Something to look forward to: Better displays are on the horizon for gamers and professionals alike. Although OLED will remain expensive for the short term, there is a relatively clear path forward for reducing costs and improving display characteristics.

Smartphones, tablets, and TVs all have OLED display options available with plenty of vibrance and accurate color reproduction. Desktop monitors with OLED panels have been an idea for several years now, but none have been truly successful products. Going into 2019, Japanese Display, Sony, and Panasonic are working together to produce OLED displays for desktop monitors.

Dell was one of the first to introduce an OLED monitor, the Ultrasharp UP3017Q. It launched in 2016, but was then pulled before a limited US-only second release in 2017. Asus was promoting the Proart PQ22UC for professionals at CES 2018, but has still not put it on sale.

At a trade fair in Japan, the JOLED consortium was showing three different panels that meet the specifications of desktop monitors. There is a 21.6-inch Full HD panel, a 21.6-inch 4K panel, and a 27-inch 4K display. Asus is using the 21.6-inch 4K variant in its Proart PQ22UC monitor, which is said to be arriving "soon".

JOLED has been working with Japanese eSports team Burning Core to tune the Full HD panel explicitly for gaming. One of the benefits of OLED panels is extremely low response times. Dell's attempt at OLED claimed a 0.1ms response time, so TN panels will likely be bested by JOLED's technology.

For those interested in adopting a nice OLED monitor for far superior color to TN panels, you will probably reconsider after looking at the price tag. JOLED's new panels are expected to end up in monitors costing thousands of dollars for the near term. However, this is only the beginning of a new display technology.

Production lines for 21.6-inch OLED panels have been running since December 2017 at low volume, but a newer generation manufacturing facility will come online by 2020.