the size. They're all huge, mostly 30+ inches. 27 inch is the smallest they go. I'd love a 24", but nobody seems to want to make one.
 
Too little, too late. I remember when there were no quality monitors between 30 and 50 inch. I use 55" 4KTVs now, and I'm not going back to smaller screens.
 
Still have an issue with getting a 4K display just due to the higher load on the graphic card and lower FPS while playing at its native resolution. Visually 1440P displays look similar to me and the performance is much better.
 
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I’m in market for a 32 4K, and these OLEDs and the LG WOLED screen sound great. But my first priority is productivity and usage in bright conditions, so I might still go for a mini-led. Mini-leds are getting better and cheaper every year and might have the edge for mixed use.
 
@Tim Schiesser

Tim, we get that OLED monitors should be used in a light-controlled room. Your ongoing comments about this in every review are comparable to car magazine complaining over and over that a Ferrari has poor towing capacity - so buyer beware! We GET it. OLED monitors should be used in rooms that have light control. Haven't y'all heard?

Anyone who has (including me) or is considering an OLED monitor researched this well before spending the money. ;)
 
They turn grey in a bright environment.
Which is exactly why they are not meant for bright environments. But in a light-controlled room, no other panel tech can even come close to their black level. In fact, their black level is perfect and essentially immeasurable. That's why their contrast level is rated either 1,000,000:1 or "infinite".

Pairing that with the huge color gamut, the picture is stunning - especially in (true) HDR. I'll take it over a 4K IPS or VA panel all day long. Text clarity has been brought up but it is improving with every new generation. I have the 1st gen AW3423DW and have never noticed it.
 
Which is exactly why they are not meant for bright environments. But in a light-controlled room, no other panel tech can even come close to their black level. In fact, their black level is perfect and essentially immeasurable. That's why their contrast level is rated either 1,000,000:1 or "infinite".

Pairing that with the huge color gamut, the picture is stunning - especially in (true) HDR. I'll take it over a 4K IPS or VA panel all day long. Text clarity has been brought up but it is improving with every new generation. I have the 1st gen AW3423DW and have never noticed it.

You think I'm not familiar with OLED? Why do you think I specified *QD*?

Comparing them to IPS or VA is pointless, obviously any oled wins. What I'm talking about is the fact that the blacks of QD are weaker compared to the other oled types. There's nothing wrong with using oled in a bright room as long as it's not QD. I know that QD has even better color gamut than WRGB and W oleds, but I would prefer perfect blacks without needing to turn down the light in the room.
 
I hope to see Ultrawides using the new panels soon. Meaning 3rd gen panels (QD-OLED or WOLED with MLA).

My next monitor could easily be 3440x1440 at 240 Hz, probably going QD-OLED and glossy.

Sadly most WOLED monitor seems to have a too aggressive curve + matte coating.

I want 1500R tops. 1500R-1800R is perfect for me. 800R is too much. I don't want Flat either (when talking Ultrawide).

I already have a QD-OLED TV so I probably want QD-OLED for my monitor as well, because color volume is just crazy good. Image just pops and WOLED looks kinda dim in comparison.

LGs big WOLED problem is the reliance on a white subpixel to deliver enough brightness. A white subpixel that shines (too) bright, simply drowns the other (RGB) subpixels and this is why colors in general looks washed out on WOLED.
 
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I'm still skeptical of QD-OLED... I want perfect blacks.

This is a non issue in reality. I have had 10+ OLED TVs since 2015. QD-OLED is the best OLED tech right now. LG struggles to keep up, because the reliance on a white subpixel drowns the RGB subpixels when it shines too bright. This is the biggest flaw about WOLED right now (as brightness keeps going up for OLED). Not much LG can do to keep up in terms of colors and general image quality right now.

WOLED and high brightness = Washed out colors and LG has no way to fix it, unless they want to abandon WOLED and go the QD-OLED route as well.

No-one needs perfects blacks in a bright room, because it won't really matter. This is why even LCD panels can look very good in bright rooms, especially with a QD layer. QD-OLED will still look superior to WOLED in a bright room, because colors just pop way more. Overall image quality is just better.

If you buy OLED to mainly use it in a bright environment, you are simply doing it wrong anyway. No matter which OLED tech you choose, the lights needs to be off or turned down for optimal viewing. Dimmed down lighting or better yet, no lights, this is where OLED absolutely destroys LCD and QD-OLED rules supreme in this regard. QD-OLED is like a hybrid of QLED and WOLED.

