The Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held each January in Las Vegas, is the platform PC makers use to tease new options that may hit laptops within the 12 months to comply with. Display expertise has served as a headliner at a number of current reveals, and Asus is doing its half to once more give shows the limelight at CES 2024, delivering a one-two punch within the type of improved Mini-LED and OLED shows.
Make no mistake: these rank among the many finest shows accessible on a gaming laptop computer, ever.
Looking for extra choices? Check out PCWorld’s roundup of the best gaming laptops.
Asus’ new Mini-LED is a retina-scorching deal with
Asus’ first salvo is the 2024 ROG Strix Scar 18. It packs a Mini-LED panel with 2,304 dimming zones. That’s an enormous improve over the 2023 Asus ROG Flow X16, which had an already spectacular 1,024 dimming zones, and it locations the ROG Strix Scar nearer to Apple’s MacBook Pro 16, which has 2,554 dimming zones. Asus may also convey Mini-LED to the 16-inch ROG Strix Scar, which could have 2,048 dimming zones.
IDG / Matthew Smith
Upping the zones is essential. Older backlit LCD shows use only a handful of LED lights, normally organized across the fringe of the show. Mini-LED replaces that with a grid of LEDs positioned immediately behind the LCD panel. Each “zone” is a bit of the show that may modify its brightness independently of these round it. Increasing the variety of zones improves element and nuance in high-contrast scenes.
The improve is clear even in informal use. The flash of an explosion in a recreation or motion transferring can seem good and dazzling whereas the darkness round it stays deep and inky. Small, shiny objects nonetheless show “blooming” — a shiny halo across the object — which happens as a result of the dimming zones aren’t as small as the article on display. But stuffing 2,304 zones into an 18-inch display means the issue is refined in real-world use.
Tests proved the purpose. The ROG Strix Scar 18’s Mini-LED show reached an successfully infinite distinction ratio in most conditions, as darkish areas of the display had been fully, completely darkish. But that did change at most brightness: this diminished the distinction ratio to 25600:1. That’s not so good as OLED, but it surely massively outperforms a typical IPS-LCD show, which struggles to hit a distinction ratio of 1500:1.
IDG / Matthew Smith
IDG / Matthew Smith
IDG / Matthew Smith
Brightness clearly skews in Mini-LED’s favor. Asus’ panel achieved a gobsmacking most brightness of 1,153 nits. Bright HDR scenes look appropriately good, and the added brightness helps to protect luminance element in an HDR picture. I’ve reviewed just a few Mini-LED laptops that obtain an identical stage of brightness, just like the Lenovo Slim Pro 9i and Apple MacBook Pro 16, however most don’t. Even Mini-LED screens usually find yourself barely dimmer.
The ROG Strix Scar 18’s Mini-LED aced my coloration gamut and accuracy checks, too. It displayed 100 p.c sRGB, 100 p.c DCI-P3, and 91 p.c of AdobeRGB, all whereas sustaining a excessive stage of coloration accuracy. Asus’ OLED shows nonetheless beat Mini-LED in coloration gamut, however not by a lot, and the Mini-LED’s efficiency is superb. Sharpness is sweet, too, due to the show’s 2560×1600 decision.
And there’s one particular, but necessary, enviornment the place the Mini-LED show simply thumps any OLED laptop computer I’ve tried: SDR with HDR turned on. Most screens and laptops have bother dealing with SDR content material when HDR is turned on in Windows, which may result in a diminished coloration gamut and diminished coloration accuracy. But the ROG Strix Scar 18 didn’t present this drawback in any respect. On the opposite, it was barely higher with HDR on than off. That’s an uncommon benefit, and one you’ll respect if you wish to view HDR content material in a window on the Windows 11 desktop.
The first OLED laptop computer with G-Sync is revealed
The Mini-LED show is spectacular, however Asus is hedging its bets with the brand new Asus ROG Zephyrus G14 and G16. The G14 has a 2880×1800 show with a refresh charge of 120Hz whereas the G16 has a 2560×1600 show with a most refresh charge of 240Hz and each embrace Nvidia G-Sync assist.
