Aatu's Monitor Survey April 2017

aatu · 2 Apr 2017 at 14:33

Ok, here's the final draft of the survey I've made, to help determine what features customers are interested in, and what they are willing to pay for:

https://freeonlinesurveys.com/s/0PZ2NmAF

The survey is quite heavily directed to enthusiast class customers, so the choices may include some special technological features and monikers. Please read the instructions carefully. If you're uncertain on any specific feature, then feel free to ask here, or you can also check from youtube or google. Or if there's anything else you're wondering about the survey, just drop a comment. Lots of helpful people here willing to answer your questions.

I will post the final results in this thread next Sunday, after people have had enough time to participate in the survey. Enjoy!

EDIT -- Additional note to people filling the survey:
If at all possible, please use the default options. The "Other" option is mainly for those cases that fall outside of the scale. There was a question about the preferred monitor size. Please understand that the "Other" answers will be regarded as text, and won't show in the numeric scales. So when there was a choice of 32" and 35", a couple of people chose "Other" and filled in 34". I would encourage people to use the 35" in those cases.

aatu · 4 Apr 2017 at 00:09

Yeah, I actually thought about the PPI/DPI. But it would complicate matters quite a lot. First of all, the resolution, diagonal size and PPI would still be only part of the picture. You would also have to factor in viewing distance and eye sight. Anyway, the survey is already active, can't change options anymore without resetting the responses.

As for initial sneak-peek results, I don't want to spill too much so that it won't affect the rest of the voters, but here are few expected tid-bits that probably won't change:
- TN is the least wanted panel type
- DisplayPort is by far the most coveted connection
- VGA and Thunderbolt are not
- Integrated Speakers are quite unwanted
- Both Passive and Active 3D are very unpopular

aatu · 8 Apr 2017 at 23:46

Ok people, last chance to participate in the survey. Tomorrow (sometime in the afternoon, probably) I'll take a snapshot of the statistics, arrange them somewhat, and then release them on the forums (evening, probably).

aatu · 9 Apr 2017 at 18:37

Here are the final results. One should never do this, but here's the "average" monitor that people want:

32"
2560x1440 (16:9)
144Hz
OLED (willing to pay £280 more over IPS)
Light Matte surface treatment
DisplayPort + HDMI
QC emphasis (>3): Dead pixels, BLB, Panel Uniformity, (IPS glow) and FreeSync/G-Sync operational range
Feature emphasis (>4): Low input lag, Fast Pixel Response Time, PWM-free, HDR (10/12b), Extensive OSD settings, FreeSync/G-Sync
Price: £920

... Yeah, I don't think that's gonna happen anytime soon.

If I had to guess, I think the main obstacles will be OLED, G-Sync and HDR. In addition to QC, in general.

Ok, to a more serious note, here's the real deal; the detailed results with charts and diagrams (in two parts, because of image host resolution limit), with few notions/calculations at the end:
Total survey participants: 58

And a snapshot of the original survey for comparison, in case the survey host retires the survey:

More thorough details/calculations:

Average preferred monitor size, when corrected for text responses:
31,40"

Average premium people are willing to pay for OLED, when corrected for text responses:
£276,72

Full list of the final monitor price targets:

500
1000
800
500
800
600
1000
1000
1200
700
900
500
1200
750
500
600
1200
900
800
900
1600
800
1250
600
1200
800
500
600
900
1000
500
700
1500
600
1500
1000
600
700
750
4000
600
1200
895
800
200
800
900
1500
1050
450
800
800
1000
1000
400
800
2000
800

As an average: £921,47

And here's the full list of the OcUK forum users who gave their names:

aatu
1000
jimhumman
Phixsator
TangoEchoAlpha
Vega
larky
jkb
Wulfster
Mahonyy
SB
Undesirable
SBUK
Tute
eddiew
emca
saltank
Jarrastafari
Please stop selling **** monitors.

My own notions:
- Glad to see there's still some love for 16:10
- Also glad to see that people prefer bigger monitor sizes
- 1920x1080 is not getting much love, but neither is 8k
- It seems people are indeed fond of the idea of OLED, but are not willing to pay that much for it
- VA has gained in popularity quite a lot, probably because of recent IPS monitor QC issues
- I'm very glad that so many people share my hate for TN
- Surprisingly G-Sync is almost as popular as FreeSync -- I should have made a separate question with regards the premium, like with OLED...
- While the Glossy panel supporters are usually more vocal, there's no escaping the fact that the silent majority indeed prefers Light Matte
- The ambient light system option and the remote option garnered surprisingly high support (personally I would have hoped both to be higher)
- Surprisingly more people preferred 10/12bit color WITHOUT HDR -- so while it is indeed nice, people are a little wary of the cost?
- Additional note for 10/12bit colors: high score, but only a few people considers it as a deal breaker
- I think with the QC section I should have used a linear scale of 1-10, instead