Some time ago, Xiao Lei's computer screen unfortunately had some glitches, and originally planned to find after-sales repair and repair for another three years, but because it was too bad, the 2K144 e-sports screen has long lost the value of repair. But for Xiao Lei, it is impossible not to play the game, and the plan to buy a new screen is put on the agenda temporarily.
Then again, although Xiaolei does not have the ability to control when the screen breaks, it has to be admitted that the first half of 2022 may be the most inappropriate time to change the screen: the traditional 2K144 screen has been available for many years, and the technology used is "too mature" even if it is not obsolete; the peak brightness of the high-refresh OLED screen is limited, and the computer screen is different from the mobile phone, and the speed of burning the screen will not be slowed down by offset pixels at the system level. As for the miniLED screen, the price is still high today, far exceeding Xiao Lei's budget.
Just when Xiao Lei was trapped in the "screen" of the e-commerce platform, a miniLED screen that looked too cheap appeared in front of me - the price of most of the miniLED backlit 4K144 screens on the e-commerce platform was 6999 yuan, and the uniform price made me wonder whether these screens were all from the same foundry. Today's protagonist not only has the same IO configuration as those "half-brothers", but also the price is cheaper than 2,000 yuan, which is 30% off the price of other brands, which can be said to be textbook "cheap and suspicious".
In fact, this "too cheap" screen not only appears in the emerging miniLED screen market, from the most basic "100 yuan 1080P screen" to the so-called 2K high brush e-sports screen to the 4K miniLED high brush screen that Xiao Lei really paid for himself, no matter in which category, we can find some "too cheap" screens. The introductory pages on these screens are similar to other competitors, but in fact they are full of lightning spots. Today, Xiao Lei will take his new display as an example and tell you why these screens can be so cheap.
The composition of the screen
Here Xiao Lei first answered a question just raised - are these screens really "half-brothers"? Foundry Xiaolei may not be sure, but these 4K miniLED panels are likely to be the same batch. From the perspective of consumers, the screens on the e-commerce platform can be said to be dazzling, and the model names of different brands are also different. But we all know that most of these brands don't have the ability to make mini LED panels. Incidentally, even Apple's Studio Display uses LG's display panel, which has the same parameters as LG's own UltraFine 5K panel.
So where do these brands of mini LED panels come from? That's right, it has to be the AUO and BOE that we are familiar with. In the Panel library, according to the three keywords of "27 inches", "3840×2160" and "mini LED", three different models of screen panels can be found, of which there are two models in stock, namely M270QAN02.5 from AUO and MV270QUM-NM0 from BOE. The vast majority of 4K miniLED screens on the market are, in the final analysis, the specific embodiment of these panels after different brands of "soft bags".
The first difference of the display is reflected here: the resolution, viewing angle and display color of the two screens are the same, but due to different designs, the brightness of one of them is only 600cd/m, while the other can reach 720cd/m, and the brightness difference also makes the contrast between the two different.
In more information, the color gamut and working mode of the two panels, these differences will affect the final product - the difference in parameters and functions of the screen.
In addition to the screen panel, the driver board is also an important part of the display. The driver board is responsible for decoding the video signal from the computer and telling the display panel how to work, determining the "function" of the final display, such as shadow compensation and the like. In addition, the driver board also determines the final supported screen format of the display, if it does not support high refresh input, even if the panel supports high refresh rate, it cannot be used.
As for components like heat dissipation and power supply design, RGB lights, which have little to do with the display itself, are the things that the display brand really needs to decide. Of course, there are more and more brands that will choose to cooperate with panel manufacturers to customize exclusive specifications to obtain better display results, but it is clear that this requires additional costs. And our protagonist today, "particularly cheap monitor", will naturally skip this step.
Where is the difference between cheap screens?
Since the cheap display has been "cost optimized" in all aspects, the final product is naturally a certain distance from the screen of the first echelon. Let's start with the difference in display:
The main feature of the Mini LED panel is that it can achieve a more detailed backlighting effect, just like the partition backlight of high-end TVs. Although the effect of the mini LED partition backlight is largely determined by the display panel, the driven algorithm can also directly affect the final display effect. For example, when displaying small white objects in a black background, an overly aggressive backlighting strategy will light up the entire backlight partition, so that the surroundings of the white objects show the effect of halos, affecting the perception. However, too negative the backlighting strategy will reduce the brightness of the entire partition, although it will not overflow, but the original white will also become gray.
For mini LED screens, how to adjust the backlight is crucial, but cheap screens are likely to skip this link due to cost considerations.
In addition, the response time of the backlight panel will also seriously affect the screen perception, taking the screen bought by Xiao Lei as an example, when a large area of dark color blocks move on the white background, the white light change of the mini LED is likely to be unable to keep up with the movement of the display panel, resulting in a change in screen color, but the screen backlight has not kept up.
In addition, the stability of the screen driver board will also seriously affect the display effect of the screen, such as some electromagnetic shielding is relatively poor monitor, after inserting multiple USB devices will reduce the transmission speed of a certain interface due to electromagnetic interference. Some screens with poor stability will even be unable to complete a high refresh rate handshake due to system bugs, and can only run at 1080P resolution after reawakening from hibernation.
As for the direction of rotation of the screen bracket and the power supply design power consumption, these links are closely related to the final cost of the display. As long as manufacturers have this idea, there are countless ways to help them save costs. The cost of saving costs is naturally to sacrifice the user's experience.
What is the future direction of the screen
So then again, since mini LED has become the next technical focus of displays in recent years, why are there so many display brands that prefer to reduce prices rather than deepen the mini LED field? The reason is very simple, in the upstream industry chain of displays, mini LED is only a transitional technology, and the future Micro LED or even nano LED is the real future.
From the perspective of the upstream supply chain, Mini LED is only a substitute before MicroLED matures, and it is only a stopgap measure when microLED yield rate is not high. In the case of mature conditions, MicroLED is the new direction of the display industry in the future.
This also means that for related companies, Mini LED is just a transition, which is one of the reasons why Mini LED was not popular with terminal brands in the past: everyone knows that MicroLED is the future, and who wants to take out the technology at the bottom of the pressure box on the mini LED?
But from the consumer's point of view, we consumers have no way of knowing when MicroLED will mature, and we cannot estimate the obsolescence time of Mini LED. All we know is that at this stage, mini LED will be a new and excellent choice. Although it is destined to be obsolete in the future, for now, Mini LED can bring users a better experience.
In my opinion, Mini LEDs are like 5G networks. Yes, we all know that 5G will be replaced by faster 6G networks in the future, but no one knows exactly when 6G will be released. Instead of using public analog in the mini LED era, it is better to use mini LED to accumulate technical experience in the field of display, so that users can feel the fun brought by the latest technology at the moment.