Have you been a lifetime panel lottery winner?

robfosters

robfosters

robfosters

Caporegime
Joined
1 Dec 2010
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Location
Welling, London
What I mean is, you see so much about the panel lottery and people complaining about this and that and returning their panels, some multiple times, and it puzzles me.

I’ve had many monitors in my time, got my latest one today, but have never had a bad panel. Whether it be VA, TN or IPS, I’ve never had a bad one. Not so much as 1 dead pixel.

Is it down to pure luck or is it that some people are just far more picky than others, and see problems where there really isn’t one?
 
Not had a huge amount of screens over the years, tend to keep them a while, but never had any issues.

Think a lot of people probably watch movies on theirs or play in dark rooms, so BLB gets a lot of moaning.
 
Of the few I've had over the past few decades I've been lucky to escape dead pixels. Apart from my first 15" TFT which was phenomenally expensive by today's prices, the rest have been reasonably priced models. I wonder if the problems are more prevalent at the more cutting edge models.
 
The only time ive encouraged it has been on my laptop screen where i have a cluster of dead pixels in the center, and that was very likely from pressure being put on it at some point during its life. Otherwise i have been fine with every purchase
 
For my personal monitors, I've never had a dead pixel - and that includes the elderly 4K 28" Acer I'm still using (2014... time for an upgrade, but no sign of those 32" 144Hz panels yet).

At work I've bought hundreds of monitors over the years, both desktops and on laptops / tablets / Chromebooks. Not a single dead pixel amongst them, but there was a batch of Viewsonics of which 90% suffered a fading effect within a year (with massive backlight bleed). Getting those replaced was a major pain in the rear end and eventually Viewsonic stopped responding - we still have a few dotted around the place. As a result, I've avoided Viewsonic ever since. The other panels have been a mixture of Samsung (a few dead PSUs over the years), Acer, Benq, Philips... no problems whatsoever with the others.
 
Honestly this is what puts me off buying a new monitor, I got very lucky with my Asus PG279Q. I can put up with IPS glow but dead pixels are a real turn-off. (sadly my PG279Q has damage thanks to my brothers kids so i'll have to risk it eventually)
 
Have sent two Dell screens back for excessive backlight bleed and IPS glow. There were (back then) exceptionally good about it and paid for the collection and replacement delivery. Not sure if they still do that today.

Also sent one VA TV back after trying to use it as a monitor (the "black crush" was completely unbearable even for general desktop use).

Don't recall ever having a screen with dead pixels. That would go straight back, it's a fault and a defect as far as I'm concerned. I don't care what any manufacturer says is "reasonable" - if a screen has dead pixels it's faulty, end of.
 
Only thing i had a dead pixel on was the smallest screen i had, on a Nintendo advanced sp had a stuck white pixel just off centre, had a touch of burn in on a few panels from huds in games
 
Off the last 3 I have owned, one had a dead/stuck pixel and another had slightly IPS glow but it didnt bother me as much with gaming etc so never sent them back. IPS glow and BLB can be based on individual perception and hence might affect some more than others.
But also why should you as the end customer accept a inferior quality product when you are paying the appropriate price, so I can understand people sending them back. The quality control on monitors is terrible in recent years regardless if its a top or a mid tiered product.
 
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Think I did well on my latest purchase, well I'm extremely pleased with it lets say. For £799 (on offer) I got the Samsung 49" C49RG90 5120x1440p 120Hz panel. Its pretty much a lotto winning panel, I love it and just hope it never fails. The performance combined with my 6800XT is brilliant.

My OCD thing with new monitors is dead pixels once I know its there it bugs the hell out of me so they go straight back in the box and returned.

But yes been through a few high end monitors and all gone back for various and obvious problems. I think my worst experience was with the Acer Predator XB321HK 4K IPS panel. Gave up in the end after going through about 3 all with issues. :(
 
I have on the whole, had good experiences. The monitors I have returned haven't been many given a 20 year period!

19" Sony G400 Trinitron CRT - the image was distorted (permanent pin-cushion effect) no matter what settings you tried. I phoned Sony who replaced within 48 hours, no fuss, collected and provided a new screen. Still to this day, brilliant service.

A 19" Dell U2412M purchased in 2010, suffered dreadful anti glare coating, I never bothered to swap - which was silly. A known problem and for later models it was fixed. I use one now for my retro gaming (brilliant monitor) but early models were blighted by this coating which ruined the image (the image seemed to be smudged, giving the impression it was dirty).

