WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.020 I thought one of the most fair comparisons to help us assess just how 00:00:04.760 --> 00:00:11.440 next-gen the ASUS PQ22U OLED monitor is, would be to take it and put it right beside 00:00:11.960 --> 00:00:18.000 another conventional high-end ASUS display, the PQ27UQ. 00:00:18.580 --> 00:00:20.580 And the first thing you guys will notice, 00:00:21.080 --> 00:00:26.380 especially if you're one of those dark mode all the things types, is how much deeper and 00:00:27.080 --> 00:00:29.760 richer the blacks are. 00:00:29.760 --> 00:00:34.420 This shouldn't really come as a surprise though, since it's the main claim to fame of OLED. 00:00:34.420 --> 00:00:39.220 You get much higher contrast because when the pixels are ordered to display black, 00:00:39.440 --> 00:00:45.920 they really give you black rather than that glowy dark gray that you're used to on an LCD. 00:00:46.100 --> 00:00:49.120 But surely then there's got to be a downside, right? 00:00:50.780 --> 00:00:53.640 Yeah, there is. So let's talk about that. 00:00:54.500 --> 00:01:00.480 After I talk about today's sponsor, iFixit. The Marlin screwdriver set from iFixit features five specialty precision screws, 00:01:00.620 --> 00:01:04.220 and they're made for drivers. Check it out today at iFixit.com forward slash Linus. 00:01:04.680 --> 00:01:18.650 In a nutshell, the reason that LCDs can't display true black is that they work by 00:01:18.850 --> 00:01:23.070 shining a backlight through a membrane of liquid crystals that twist or 00:01:23.470 --> 00:01:31.790 untwist to let the appropriate amount of light through. But displaying black doesn't make the backlight turn off. It just makes the liquid crystals 00:01:32.410 --> 00:01:39.130 reorganized to try and block the light. As you can see, some light always makes it through, either the crystal, 00:01:39.330 --> 00:01:42.050 membrane, or through the cracks between the pixels. 00:01:42.790 --> 00:01:44.790 OLED technology, by contrast, 00:01:45.330 --> 00:01:47.330 uses no backlight. 00:01:47.610 --> 00:01:52.070 Instead, applying electricity causes special organic phosphors to glow. 00:01:52.350 --> 00:02:00.550 So if you want black or the absence of light, you just turn off the electricity. And the results are, I mean, 00:02:00.550 --> 00:02:01.570 they're just incredible. 00:02:01.570 --> 00:02:08.950 I'm a huge fan of OLED technology, and the 3840 by 2160 resolution and inky blacks on this display make it 00:02:09.170 --> 00:02:11.170 just look so visceral. 00:02:11.690 --> 00:02:16.170 Much like the OLED screens that high-end phone buyers have been appreciating for the last few years. 00:02:17.190 --> 00:02:25.230 Also of note, and this is actually one of the things that I've been personally most excited about with this technology, is this displays 00:02:25.710 --> 00:02:32.430 incredible 0.1 millisecond pixel response time. Now, this demo here will be a familiar one for display nerds, and 00:02:32.990 --> 00:02:39.090 this is cool. Even through the camera, if you get close, you can really see the way that an 00:02:39.170 --> 00:02:46.210 OLED display can cut down on motion blur by the extra detail that you can make out on the alien's ship and face. 00:02:46.970 --> 00:02:48.970 Freakin' awesome. And, 00:02:49.130 --> 00:02:53.890 speaking of getting close, you shall. At just 21 and a half inches. 00:02:54.490 --> 00:03:01.690 This is about as small as modern monitors get, so I guess it was a smart move for ASUS to market this thing as a 00:03:02.310 --> 00:03:09.070 portable display for creators on the go. You see, the stand here is actually only held on by magnets, 00:03:09.570 --> 00:03:14.710 and the monitor can be easily folded and slipped into a bag, leaving you with a display that feels 00:03:15.030 --> 00:03:18.510 like, when you're holding it, kind of like an oversized tablet. 00:03:18.550 --> 00:03:26.510 It's only one and a half kilograms and eight and a half millimeters thick. It also comes with this magnetic screen protector 00:03:26.670 --> 00:03:30.050 slash stand that enables multiple configurations, 00:03:30.910 --> 00:03:32.910 including a vertical mount, but 00:03:33.580 --> 00:03:38.220 honestly, it was a little hard to set up and too unstable to really inspire confidence. 00:03:38.720 --> 00:03:45.700 So, if I were you, I'd probably stick with the metal stand, which does still offer about 20 degrees of tilt adjustment. 00:03:45.700 --> 00:03:51.600 Oh, and one more thing. I'm sure many of you will appreciate the included stylish leather carry bag. 00:03:53.040 --> 00:03:59.720 Although, for me, it mainly served as a reminder that 21 and a half inches is too small for my main workstation, 00:04:00.100 --> 00:04:03.900 but too big for me to just slip it into my backpack. And, 00:04:04.620 --> 00:04:08.620 actually, the portable design also affects it in other ways. 00:04:08.980 --> 00:04:15.300 Like the ports. All we get is a single micro HDMI and two USB-C ports, 00:04:15.300 --> 00:04:17.800 which carry both DisplayPort and power. 