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For many of us, a lot of the screens we view daily can easily be OLED. The iPhone in your pocket. The screen on the new laptop you finally bought. That luxurious 4K TV and even that beloved Nintendo Switch . But OLED awesomeness has far from proliferated computer monitors—especially if you're not into gaming.

Numerous hurdles limit OLED monitor adoption, including concerns about screen burn-in. But one thing we're hoping to see in 2023 is a greater selection. Right now, you can count the number of OLED monitors that aren't 42-inch-plus juggernauts or push refresh rates that require serious GPUs on one hand. OLED monitors that focus on productivity, photo editing, or HDR get minimal love.

By the time 2023's done, we hope there's more than a handful of OLED monitors available to interest non-gamers. We don't expect homes and offices to become flooded with them, but 2023 could be a big step to OLED monitors having the variety and availability that OLED TVs and other devices have enjoyed for years.

Enlarge / Dell's UltraSharp U3223QZ 4K monitor. (credit: Scharon Harding)

I get it; not everyone finds monitors as exciting as I do. For most people, a little extra color or a larger range of tones don't really differentiate one screen from another. So I don't blame Dell for stuffing the UltraSharp U3223QZ 4K monitor with fluff like motion-activated controls, monstrous speakers, and a webcam with presence detection. But after weeks with the monitor, I found none of those extra features as exciting as the monitor's IPS Black panel.

The U3223QZ has a lot to prove. For one, it debuted at the same MSRP as the 5K Apple Studio Display (starts at $1,600 ). Since then, Dell has made the price more competitive ( $1,280 as of writing), but it's still expensive for a 31.5-inch monitor. Dell's U3223QZ is also one of the few monitors to use IPS Black technology, which is supposed to yield about twice the contrast as the typical IPS monitor. I confirmed this with a colorimeter and, more enjoyably, with my eyes.

The bonus features on the U3223QZ have their pluses. The speakers are louder than average and the webcam can automatically log you in and out. But for many people, it makes sense to save money and buy the version of this monitor without the webcam ... and without a dedicated Microsoft Teams button.

Enlarge / LG's UltraGear 27GR95QE-B OLED monitor. (credit: LG )

LG continues to show a commitment to diversifying OLED monitor options. And that's particularly exciting when it comes to users seeking smaller sizes and lower prices. The company recently listed a 26.5-inch OLED monitor for $1,000 that offers more speed than most people need but adds variety to today's scant selection of desktop-size OLED monitors.

As spotted by a few sites, including Wccftech on Sunday, LG has listed the 26.5-inch UltraGear 27GR95QE-B ; however, it doesn't seem available to purchase online in the US yet. We reached out to LG about US availability and will update this article if the company responds.

The monitor prioritizes pushing frames over pixel count, sporting a 2560×1400 resolution and a 240 Hz refresh rate. LG's gaming monitor also has an aggressively fast 0.03 ms gray-to-gray response time, plus Nvidia G-Sync Compatibility and AMD FreeSync Premium for fighting screen tears. This is a screen built for gamers who would rather have fast-paced action that looks super-smooth than the sharpest display. And if you're not convinced of this screen's gamer heritage, just check out the hexagonal RGB lighting area on the monitor's backside:

Enlarge / Plugable claims its latest adapter lets you connect four monitors to Macs. (credit: Plugable )

Dock-maker Plugable says it has come up with a way to increase the number of external monitors M1- and M2-based Macs support. While Apple says Macs with these chips can support just one to two external monitors, Redmond, Washington-based Plugable's new USB-to-HDMI adapter claims to enable support for as many as four monitors.

According to Apple , the Mac Mini , which has Apple's M1 processor, can support up to two monitors. However, all other M1- and M2-based devices are limited to one external display.

Appearing to address this limitation, Plugable released its USB-C or USB 3.0 to Quad HDMI Adapter ( USBC-768H4 ) on Tuesday, saying it supports up to four monitors via HDMI, including for M1 and M2 Macs. The adapter requires you to use Windows 10 or macOS 11 and later.

Enlarge / LG's UltraFine 27EQ850-B OLED monitor. (credit: LG )

LG has released an OLED computer monitor with a more accessible size and price than most. The LG UltraFine 27EQ850-B represents one of the few 27-inch OLED panels available and has a competitive MSRP (for an OLED monitor) at $2,000 .

LG recently listed the 27EQ850-B, as spotted by sites like DisplaySpecifications and KitGuru . It's a 4K, 60 Hz screen with a claimed 200 nits of brightness and 99 percent DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB color coverage.

