I recently picked out a 32in QHD monitor to pair with two 27in QHDs for a triple-monitor setup. After using the 27in QHDs for a few years I decided the pixel density was a bit too high for comfort so I decided to upgrade my primary to a 32in.
Both of my QHD screens are IPS monitors with 178 degree viewing angles, so I made sure the 32in monitor I picked was an IPS screen with a 178 (or higher) viewing angle. With a little color correction everything should look the same, but wow, this monitor really looks different.
When looking at the monitor straight-on from ~2 feet away the sides of the screen are dark. The best way I can exaggerate this is if I fill the screen with white and move my head side to side. The “bright” part of the screen stays straight in front of me and the rest of the monitor gets darker as it gets further away.
My other two monitors don’t do this. I can tilt both of them to an extreme angle before they start to appear dark. I don’t understand what is different about this monitor that makes it this way. The darkening is so extreme that, if the screen is filled with solid white, the edges of the screen appear “shimmery” as the angle from my left eye is getting a darker/brighter image than my right eye.
I thought maybe it was the “screen surface finish” but my two 27in monitors are “matte” and “glossy,” the new 32in is “glossy.” All three are IPS displays. All three boast a 178 degree viewing angle. Reviews for the 32in talk about how it looks great and I don’t understand how people can stand this. It feels like an old LCD TV, not a gaming LED monitor.
Does anyone know what attribute I need to look for?
The 32in is the “SAMSUNG 32-Inch Odyssey G50D.”
My two 27in’s are the “ASUS TUF Gaming VG27AQ1A” and the "Acer Nitro VG271U."
EDIT: I posted in the comments, it’s an LCD and Samsung deliberately tried to hide that fact.
Honestly, every Samsung product I have used for a decade has been trash.
Except SSDs
That’s actually a great point
I’m convinced Samsung is extremely compartmentalized.
According to Rtings, the Samsung has a notably worse viewing angle than your other two. Take a look at the graphs:
Samsung: https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/samsung/odyssey-g5-g50d-s27dg50#test_1417
Asus: https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/asus/tuf-gaming-vg27aql1a#test_1417
Acer: https://www.rtings.com/monitor/reviews/acer/nitro-vg271up-pbmiipx#test_1417
Not sure if that explains your experience or if there’s something more to it.
According to Rtings
I legitimately don’t know how that website has maintained its integrity in 2024…
Or why anyone ever buys a consumer electronic before checking with them.
Like, the closest thing I can think of is tomshardware, but they have that weird sister site where they seem to have offloaded the bullshit too?
Is that a positive or negative remark about the site? I genuinely can’t tell.
Rtings is an excellent resource. I always check their opinion on a panel prior to purchase.
Tomshardware sold out years ago just to be clear, btw. I rarely read anything from them anymore.
THIS IS A GREAT RESOURCE!
Thank you so much! Now I can measure and see exactly what I’m looking for! I can watch the little videos and see what I’m looking for in them. (This also makes it seem like saying you have a viewing angle of 178 is a complete lie)
The ASUS monitor has a 32in variant but unfortunately it’s not on Rtings. It’s apparently a VA panel and not an IPS, so not sure how it would look next to the others.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0BHKSNR22
I’ll see if I can find a monitor that checks all my boxes that I can cross-reference with Rtings. I’ll also be testing out amazon’s return policy on opened monitors. Glad I kept the box intact.
Yes of course 178° is a lie and marketing B’s, just like “1 ms response time”. Keeping in mind that 180° is the theoretical limit of that number, as you would view it from behind if you’re above it. They are saying “you can see something if you view it from that angle”, not “the colors are unchanged at that angle”. Again, marketing. There is no regulation or “official” definition on what the technical spec “viewing angle” means for a monitor, so it’s whatever the marketing department decides it means.
Samsung. The issue is you bought a Samsung.
Keep it or replace it. It doesn’t matter. You’ll be replacing it in 1-3 year anyway. How do I know this? Because you bought a Samsung….
I support about 1200 users with about 8 other people. There is not tight control of the purchasing, so while most users have HP monitors, there is a hodgepodge of other monitors floating around.
Occasionally a monitor fails. With everything running on DC and using LED backlights, they last much longer. When supplies ran extra thin, about 20 Samsung monitors were purchased 4 years ago. They work, but have a terrible habit of losing connection with the desktop. Samsung will replace/repair them, but they still have the bad habit of losing the connection to the desktop.
Same systems work just fine with any other brand monitor, down to 20 year old displays. I’m convinced that there is a bug in the monitor that doesn’t detect video output properly.
I can’t speak for 20 year old displays. If anything displays 20 years ago were built to last, even from Samsung.
However now a days Samsung are designed to fail. And when they fail they are designed to fail in a way where it’s expensive to fix.
For example most displays fail due to the LED strips going bad and therefore the back lighting stops working. This is easy to fix.
Samsung on the other hand designs their displays so that the panel is the part that goes bad after 3 years. Fixing the panel is pointless because it costs just as much to buy a new display as it does to replace the panel.
Samsung set up their entire operation to milk money from you. Unfortunately it isn’t just their displays. Literally everything they sell is shit quality designed to fail in 3 years.
Not saying other manufacturers are much better but Samsung is THE WORST.
First if all, why in the world did you get a 32" 1440p monitor? 27" is the best size for 1440p. 32" 1440p would look noticeably worse than 27". How did you think the pixel density was “too high” on 27"??? Also your 2nd mistake is you got a IPS. If you’re concerned about viewing angles then you want OLED.
While I do love oled and have an oled display myself, an ips display shouldn’t have such bad viewing angles that you notice issues when looking at it straight.
