The year of the OLED monitor has finally arrived

Drop-dead-gorgeous OLED monitors are going mainstream, finally.

- MATTHEW S. SMITH

The annual Consumer Electronics Show has teased PC enthusiasts and gamers craving OLED monitors for years now, but has never left them satisfied. This was true even at last year's show. Yes, the Alienware AW3423DW is excellent (fave.co/3bTPB8b), but I hoped its release would be the beginning of an OLED tidal wave. That never happened.

CES 2023 might be different. LG came to the show with a flashy 45-inch ultrawide and a more practical 27-inch 1440p, both of which are available for preorder right now. Samsung has fired back with the Odyssey OLED G9 (fave.co/3HoY9AU), a flashy 49-inch super-ultrawide due for release in early 2023. They're impressive monitors, and the OLED panels in them will go mainstream in displays from Asus, Acer, Alienware, Dough, and MSI, among others.

OLED COMPETITION IS COMING

The unending dawn of OLED for PC monitors was due, at least in part, to a lack of options. OLED panels are produced by only a few companies, most notably LG and Samsung, and a mere handful of panel options were available to monitor manufacturers. The low production volume of OLED panels suitable for monitors kept prices high.

But at CES 2023, that changed. We have ourselves a race.

LG and Samsung leaned into OLED for the PC market in 2020. You've likely noticed the results if you've bought a PC laptop (fave.co/3qL40Hf) in the past two years. Laptops with OLED displays (fave.co/3qL4oHf) are much, much more common than they used to be, and OLED is now available in laptops below $1,000 (fave.co/3D9Xr86).

The war between LG and Samsung will also improve the affordability of PC monitors. Both have their own OLED panel technology: LG offers a WRGB OLED panel, while Samsung offers QD-OLED. And both have incredible influence in the world of display technology and are familiar with working with a wide range of different partners.