IDG / Matthew Smith
They are, in truth, the very first OLED laptops to assist Nvidia G-Sync. Those not lately out there for a gaming laptop computer could be stunned to study that OLED shows with G-Sync (or AMD FreeSync) weren’t a factor, but it surely’s true.
Most OLED laptops available on the market at this time use a panel from Samsung. According to Asus, every pixel on the panel will not be constantly lit however as a substitute activates and off many instances every second (this, by the way in which, isn’t true of the OLED panels utilized by screens, which is why most OLED screens assist Adaptive Sync). These fast fluctuations aren’t usually perceptible, however may trigger fluctuations in brightness when paired with G-Sync. Asus says it labored with Nvidia and Samsung Display to extend the OLED panel’s pixel emission charge to 960Hz for the G16, and 480Hz for the G14, which is excessive sufficient to eradicate the issue.
Technical particulars apart, bringing G-Sync to the Zephyrus G14 and G16 eliminates an enormous ache level for players. Everyone trying to purchase a gaming laptop computer final 12 months had to decide on between an IPS panel with Adaptive Sync or an OLED panel with out it. Asus’ new G14 and G16 ship the most effective of each worlds.
The ROG Zephyrus G14 and G16 each look splendidly easy in movement and current a clear, crisp picture with minimal blur. That’s doubly true of the G16, which has a 240Hz panel. Its movement readability is, if something, a tad higher than 27-inch 240Hz OLED screens which have crossed my desk. And Asus quotes a pixel response time of 0.02 milliseconds, a blistering .01 milliseconds faster than most OLED screens.
IDG / Matthew Smith
IDG / Matthew Smith
IDG / Matthew Smith
IDG / Matthew Smith
The OLED shows additionally ship the standard perks. They have an basically infinite distinction ratio with a minimal luminance of zero nits, irrespective of the panel’s brightness stage. Color efficiency is spectacular, too, with a coloration gamut that spans 100 p.c of sRGB, 100 p.c of DCI-P3, and no less than 91 p.c of AdobeRGB (that is one take a look at the place the G14 and G16 differed: the G14 hit 91 p.c of AdobeRGB, whereas the G16 scored a fair higher 97 p.c). Color accuracy was glorious, too.
What about brightness? Well, it’s not Mini-LED, but it surely’s nonetheless relatively good. Both the G14 and G16 hit a most SDR brightness round 380 nits and a most HDR brightness of 600 nits. The HDR brightness is the best I’ve but recorded from any OLED laptop computer. I additionally observed the brightness barely dipped when all the show was lit, which was a standard draw back with older OLED shows. The brightness was pegged at 588 nits when displaying a full, shiny, white HDR picture.
Put merely: the G14 and G16 have the most effective OLED shows of any laptop computer I’ve ever examined. It’s a small win and, HDR brightness apart, I couldn’t discover the distinction when evaluating these new laptops with a pair of older OLED laptops I had readily available. Still, a win is a win.
Conclusion
The Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 with Mini-LED show, alongside the G14 and G16 with OLED shows, supply a glimpse on the slicing fringe of laptop computer show expertise. Asus has fastidiously noticed the professionals and cons of every and reached a agency conclusion. “Why not both?”
It’s a sound technique, and one I count on all laptop computer producers will undertake. Mini-LED is the final phrase in HDR brightness and lacks the burn-in worries that trigger some buyers to interrupt out in a chilly sweat. OLED isn’t as shiny, and the potential for burn-in could give some buyers pause, however the distinction delivered by its deep, abyssal black ranges and exact per-pixel lighting are unmatched by even essentially the most succesful Mini-LED shows.
And Asus is doing its half at CES 2024 to push each ahead. The Asus ROG Strix Scar 18 delivers essentially the most dimming zones of any Windows laptop computer to date; the ROG Zephyrus G14 and G16 lastly convey G-Sync to OLED laptops. Both are main, tangible upgrades that handle the largest downsides within the prior incarnation of every show expertise.
That’s progress — and I like to see it.