How fast is too fast for a monitor? If you ask Samsung, then 500 refreshes every second still isn’t too fast for PC gaming. That’s the speed of the latest OLED monitor panel the company is showing off in Barcelona at Mobile World Congress 2025. The 27-inch 1440p display is aimed right at the “sweet spot” for PC gamers. Meanwhile, Samsung is also showing off 240Hz OLEDs for laptops.
Samsung’s Display division is demonstrating these new OLED panels independently of Samsung’s mobile hardware at the show, which is interesting since MWC is generally an event laser-focused on smartphones and other small devices. Among many other OLED panels, the most compelling offering for PC gamers is definitely “the world’s first 500Hz QD-OLED monitor.” That’s only a hair faster than the current 480Hz record for OLEDs, while still lagging behind the fastest LCDs on the market. OLED is turning more heads for monitor upgrades at the moment, thanks to its vibrant colors and perfect contrast.
Samsung is also showing off a 15.6-inch 240Hz OLED for laptops, pushing the tech into a faster format for gaming machines, which still mainly rely on LCD panels for their higher refresh rates. Yet while OLEDs look great, faster OLED panels could complicate matters for a laptop that needs to mind its power efficiency.
Note that these announcements come from Samsung Display, the division that provides OEM hardware to other companies. While it seems almost inevitable that these OLED panels will appear in some Samsung products later this year — or in early 2026 — it’s also likely you’ll see these Samsung panels in monitors and laptops from other companies, too. Samsung’s biggest rival, fellow South Korean megacorp LG, is probably paying attention as it also supplies OLED panels to many other companies, including monitor and laptop manufacturers.
Further reading: The best monitors we saw at CES 2025
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.