OLED, Not for Me

The last new one I bought in 2018 I actually paid the same price for it than when I bought my first one in 2015, so it is one of those few computer accessories that significantly increased in price over its course rather than decrease.

If you cannot see the P2415Q degrading and/or being generally crap in any metric (EXCEPT DPI) when compared to even the non-IPS black Dell monitors from this decade, you are simply blind. They are early HiDPI-revival-era panels, and it shows.

Some of the newer IPS black panels are so good that it is tempting to just take the DPI hit and go 27''... albeit with care as it seems Dell has decided this last year to put some filter that further increases blurriness.

He bought a factory defective monitor. LCDs like this exist, Samsung sold them as AMOLEDS called Pentile. They are hideous.

Until subpixel is eradicated from existence, we shall continue to suffer this.

The problem is such:

1) Windows exists.

2) Windows invented Cleartype for Vista, it was ugly and fringed hard because they misunderstood human perception, the sRGB standard, and math.

3) Windows then readjusted Cleartype for DirectWrite. OSX before Retina and Freetype use subpixel tuning also compatible with human perception, sRGB, and math.

4) Many applications on Windows do not know how to ask Windows what the subpixel orientation is; either they assume RGB all the time (do not do this!) or they only read the first monitor (do not do this!). Windows can tell you per monitor, this is the only correct way. This API has existed since Vista.

5) This problem also effects DPI: they either cannot scale or only scale for the first monitor. Windows scaling for you causes _exceptionally bad_ color fringing for subpixel rendering. Again, the API for that has existed since Vista.

6) Many monitors do not list their subpixel orientation in their EDID. Ones that do and also are rotation sensitive do not set their EDID for RGB->VRGB->BGR->VBGR as you rotate them. Windows assumes RGB for any monitor missing that EDID field.

7) Windows only knows (V)RGB and (V)BGR. It does not know W+RGB, it doesn't know any sort of complex multi-row arrangement (such as Pentile).

8) Many applications ignore your Cleartype settings in Windows, and use RGB at default color weights no matter what you do, even if you turn subpixel off and do greyscale only.

9) And the worst sin of all: people embed screenshots in their documentation and websites, and they never update them. The Internet is full of Vista-era fringe-filled Cleartype text. This ties into 5, but is worth mentioning as its own.

Edit: On second reading, the author says they're on a Mac. Macs don't have subpixel rendering anymore. I don't understand the author's complaint, they have greyscale and avoid all these problems.

I will bitch about Apple's mistakes over the past decade, but removing subpixel rendering from their ecosystem was a smart move: makes all their text rendering compatible with all future monitors forever, and moving to HiDPI eliminates the need for it anyways.

I do have astigmatism. You do make me wonder if this plays a part as well...

You know about things that are to others unknown unknowns. Since ignorance is bliss, it definitely feels like a curse to you, and since what one doesn’t know can hurt them, others would see as a blessing.

Funny world we live in.