QD-OLED can easily be used in daylight and the raised blacks is a non-issue really. WOLED has black crush instead, even in a dark room. QD-OLED has much less black crush and you see way more detail in black scenes.

Also, most curved WOLED monitors have terrible 800R curve and pretty much all WOLED monitors have matte coating which is destroying image quality. Colors don't pop at all compared to QD-OLED which mostly uses glossy.

So you can stop acting like WOLED is superior. LG has big problems of their own, they can't seem to fix without changing OLED approach. The white subpixel keeps giving them trouble and this is why Samsung Display did NOT use a white subpixel in QD-OLED.

LG Display actually struggles with WOLED panel sales. This is why they agreed with Samsung Electronics to sell them WOLED panels for the cheaper OLED TVs lately. Samsung Electronics uses QD-OLED for the higher end models.

Sony also uses QD-OLED over WOLED in the high end models. Clearly shows that QD-OLED is superior. If not, Sony would be using WOLED in their flagship, but they don't.

When you first get used to QD-OLED colors, going back to WOLED is hard.
Go look at any pro review. They test the brightness of RGB subpixels and QD-OLED is like 3 times higher here, depending on model, compared to even the best WOLED models.

WOLED pretty much stagnated at this point but QD-OLED keeps improving.
LG needs to find a way to improve color volume on WOLED.
Or re-invent their OLED approach if needed.
 
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Le good old DP 1.4.

DP 2.1 don't really matter unless its UHBR20.

DP 2.1 with UHBR10 has the same bandwidth as DP 1.4. Won't change a thing.

UHBR 13.5 can work in some scenarios.

Radeon 7000 series don't support UHBR20.

DSC is loseless compression. You can't see the difference. However you can't use DLDSR/DSR/VSR with DSC.

People who say they can see a difference with DSC has no experience with it. It is called lossless compression for a reason. By VESA. Who to trust? Random ppl or VESA?


The HP Omen 32 inch 4K/UHD 240 Hz monitor uses DP 2.1 but UHBR10 which is laughable. Might as well use DP 1.4a then. But looked good in the marketing and many people looked forward to this monitor just because HP mentioned DP 2.1.
 
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You think I'm not familiar with OLED? Why do you think I specified *QD*?

Comparing them to IPS or VA is pointless, obviously any oled wins. What I'm talking about is the fact that the blacks of QD are weaker compared to the other oled types. There's nothing wrong with using oled in a bright room as long as it's not QD. I know that QD has even better color gamut than WRGB and W oleds, but I would prefer perfect blacks without needing to turn down the light in the room.
There are other TS members commenting who clearly have much more experience with various OLED panels than I do. But it sounds like every type of OLED panel suffers in some way in brighter situations. I don't have direct experience with anything OLED other than my QD monitor.

As to whether I think you are familiar with OLED or not, all you wrote was "I'm still skeptical of QD-OLED... I want perfect blacks." Not much to go on there, right? Especially since - in a proper environment - they do.
 
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I'm guessing that none of these have both hardware and software colour calibration correct?

I know, I know, my wants exceed. End of sentence. lol

Even more then that though, I would kiss the fool who managed to get MS to enter the 21st century and make the Windows desktop environment 10bit. Speaking of bits, is the monitor 10bit native or 8bit with dithering?

BTW, it's crazy to think that we're almost 1/4 through the 21st century!
 
I'm guessing that none of these have both hardware and software colour calibration correct?

I know, I know, my wants exceed. End of sentence. lol

Even more then that though, I would kiss the fool who managed to get MS to enter the 21st century and make the Windows desktop environment 10bit. Speaking of bits, is the monitor 10bit native or 8bit with dithering?

BTW, it's crazy to think that we're almost 1/4 through the 21st century!

This is OLED, of course its true 10 bit and not 8bit + FRC like 99.9% of LCD panels

8-bit-vs-10-bit-1.jpg
 
LEL DP 1.4a. May as well include VGA.

The thing I dont like about these OLED panels is the size. They're all huge, mostly 30+ inches. 27 inch is the smallest they go. I'd love a 24", but nobody seems to want to make one.

Really, I'm hesitant because I would be going down from 48in.
 
A 55" 4K TV is only 80 ppi - which is about the same as a 27" 1080p monitor. meh
That's exactly why I try to find TVs under 50 inch, something like 48-49 is good enough for me. 55+ always had a soft look to it. I never had or tried the LG 42 inch OLED TVs, I wonder how good that would look, and if it would be too small compared to a 48 inch one.
 
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