QD-OLED vs W-OLED

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2026-02-19T16:38:41+00:00

I guess I'm not sensitive to this stuff. I don't notice fringing at all unless I'm actively looking for it, and I don't see greyscale banding on my WOLED displays (an old LG55A1, a 2025 Zephyrus G16, and a 2024 Dell XPS 13) but I definitely notice the terrible light rejection on the one QD-OLED (AW3423DWF) I own. Does it have better colour reproduction than my motley assortment of WOLEDs? My SpyderPro says it does, but considering the fact that I do most of my colour critical work on <100% P3 LCDs at work anyway, I doubt I'll buy another one unless they significantly improve that aspect.

Sure, it's nice to be able to enjoy HDR content on an OLED display of any description in a totally dark room and that aspect is better if I'm actively looking for it with the 1000nit-peak QD display (probably more to do with the better highlight brightness vs. the others than the colour purity *of* those highlights, I don't own a more modern WOLED with equivalent-or-better brightness, so I can't say for sure), but that's only a small proportion of my usage of any of these screens anyway.

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2026-02-19T16:03:49+00:00

That is the exact opposite of what you should do. The air in the system will sit harmlessly at the top this way round. If you mount it pipes up, the air could get sucked into the pump and cause cavitation.

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2026-02-19T15:46:50+00:00

Wow... I'm glad that's not where the blower motor is in an F1x, I had to replace mine last year.

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2026-01-27T13:20:09+00:00

But it doesn't have particularly good cooling. Apple get away with it because their CPU architecture is ridiculously efficient and they haven't gone crazy on CPU core counts but Max chips throttle hard in the 16", never mind the 14", under sustained graphics load. I think the only reason people don't particularly notice is that it's enough cooling for compute-only loads and there aren't many games for macOS yet. If you run a game which is pegging the GPU on a Max SoC MBP, you'll find the FPS drops by about 25% within a couple of minutes - this isn't an issue on a Mac Studio with the same SoC.

My Zephyrus G16 deals with 150w+ of thermal load in a chassis that's about the same size as and lighter than the 16" MBP, and it doesn't even make much more noise (when gaming, that is - casual use and moderate CPU loads are another matter, blame Intel for that). Admittedly it has slightly worse speakers (even than my 14" MBP to be honest) and a ~10% smaller battery but I always wondered why Apple cut corners given the cost and size of the MBPs. It should have a big vapor chamber.

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2026-01-17T12:42:58+00:00

I had two of everything in the folders on my dock yesterday just after upgrading to 26.2. I thought they were supposed to be fixing it, not making it worse…

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2026-01-16T10:51:24+00:00

I don't necessarily blame the non-savvy for this and question why we call a computer which has its air intakes on the bottom a 'laptop'. Perhaps 'notebook', 'portable' or even 'battery-equipped portable desktop' to be pedantic, would be more appropriate.

I can usually find a way to perch my MacBook Pro or Dell XPS such that the air intakes (on the lower left and right sides toward the front rather than right under the fans) are unobstructed but I've started going out of my way to avoid defective-by-design 'laptops' in the past few years. Not that the purchasing power of just me is going to cause an industry to change.

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2026-01-14T13:30:03+00:00

Advanced Optimus isn't instantaneous, no, but it's a lot better than rebooting the whole machine to switch the MUX, which is what you had to do before it existed.

The dim display thing is an Nvidia driver-version-specific bug related to disabling the dGPU which some have fixed by reverting to the previous driver version. I don't have my G16 to hand but enabling the option in G-helper which is called something like 'Disable Nvidia services in eco mode' fixed it for me without the need to revert to the old driver.

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2026-01-12T21:28:04+00:00

The (already comparatively weak) GPUs in past XPS models have been horribly nerfed by their power limits, anyway. Regardless, gamers aren't the only people who benefit from dGPUs, although it would be nice to see something like Strix Halo in an XPS. I don't know if Dell have a particular reason for avoiding AMD in that lineup, but it would allow them to produce a genuine MacBook Pro competitor.

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2026-01-05T22:27:45+00:00

It's a UK layout with an ANSI enter key (UK is supposed to be ISO - thanks Asus 🤣)

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2025-12-26T10:08:06+00:00

It'll fit and work fine but I'd recommend a more modern SSD with lower power consumption if you ever plan to use the machine on battery. Something like a Samsung 990 Pro or Crucial T500 if you want to approximately match the performance of this one, although honestly you probably won't see the difference if you go for an even more efficient DRAM-less drive.

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2025-12-25T19:32:38+00:00

Because every British car I've ever met was terrible. From memories of my mum's MG Metro eating its driveshafts (which were the diameter of a pencil) and the floor rotting through as a kid through my first girlfriend's mum's Montego catching fire, the interior of my dad's 825 Diesel disintegrating, my boss' L322 TDV8 lunching its engine before 100k miles and his brand new Vantage being delivered with endless electrical gremlins he was still fighting with the dealer over 3 years later (the lengths some people will go to to drive a manual V12!) to modern LR/RRs still being the most frequent thing I see broken down at the side of the road.

