OLED Monitor Battle Expand
Alienware (DELL) is the first monitor producer to use the soon-to-be-released QD-OLED panels produced by Samsung Display (pvt), in this case the 34” panels that will be produced along with 55” and 65” panels that will appear in the Sony (SNE) Bravia A95K series announced at CES, and (hopefully) parent Samsung’s (005930.KS) line of QD-OLED TVs later this year. As Alienware has revealed pricing for the 34” QD-OLED monitor, we compared a few similar sized monitors to give some idea as the price of this new technology and how it relates to what is already available. We note that comparing monitors is a difficult task as the number of variables can be large but we tried to show both older and newer models and how they compare along with higher and lower priced models in the table below.
We do note that the first OLED monitor, the Dell (DELL) IP3017Q was quite expensive when released, which is not unusual for an initial foray into a new technology, however the soon-to-be-released Alienware AW3423DW, while expensive as far as monitors go, is certainly not the most expensive, which is a bit surprising. While the basic technologies, OLED and quantum dots are both used by a number of panel manufacturers, combining the two in a way that takes advantage of the positive aspects of both materials leads to new manufacturing processes that should keep costs high, especially in the early stages of production., so the fact that the Alienware monitor is not priced higher goes toward Samsung Display’s ability to maintain a reasonable cost structure from the onset of production, or at least that is what we would hope, as they also could be pricing the displays at or even below cost in order to garner interest from new customers for the technology.
Both Sony and Dell have committed to QD-OLED so there is certainly demand for the technology as a way to generate premium products, but a lack of enthusiasm from Samsung Electronics seems to have kept others in a more look-and-see mode before jumping on board. Samsung, as the largest TV set brand, does have a vested interest in maintaining a broad line of TV technologies, with Micro-LED, Mini-LED/Quantum Dot, Quantum Dot Enhanced LCD TV, and LCD TV all part of the mix, so there are certainly pricing and tier considerations that Samsung must consider, but it will be hard for Samsung Electronics not to release at least a line of QD-OLED TVs in order to compete with rival Sony if reviews are positive, as we expect they will be, especially if prices for such sets are reasonable, as the Alienware monitor seems to indicate.
We do note that the first OLED monitor, the Dell (DELL) IP3017Q was quite expensive when released, which is not unusual for an initial foray into a new technology, however the soon-to-be-released Alienware AW3423DW, while expensive as far as monitors go, is certainly not the most expensive, which is a bit surprising. While the basic technologies, OLED and quantum dots are both used by a number of panel manufacturers, combining the two in a way that takes advantage of the positive aspects of both materials leads to new manufacturing processes that should keep costs high, especially in the early stages of production., so the fact that the Alienware monitor is not priced higher goes toward Samsung Display’s ability to maintain a reasonable cost structure from the onset of production, or at least that is what we would hope, as they also could be pricing the displays at or even below cost in order to garner interest from new customers for the technology.
Both Sony and Dell have committed to QD-OLED so there is certainly demand for the technology as a way to generate premium products, but a lack of enthusiasm from Samsung Electronics seems to have kept others in a more look-and-see mode before jumping on board. Samsung, as the largest TV set brand, does have a vested interest in maintaining a broad line of TV technologies, with Micro-LED, Mini-LED/Quantum Dot, Quantum Dot Enhanced LCD TV, and LCD TV all part of the mix, so there are certainly pricing and tier considerations that Samsung must consider, but it will be hard for Samsung Electronics not to release at least a line of QD-OLED TVs in order to compete with rival Sony if reviews are positive, as we expect they will be, especially if prices for such sets are reasonable, as the Alienware monitor seems to indicate.
[1] Screen Refresh (Hz) – Time it takes for the entire screen to be repainted
[1] Display Response Time (msec) – The time it takes for pixels to shift from black to white to black, essentially how fast the display can switch colors.
[1] Typical Brightness (nits) – Average display brightness
[1] sRGB is a color space measurement that shows the percentage of that color space that the display covers. The higher the better.
[1] Display Response Time (msec) – The time it takes for pixels to shift from black to white to black, essentially how fast the display can switch colors.
[1] Typical Brightness (nits) – Average display brightness
[1] sRGB is a color space measurement that shows the percentage of that color space that the display covers. The higher the better.
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