
Ask HN: How are OLED displays for coding? - bebna
Some notebooks and monitors were sold with OLED displays this year. I really liked them on the smartphone or tablets and now I&#x27;m thinking about getting a notebook for coding with OLED display, too. (HP Spectre X360 13-4203ng)<p>Does somebody here use an OLED display for coding? Was it worth it? How is your colourscheme or general system setup for it? Any burn-ins?
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bhauer
I have an OLED television, but I don't own an OLED computer monitor or laptop.
My desktops use several IPS LCDs and my laptop is a Surface Book.

That said, my understanding from credible technology reviewers (e.g., [1]) is
that OLED displays are quite good considering they are still "first
generation" in this space.

I suspect that most programmers would be happy with an OLED display, but it
won't seem notably superior for programming than a high-quality LCD such as a
Dell Ultrasharp or Professional series desktop display (e.g., UP3017 [2]) or
the LCDs used on a Surface, Dell XPS, or Apple Macbook. In other words, I
think OLED is nice, but it is not yet a deciding factor. Second generation
OLED displays may create a bit more distance between OLED and LCD. For the
time being, for programming, my personal preference favors usable real estate
(large desktop displays) before color accuracy and pixel density.

Given all three (real estate, color accuracy, and pixel density), I would be
thrilled. But if I had to pick one before the others, as a programmer, I want
real estate.

[1] [https://youtu.be/Dtjllca-AaQ?t=2m23s](https://youtu.be/Dtjllca-
AaQ?t=2m23s)

[2] This is a 2560x1600 30-inch display which, thanks to the cult of
widescreen, enjoys an annoying price premium versus the more commonplace
2560x1440 27-inch form factor. Again, as a programmer, screen _height_ is
useful since it allows you to fit more lines of code in view. (Width is also
useful for displaying source of multiple files side-by-side, but that utility
is probably a bit lower than the utility of height.) This is why 3:2 displays
as seen on Surface Book are great for programming.

~~~
hackuser
> screen height is useful since it allows you to fit more lines of code in
> view.

Many external monitors can be rotated 90 degrees into portrait orientation.

~~~
Nition
If anything I think screen height is even more important if you're going to
portrait mode. 16:9 is horribly thin, 16:10 is better, 4:3 is possibly the
best portrait aspect ratio.

~~~
tscs37
Can confirm that 4:3 is the best ratio for portrait.

I'm using one of those old SyncMaster monitors from Samsung for displaying
Code.

Make sure your IDE can hide unnecessary parts of it, like directory view or
something, otherwise it gets a bit crunched.

~~~
Nition
Same! 20.1" SyncMaster 204B, 1200x1600!

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Normal_gaussian
Dark/black background colourschemes look awesome and you can massively reduce
the strain on your eyes. I am planning on grabbing an OLED for my next
monitor.

If you code in low or no light environments then I would certainly rank OLED
as an important factor. If however your work occurs in brightly lit spaces
(outside / horrid offices) then you will be wanting a white screen anyway and
it makes no difference.

Of course, always consider having multiple monitors and raising the size of
the text - this is often much better at reducing strain than the extra play an
OLED will give with light levels.

\- I am not a doctor and am in no way qualified to give the above advice. I
have programmed for roughly a week on an OLED that wasn't mine

~~~
nextos
Exactly. I have always thought that short of having a e-ink screen like Dasung
(which is a bit buggy and requires a driver not available for Linux/BSD), OLED
could be great on black background as no light would be emitted.

Any reasonably priced OLED screens for a desktop?

~~~
Normal_gaussian
Not really. If you can justify it under being a designer of some sort it
becomes simply expensive instead of unreasonable.

As for e-ink, this is the dream. I want to sit out on the lawn working and as
far as I can tell e-ink is the way towards this.

~~~
nextos
Dasung is pretty good for eink. But I'm waiting till someone releases a
version that uses it's own firmware and not a buggy driver.

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UnoriginalGuy
Fantastic, but you need a black background (e.g. nightmode, some terminal
editors, dark theme, etc). Most major editors either have this as the default
or support it (inc. Visual Studio).

For coding OLED is my favorite because in my OPINION it reduces eyestrain. In
my experience the two biggest factors in eyestrain are: too small of a font
for your eyesight, and too bright of a screen.

With a normal LED-IPS display you can turn down the brightness to approx
25-35%, but even then the screen remains pretty bright and below that the
colors and contrast seem to wash out slightly.

With OLED because each pixel is lit as opposed to the entire display, working
in a night mode means you're really looking at a very lightly lit screen even
on a full page of white colored code.

Plus the white code really pops out because the background is much much darker
than other technologies. On other display types the software asks for black
but really gets a shade of grey, this is due to unavoidable light leaking. On
an OLED it asks for black and gets actual black.

That all being said, OLED is great for coding, IPS might be better for color
reproduction (e.g. photo editing) and wide angle viewing, and neither IPS or
OLED is great for gaming currently (due to poor response times, etc).

PS - Obviously this post is only about display technology. In the real world
other factors may come into play like relative price, resolution, orientation
rotation, reliability, and so on.

~~~
majewsky
I didn't know I could have an opinion on this, but you sold me on OLED. Let's
see when I can get one with a good response time in the format that I
currently use (40" 2160p).

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satysin
I have used an Alienware laptop with OLED screen and it was beautiful and I am
sure it would be great for coding. My main concern with an OLED is burn in.
There are a lot of static elements on a computer screen and if phones are
anything to go by burn in of those always-on-screen widgets will leave some
nasty marks.

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utopcell
Black being actually black (ie no light being emitted vs pixels hiding the
display's backlight) feels great for terminal work, but I do not think that
OLED is yet worth the overall battery life hit.

For instance, Anandtech [1] reports 6h11m for web browsing on the LCD X1 Yoga,
which drops to 3h39m on the OLED variation.

[1] [http://www.anandtech.com/show/10697/the-lenovo-
thinkpad-x1-y...](http://www.anandtech.com/show/10697/the-lenovo-
thinkpad-x1-yoga-review/9)

~~~
aarohmankad
Shouldn't this intuitively be the other way around? Especially is you utilize
dark mode on your editor/terminal.

~~~
utopcell
I believe the benchmark was related to web browsing.

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fpoling
Due to pentile pixel arrangements OLED screen is less sharp than corresponding
LCD of the same resolution, so for coding and readingy my preference goes to
high quality ISP panel.

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IdontRememberIt
What are your favorite models (monitors)? I could not find a decent OLED
monitor (or HiDpi, 16:10, not too glossy not to grainy (cheap AG coating)).

I am so upset to see all constructors forgetting devs/ops/office who favore
quality, specs and have decent money: 16:10 monitors are dying, monitors
panels optimized for text and long days of watching the screen are non-
existing (vs optimized for video or image), mouse and keyboards are cheap or
for gamers.

