OLED vs LCD pen displays for digital artists

OLED pen displays and portable drawing tablets are becoming more common in 2024. There are many differences between OLED and LCDs and in this article I'll talk about them in the context of using them for creating digital art.

Emergence of OLED

In 2024, the Xencelabs Pen Display 16 and Wacom Movink were released and these are among the first OLED pen displays made for digital artists.

If we include portable drawing tablets, OLED displays have been around for a long time. The Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 with S Pen support came out in 2017. Then there was the S4, S6, S7, S8, S9 and the S10 in 2024.

Apple used OLED for the first time in the M4 iPad Pro released in 2024. In the same year, Microsoft also added an OLED option for the Surface Pro 11.

OLED displays are getting more popular and, in my opinion, that's due to the better contrast and more vibrant colours that can be achieved compared to LCDs. Prices of OLED display are coming down quite fast recently and nowadays even entry level laptops have OLED displays.

PWM

All OLED displays have PWM or Pulse-Width Modulation which is a technology that involves turning pixels on and off rapidly to control brightness.

People with sensitive eyes may be affected by PWM. If you're not sure if you're someone who's affected by PWM, I recommend you go to an electronics store to look at OLED displays, e.g. TVs/laptops/tablets, for extended period of time to see if you feel anything weird.

PWM is a potential deal breaker. If you have to work long hours in front of a display, you'll want something that's comfortable and safe for your eyes.

That's not the say that LCDs do not have PWM, but LCDs usually don't have PWM that's noticeable by most people.

If you want to do research on devices that have PWM, search PWM_Sensitive subreddit.

Colour accuracy

OLED displays are quite colour accurate so it's safe to buy them without having to check their colour coverage.

For the two OLED pen displays I've tested, I measured 95% and 89% AdobeRGB for the Xencelabs Pen Display 16 and Wacom Movink respectively. Those are pretty good colour coverage.

Contrast ratio for OLED displays can reach from 100,000:1 to 1,000,000:1. Contrast ratio for LCD displays is usually around 1,000:1, and better ones can be 2,000:1.

The difference in contrast ratio means blacks on OLED displays can be pure black without light, whereas on LCD black will still be backlit. The extreme contrast ratio is what gives you true HDR effect. If you create HDR content, or watch HDR shows, having actual HDR obviously will benefit you.

I personally prefer LCDs because they look better to me at lower brightness. However, there are many people who love OLED and that's why OLED popularity is increasing.

Another important thing to know is not all colour calibrators work with OLED displays. I've used my Spyder5Pro and Spyder X2 Ultra colour calibrators and they will not work on some OLED displays.

Most OLED displays I've tested look good out of the box, and some are colour calibrated at the factory. But if you have a dual display setup, you'll definitely want to calibrate your displays to match the colours. As far as I know, hardware colour calibration is not available to iPads and Android tablets due to lack of driver.

Another advantage of OLED is there's no IPS glow, and there's no blacklight bleeding at the edges.

Brightness

LCDs are usually brighter than OLED displays. Having said that, LCDs in pen displays usually have lower brightness compared to desktop monitors with better specifications.

I measured 277 nits with the Xencelabs Pen Display 16 and 233 nits with the Wacom Movink.

The Huion Kamvas 22 Plus's LCD can go up to 314 nits and is one of the brighter pen displays I've tested.

Newer technology such as Tandem OLED that's used in Apple's M4 iPad Pro and Huawei MatePad Pro tablets can drive brightness up to 1,000 to 2,000 nits, but we probably won't be seeing them in pen displays anytime soon due to cost.

Durability

There's a risk of burn-in or image retention with OLED displays, and for LCDs they can turn yellow with age and usage.

In theory, burn-in could be an issue for digital artist since for desktops, certain UI such as palettes, menus, taskbars will be in the same location for hours. You can mitigate the risk by using dark UI, and by not having the display at maximum brightness for extended periods of time.

Some companies also have pixel-shifting technology to prevent burn-in.

The thing with OLED is, technology is always getting better so burn-in is less of a problem now. Even if you search Reddit looking for burn-in problems, there are more people asking questions than sufferers of burn-in.

LCDs do not suffer from burn-in problems but the displays may turn yellowish at the edges with time and usage. I've seen this happen on my 5 year old monitors.

Power consumption

I won't worry too much about power consumption for pen displays or even portable tablets.

The main thing to find out is whether the pen display can be powered by a single USB-C video cable for minimal cable clutter, and still achieve a sufficient amount of brightness. As long as the pen display is 16-inches or smaller, a single cable connection is likely to get you maximum brightness without additional connection to power.

For example, the Xencelabs Pen DIsplay 16 is able to use one cable connection and get 216 nits of maximum brightness which is pretty good.

Pen performance

I don't have many data points to say whether the pen performance is affected by the type of display.

Conclusion

OLED is nice to have but not a must have. Sure OLED have higher contrast and more vibrant colours, but a good LCD can still look great.

The potential dealbreaker is whether you'll be affected by PWM.

To see all my pen display reviews, visit
https://www.parkablogs.com/tags/pen-display