I’ve been trying hard to resist the urge to upgrade my monitors to OLED for a while now, reserving said money for silly inconsequential things like food and gasoline. But it looks like a lot of other PC gamers have made the switch already. According to a statement attributed to LG, more than a fifth of gaming monitors are now using upgraded OLED panels.
The sourcing on this one is a little circuitous, to be honest. The statement comes from popular YouTube channel HDTVTest, which has a sponsored video covering LG’s new OLED monitors at CES (spotted by PCGamer). Presumably LG gave the channel the statistic: “It’s only been two years since LG introduced its first UltraGear OLED gaming monitor, but OLED is already sitting at 22 percent of the total gaming monitor market share.”
That’s even more impressive if you also take LG’s estimation of the television OLED market share, 18 percent, into account. And according to the wording, that’s monitors currently in use, not monitors shipping to retailers…though it wouldn’t surprise me if the latter is the actual statistic in play. HDTVTest attributes both of these figures to a virtual briefing held before CES.
It’s an interesting number to be sure, but pay close attention to those qualifiers. LG cites the 22 percent penetration figure for “gaming monitors,” while 18 percent is for the much wider television market as a whole. It follows that PC gamers, especially those who use desktops (and are thus more predisposed to buy separate monitors), would be more interested in upgrading to the latest and greatest screens than PC users as a whole. Whereas the general TV-buying public is much more inclined to go for bigger and/or cheaper screens, and OLED TVs mostly appeal to those who want to build a high-end living room setup.
So yes, we’re seeing a lot more OLED monitors out there, and thankfully they’re becoming much more attainable — a few models hit below the $500 mark during Black Friday late last year. But more affordable, conventional monitors aren’t going anywhere, even if gaming monitors seem poised to switch to OLED panels very quickly.
Now come on, Samsung, give me that 57-inch, double 4K ultrawide OLED already. I don’t need to eat that much food.
Further reading: The best monitors we’ve tested
Author: Michael Crider, Staff Writer, PCWorld
Michael is a 10-year veteran of technology journalism, covering everything from Apple to ZTE. On PCWorld he's the resident keyboard nut, always using a new one for a review and building a new mechanical board or expanding his desktop "battlestation" in his off hours. Michael's previous bylines include Android Police, Digital Trends, Wired, Lifehacker, and How-To Geek, and he's covered events like CES and Mobile World Congress live. Michael lives in Pennsylvania where he's always looking forward to his next kayaking trip.