The 10-bit color monitor's stand supports portrait mode, tilting, pivoting, and height adjustments. (credit: LG )

USB-C connectivity with 90 W power delivery puts the monitor on par with other USB-C monitors, like the Dell UltraSharp U2723QE ; although there are monitors, like the Apple Studio Display , with greater power delivery (96 W).

Enlarge / Alienware's latest QD-OLED monitor, the AW3423DWF. (credit: Alienware)

Alienware announced today a new QD-OLED monitor SKU that looks awfully similar to the Alienware AW3423DW released for $1,300 this spring. The AW3423DWF has many of the same specs but skips Nvidia G-Sync certification and hardware in favor of AMD's and VESA's open standards for fighting screen tears, while costing $200 less than its predecessor.

Like the AW3423DW, the AW3423DWF uses QD-OLED technology from Samsung. This is a form of OLED that uses a blue self-emitting layer as its light source, which goes through a layer of quantum dots. The primary goal is better color coverage, including more consistent colors across brightness levels, combined with the deep blacks and incredible contrast for which OLED displays are known.

The 34.18-inch AW3423DWF and AW3423DW's specs sheets match closely, including 3440×1440 resolution, an 1800R curve, 99.3 percent DCI-P3 and 149 percent sRGB color coverage, up to a 165 Hz refresh rate via DisplayPort and 100 Hz via HDMI 2.0, and 0.1ms gray-to-gray (GtG) response time .

Enlarge / LG's OLED Flex LX3 TV won't pick a side. (credit: LG )

If you've been watching display tech lately, you may have noticed an interesting feature: bendable displays. Yes, monitors and TVs that you can bend to be either flat or curved are purportedly coming out soon. The feature is meant to appease those who can't settle on flat or curved, and most upcoming products feel similarly indecisive, exhibiting identity crises that make it hard to see where they fit... literally. Does something like this belong in a living room, office, or gaming den?

In the case of the LG OLED Flex LX3 4K TV announced Wednesday (no price or release date) , the most obvious answer is the living room. It's a 42-inch TV with a tuner, LG's webOS, and even LG Display's OLED Evo technology used in the LG C2 TV . The primary difference from every other TV is that this one has buttons (including buttons on the remote) for changing the screen from flat to a 900R curvature across 20 steps. That provides the potential for an extremely curved TV.

The thing is, you probably don't want to watch curved television. Vendors tried making this a thing years ago, but as we wrote back then, curved TVs mostly accommodate people sitting pretty close to and directly in front of the TV. That's not how most people gather 'round the heart of the living room. Living room TVs are frequently shared, with people sitting at various distances from the screen and at varying angles. But up close and centered sounds awfully similar to how most people use monitors.

Enlarge / LG Ergo AI Monitor 32UQ890. (credit: LG )

LG last night announced plans to demo a 4K monitor that it claims will help workers maintain an ergonomically friendly view by automatically adjusting itself based on the user's positioning.

LG will demo its UltraFine Display Ergo AI 32UQ890 (which it first lightly announced with minimal details at CES 2022 ) at IFA 2022 in Berlin from September 2–6, it said.

The monitor gets its name because it uses AI via an integrated camera to interpret a user's eye level. It leverages an AI algorithm to collect and analyze video frames, using a neural processing unit to make what it determines are appropriate  adjustments to the screen’s height by up to 6.3 inches (160 mm) or angle by up to 20 degrees forward or backward. The monitor does not use deep learning, an LG spokesperson told Ars Technica.

Enlarge (credit: HP)

HP announced a 31.5-inch monitor today at its Amplify partner conference that's aimed at workers with data-heavy setups and strong image quality needs. The 4K resolution HP Z32k G3 claims to be the first monitor to use an IPS Black panel along with a Thunderbolt 4 USB-C port.

Dell was the first to use IPS Black , tapping the LG Display tech for 27-inch and 31.5-inch USB-C UltraSharp monitors. IPS Black is a type of IPS panel that's supposed to double the typical contrast ratio of traditional IPS by delivering darker black levels. LG Display claimed that IPS Black's black levels are "35 percent deeper than existing IPS products."

HP's Z32k G3 claims a 2,000:1 contrast ratio, compared to the standard IPS monitor, which is typically around 1,000:1, with premium IPS examples reaching around 1,300:1. Assuming HP's shared an accurate figure, it's worth noting that the spec doesn't match a strong VA monitor or, compared to contrast afforded by displays with more expensive backlighting technology, Mini LED or OLED .