00:04:18.040 --> 00:04:24.940 I'll get back to those in a bit though, because right now, I have some burn-in questions to answer about the elephant in the room. 00:04:25.540 --> 00:04:27.350 Image retention. 00:04:27.350 --> 00:04:34.270 Commonly called burn-in, image retention is one of the two main reasons why OLED monitors haven't already become mainstream, 00:04:34.670 --> 00:04:37.470 with the other one being their overall shorter lifespan. 00:04:38.190 --> 00:04:38.730 Basically, 00:04:38.730 --> 00:04:44.010 burn-in is caused by pixels displaying the same thing for long periods of time. 00:04:44.070 --> 00:04:48.510 So, news station logos, sports scoreboards, video game HUDs, 00:04:48.510 --> 00:04:53.050 I mean, really anything that stays on the screen without changing or moving. 00:04:53.110 --> 00:04:58.190 It was the bane of plasma TVs, and it's the worst nightmare of any OLED owner. 00:04:58.190 --> 00:05:02.330 I mean, I personally go to great lengths to ensure that my OLED TV 00:05:02.670 --> 00:05:07.070 never gets used for long gaming sessions or streaming music, for example. 00:05:07.710 --> 00:05:08.670 The issue, 00:05:08.670 --> 00:05:15.230 is that on a PC, there are a lot of things that always stay in the same spot, like taskbars, 00:05:15.610 --> 00:05:17.610 buttons, and toolbars, and 00:05:18.010 --> 00:05:20.730 there's no real way to avoid them all together. 00:05:21.370 --> 00:05:27.030 So, how then does the PQ22U overcome these challenges? Has there been a 00:05:28.030 --> 00:05:33.130 technological advancement that's allowed us to finally have OLED monitors without worrying about burn-in? 00:05:34.780 --> 00:05:35.940 No. 00:05:35.940 --> 00:05:37.160 No. 00:05:37.160 --> 00:05:39.700 The PQ22U actually uses 00:05:39.820 --> 00:05:44.280 fundamentally the same countermeasures that OLED TVs have been using for years, 00:05:44.440 --> 00:05:49.200 like shifting the whole image over by a few pixels when it detects static content, or 00:05:50.220 --> 00:05:56.880 simply dimming the screen, which this one does with the help of a human sensor right over there. 00:05:56.880 --> 00:06:04.460 Now, that is supposed to detect whether the monitor is actively being used by looking for someone sitting in front of it, but 00:06:05.260 --> 00:06:09.680 honestly, I ended up turning it off completely because I guess it was registering me as a lizard person, 00:06:09.820 --> 00:06:13.460 or something, and turning the screen off when I was in the middle of doing something 00:06:14.180 --> 00:06:16.320 extremely annoying. With all of that said, 00:06:17.120 --> 00:06:19.320 even if they didn't help with burn-in, 00:06:19.760 --> 00:06:23.780 technological advancements did still play a role in bringing this monitor to market. 00:06:24.080 --> 00:06:29.340 So the PQ22U uses an OLED panel made by a relatively new company, 00:06:29.780 --> 00:06:38.340 Joled, a joint venture between Sony, Panasonic, and Japan Display established in 2014. And while their OLED panels use full 00:06:38.380 --> 00:06:39.080 RGB subpixels, 00:06:39.080 --> 00:06:44.960 like the AMOLED screens made by Samsung, Joled is using an inkjet printing 00:06:45.280 --> 00:06:53.220 manufacturing process to make their panels 30 to 50% cheaper than those produced with the conventional evaporation method. 00:06:53.760 --> 00:06:55.760 So then that's pretty great. 00:06:55.920 --> 00:07:02.560 Affordability at last! And, I mean, big-screen OLED TVs are popular, handheld devices with OLED screens are popular, 00:07:02.720 --> 00:07:04.980 why not then go after the market in the middle? 00:07:05.990 --> 00:07:09.410 Well, this is where we get into the problems. 00:07:09.790 --> 00:07:14.590 For one thing, 21 and a half inches is what I refer to as a tweener size. 00:07:15.010 --> 00:07:17.010 It's too big for tablets and laptops, 00:07:17.350 --> 00:07:25.310 but smaller than the 23 to 24 inch size that has become really entry-level for the desktop. And then for two, if 00:07:25.630 --> 00:07:29.150 their inkjet process has contributed to making this thing a lot cheaper, 00:07:29.150 --> 00:07:36.230 I don't even want to know how much it was gonna cost if they made it the conventional way, because ASUS is charging 00:07:37.990 --> 00:07:39.430 4,000 for this thing. 00:07:39.630 --> 00:07:45.730 And no, not ringgit or yen or rupees. I'm talking four thousand freedom dollars! 