My current monitor is a Samsung 49" C49RG90 5120x1440p, and as @Shilz attests, a brilliant screen. The first one I received had a manufacturing defect, not the screen itself but the stand! Never would I have ever expected that! I was gutted! Where you fit the leg to the screen, the plastic bracket was completely misaligned, so you could not fit the stand! No way could you fix without dismantling.

Had to return and what a pain that was - the box is nearly 5ft! - cost a few quid to return but got this refunded. The replacement which I am using is awesome, so well worth the aggro.
 
I usually have good luck with my monitors but the Lenovo Y27-Q20 I bought had an issue where the left half of the screen was flickering. It looked similar to how a light bulb goes dim and bright very rapidly. Had to get it replaced through warranty and I received an obviously refurbished monitor instead of a new one but it didn't have the issue so I just dealt with it.
 
Only had stuck pixels on one of my monitors which I managed to fix by wrapping my finger with microfibre cloth and running my finger tip over them gently applying minimal pressure. Was shocked it worked after reading about it to try. All my other monitors have been fine.
 
Sent back as many as I've kept, for excessive backlight bleed (IPS) or brightness banding (VA, when you get 'dirty' patches in static locations). No wonder I get 5+ years out of every unit, getting a single good one leaves me so tired I never want to buy another again! Unfortunately I have 3 on my desk right now...

I quite fancy getting something with gsync, but I really cannot be bothered until someone tells me the lottery is paying out more often than it used to. Would legit pay £200 extra for a "premium" line where the only difference is it's been factory tested and is guaranteed perfect. Guess this is what we get for asking for cheaper stuff. Nobody wins the race to the bottom :(
 
The worst I've had is a panel that developed a stuck pixel after 3-4 years of usage. Was out of warranty but you could get it to go away for about a month at a time from pressing on it lightly.

Not sure if that counts a lottery win or not, am a little concerned that my 2 1/2 year old X34P is starting to show some more bleed around the bezel.
 
Considering how many I have had yea, but also given how many I have had I've seen some issues over the yearsm, I've been a bit of a monitor afficienado for about 20 years. I've had a lot of monitors over the years, they became a bit of a special interest for me around the point I bought a brand new Dell 2407 in 2006, prior to this though I'd still had 3 LCD's and 6 CRTS coming (not panels so no lottery!) out of the '90s so I was always into displays I suppose. After this I honestly don't know how many I have had, more than 30 for sure, probably 40 or so. I've only ever had 1 dead pixel on a monitor and that was my second ever LCD which was an all aluminium 17" Acer, which had a stuck red subpixel I've also had a dead pixel on a laptop before aswell. I did have a couple of panels that were a bit dodgy for other reasons though, I had an HP IPS panel years ago that had really bad IPS glow, I can't remember the model number now but it was one of the HP business line eIPS panels, also one of the first 'cheaper' IPS panels at the time (people spoke about eIPS and H-IPS at that time) and I would say ...might have been either my first LED backlit panel or my last CCFL backlit panel (the former I think), was right around that time, but either way it had shocking glow in the corners, the only other real contender then was the Dell Ultrasharp's, Asus was 'just' getting into monitors iirc.

I also had 2 identical TN BenQ monitors one of which had a rather good display and the other was shockingly awful, as they were the same model ordered at the same time from the same place the differance was stark when they were right next to eachother, had you not seen it for yourself you'ed have thought one was pretty good (for a TN) and the other was utter rubbish. Obviously I sent the rubbish one back and the exchanged one was much better although still not as good as the other one I had. Real dice role those were.

Mostly though, especially with the more expensive units I've had good luck. I've slowed down a bit since about 2015 I've only had 6 monitors since then, kept 5 of them longer term (I have a couple of systems with multiple monitors on, that's partly why so many awell) I've never had a panel go wrong on me or change over time, but then I've probably never kept one long enough for that either except my Asus MG279 which has been and is great and my original Dell 2407 which I had in service a long time. It's always been a case of it either had problems when I first turned it on or it was fine the entire time I had it.

The one I have been most happy with and was the most noticable improvement on what I had before is my LG 27GN850, although I have 2 VA ultrawides aswell and I love the ultrawide format the 27GN850 is just so good with motion and the colours are really nice by comparison I think I would get on very well with an LG 34GN850 or the Alienware version most likely.

I recently bought an LG CX 55 inch OLED TV aswell, (not to use as a monitor, although I do have a computer connected to it aswell for use in my living room) and it's stunningly good. Tbh It's hard to be impressed by any of these none OLED panels after that, it's handling of motion, contrast and colour is just fantastic.
 
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