Summary
The ProArt PA32DC is one of the rare OLED monitors on the market and promises a wide color gamut and accurate color reproduction, and is delivered calibrated. The screen also has a built-in colorimeter for automatic calibration, but we couldn’t get it to work through the screen menus – a future firmware update should take care of that. Color reproduction is good, but it doesn’t reach the minimal deviations that ASUS advertises. More importantly, a competing display with the same integrated OLED panel, the LG 32EP950, performs better in our tests and costs less. However, ProArt’s professional ambitions are lacking, such as colourist grids and the aforementioned calibration tool.
There are nearly 3000 monitors with their specifications in our Pricewatch. More than half of these are IPS screens, a good 10% are still equipped with a TN panel, and about 20% have a VA panel. What do all those screens have in common? They are almost all LCD; the number of OLED screens can literally be counted on two hands.
That includes the screen that’s at the heart of this review: the ASUS ProArt PA32DC. The fact that it is a ProArt screen already indicates that it is primarily a “content creation” screen. The ProArt series is delivered calibrated, has a wide color gamut and must accurately display colors. These are important aspects for TVs too, and the upper segment has been led by OLED models for years.
With monitors, things don’t go so smoothly with OLED panels, and for a moment there seemed to be a glimmer of hope; Japan Display founded the Japan Oled subsidiary, for short Joled, On. That company would make printed OLED screens and will actually be ready for it in 2021 it started. Printed OLED panels, at Joled under the Oledio brand, are said to be cheaper to produce than OLED panels made using the traditional method. The latter operate by vapor deposition of the materials necessary for the construction of the OLED pixels on the glass substrate. Joled, on the other hand, produces its Oledio panels with a single print head capable of simultaneously applying all three RGB sub-pixels to the substrate. This should be faster and cheaper than the traditional sequential manufacturing method. The process doesn’t seem to be going smoothly. In fact, Joled would have so many problems with production that it is questionable whether it is can keep your head above water.
ASUS has already launched a ProArt screen with a Joled Oledio panel in 2019: the PQ22UC. It has an OLED screen of only 21.6 “. In 2021 Joled partnered with LG for 32EP950 panel deliver. The same panel is now used by ASUS in the ProArt PA32DC; it is a 31.5 “4K OLED screen. The LG screen is now on sale for around 2600 euros; the ProArt PA32DC should cost around 4400 euros. Time to see how these screens, the only 32 OLED monitors, relate. “on the market with each other and on other screens.