00:07:45.730 --> 00:07:49.970 So to put that in perspective, at that price, I could buy a 00:07:50.850 --> 00:07:52.010 55-inch 00:07:52.010 --> 00:07:54.010 LGB8 4K OLED TV, 00:07:54.630 --> 00:07:57.770 burn it into oblivion and then buy a new one. 00:07:58.760 --> 00:07:59.740 Whew! 00:07:59.740 --> 00:08:05.660 So okay, but like hold on a second then. I mean, lots of products are expensive. 00:08:06.180 --> 00:08:09.700 That doesn't necessarily mean that they're a terrible value. 00:08:09.700 --> 00:08:12.460 So let's imagine for a moment. Let's play a little game 00:08:13.100 --> 00:08:18.460 Money's no object and then while we're at it you you love the the totable 00:08:19.040 --> 00:08:26.760 21 and a half inch size if those things are true. Are you getting the premium performance that the price tag implies? 00:08:29.440 --> 00:08:32.050 Okay, so 00:08:32.150 --> 00:08:39.070 ASUS is marketing this display towards creators and they include a factory calibration report boasting of its 00:08:39.530 --> 00:08:41.290 fantastic color accuracy 00:08:41.290 --> 00:08:46.780 Thanks, and indeed it has great coverage of the sRGB 00:08:47.280 --> 00:08:51.640 Adobe RGB and DCI p3 color spaces, which is great 00:08:51.640 --> 00:08:56.560 The problem is that when it comes to actually reproducing these billions of colors 00:08:56.860 --> 00:09:04.560 It fails and I mean like really fails like harder than the cheapest Walmart monitor that we checked out recently 00:09:05.300 --> 00:09:07.780 But how can that be possible? 00:09:08.140 --> 00:09:11.140 So here's what we discovered 00:09:11.220 --> 00:09:13.000 We could get much 00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:19.200 Improved color accuracy and act like really accurate if we measured just a small part of the screen 00:09:19.480 --> 00:09:24.960 Rather than the entire thing we're talking Delta ease under one. That's basically perfect 00:09:25.280 --> 00:09:32.720 the problem is that we can't get this kind of performance across the entire screen and it's because the screen just 00:09:33.040 --> 00:09:40.400 Isn't bright enough suggesting that there's a power issue when it just isn't getting enough juice through its USB type-c port 00:09:40.880 --> 00:09:42.880 so in sRGB mode the bright 00:09:43.000 --> 00:09:50.320 Brightest white is under 80 nits, and they locked the brightness, so you can't even turn it up like you can in their 00:09:51.000 --> 00:09:58.040 Best buy showroom standard mode which makes me wonder then about the HDR experience now this monitor 00:09:58.520 --> 00:10:00.520 supports HDR 10 00:10:00.800 --> 00:10:08.140 HLG and Dolby vision it's actually one of the world's first displays to do so it's just that it only has a peak brightness of 00:10:08.800 --> 00:10:12.840 335 nits and a sustained brightness of 140 nits 00:10:13.000 --> 00:10:18.540 Now that is a far cry from the brightness levels that are required for good HDR 00:10:19.710 --> 00:10:26.730 Thing is it's an inherent characteristic of OLED technology that increased brightness 00:10:27.230 --> 00:10:33.570 Means increased risk of burn-in so bottom line then should you buy this monitor remember? 00:10:33.570 --> 00:10:37.310 We're playing a little game you like the portability and money is no object 00:10:39.310 --> 00:10:44.470 Honestly the answer is still no the price would be absurd even if the product wasn't 00:10:44.630 --> 00:10:47.770 As rough around the edges as this one is and the portability 00:10:48.510 --> 00:10:50.690 Even though we're playing this game where you like it 00:10:51.030 --> 00:10:56.390 Just feels like kind of a tacked-on gimmick to make up for the fact that the screen is too small 00:10:56.970 --> 00:11:01.010 Making matters worse it doesn't even have its own internal battery like other 00:11:01.410 --> 00:11:08.010 Cheaper portable monitors with all of that said though as a tech demo for the concept of OLED monitors in general 00:11:08.310 --> 00:11:10.310 I'm still excited 00:11:10.780 --> 00:11:12.220 but also 00:11:12.220 --> 00:11:14.940 kind of getting worried about whether this is ever going to 00:11:14.980 --> 00:11:22.740 Take off I mean the price is gonna have to drop by a factor of four or five which is possible over time 00:11:23.180 --> 00:11:27.660 But it's really clear to me that manufacturing volume has to ramp up 00:11:28.300 --> 00:11:35.460 significantly to make that happen and the risk then is that by the time that happens OLED could be replaced by 00:11:35.680 --> 00:11:42.380 Emerging technologies like micro LED which if all goes according to plan is gonna have all the benefits of OLED 00:11:42.380 --> 00:11:44.960 So those fast response times and perfect black 00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:50.980 But with none of the drawbacks and that is the degradation that comes from using 00:11:51.540 --> 00:11:57.340 Organic substances do you need to create a beautiful website without the hassle? 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