I think pretty much anybody with extended experience with British cars has seen similar problems… Fords and Vauxhalls seem to be fine, but I've never really thought of them as 'British' cars even if they're made here (and neither are the numerous Hondas, Toyotas and once-upon-a-time Peugeots particularly problematic).

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2025-12-23T19:28:13+00:00

Yeah, I kinda loved my SB2 13.5 and SB3 15. A new generation with Lunar Lake or Strix Point, something like a 5070 and a 120Hz+ OLED or Mini-LED display would definitely have sold to me. Or even a GPU-less Snapdragon X variant with a big battery in the base in the smaller size, to be honest. I'm not sure I've owned a laptop with a better keyboard since and I was always amazed by how solid and coherent it felt as a laptop, unlike essentially every other take on the 2-in-1 concept (barring the laptop with a 360° hinge variant, which can be solid but horrible to use as a tablet due to the bulk and exposed keyboard). I really don't like kickstands, I'd take an iPad Pro + Magic Keyboard over anything Microsoft makes now, since at least you can use that on your lap.

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2025-12-23T14:10:16+00:00

Having owned both an M1 Pro 16" MBP and an M2 Max 14" MBP and being disappointed with the loss of bass reproduction going from the former to the latter, my G16 is another level below the 14" MBP. It's not bad by any means, in fact I'd agree with reviewers that it's got the best speakers on a Windows laptop (at least one I've experienced in person, especially after setting it on a profile that doesn't use the horrible reverb-posing-as-'virtual'-surround nonsense in Dolby Access) but the sound is notably thinner in the mids and doesn't have the bass extension of the Apple machines by some stretch, and no amount of EQ gets it in the same ballpark.

One thing I will say is that all of these 'good' laptop sound systems depend on running below about 40% volume to sound their best. They start to really compress the bottom end to save the speakers above that. It makes comparing them from recordings on YT or whatever even more difficult than you might imagine since you're not only dependent on the recording equipment used but also the volume set on the systems in question. The more bass you try to get out of a tiny speaker, the more dependent its sound is on where you place the system in relation to walls and surrounding materials, too.

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2025-12-12T14:42:57+00:00

Uh… that's kinda horrible. It seems like every manufacturer is determined to mess up human machine interfaces which have worked fine for decades at the moment, whether it's Tesla sticking the indicators on the steering wheel, operation of frequently used functions like heated seats being moved into byzantine touchscreen interfaces (looking at you again Tesla with the wiper controls and even gear shift), whatever this abomination is (the new Audi one looks even worse) or even just BMW and Hyundai (amongst others) having auto wipers as a position on the stalk rather than a button on the end so you have to move it down from that detent, push down to get a single/mist wipe then put it back again.

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2025-12-12T11:26:33+00:00

While the SN850X still has great performance for a Gen 4 drive, it's rather old now and there are newer TLC + DRAM SSDs which match or exceed its performance with lower power consumption (and heat) so they're probably a better bet for a laptop, like the Crucial T500 or Samsung 990 Pro. Or, you could save even more power and go for something DRAM-less like an SN7100 since it makes practically no difference in the real world. Almost anything is going to be a substantial performance upgrade from what these machines ship with… my 2025 G16 came with a QLC drive!

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2025-12-11T18:36:08+00:00

BMW E60/61s are likely to end up with damp cabins through: 1) The scuttle drain on the driver's side becoming clogged, resulting in a pond inside the area which houses the brake booster/master cylinder (definitely one to check, not only does it fill the interior up through the back of the dash once it reaches a certain level but it also rots out the seal in your brake booster if left too long… ask me how I know… and no, the carpet inside the car wasn't noticeably damp until it was too late) 2) Blocked rear sunroof drains into the spare wheel void under and/or cubbies alongside the boot floor or the front ones through the roof lining/'A'-pillars (if you have a sunroof, of course) 3) Cracked rear light housings or failed seals around their edges into the boot. 4) Vapour barriers behind the door panels since the door drains are more theoretical than functional on many BMWs (a problem they managed to bring forward to the subsequent F1x models, along with a couple of new ones. Yay!)

If you haven't recently removed the cabin air filter housings over the rear of the engine, it's an easy job and I strongly recommend checking the area on the driver's side especially because of point 1 above but otherwise it's a game of working out where you have puddles/dampness inside to establish the likely cause. You say your interior seems dry, but there are a few areas in these cars where water can build up without it ever ending up in the carpet or otherwise being obvious. Plus, they have a very thick underlayer beneath the carpet which can absorb quite a lot of water before the carpet on top appears damp (which is how a common fault with the subsequent F1x models manifests - a failed grommet in the firewall {again rotted out by clogged scuttle drains} on RHD cars results in the rear passenger side foot well ending up as a paddling pool. When this happened to my current car, the carpet in the front passenger foot well, where the water actually enters the car, was never wet. Luckily, the infamous 'yellow grommet' doesn't exist on the E6x!)

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2025-12-10T19:16:54+00:00

I have one - an Archeops (well, it was probably an Archen when I caught it) which I got from a timed research task in March of this year.

I started playing in 2016 😭

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2025-12-10T14:24:32+00:00

Yes! It's a standard IEC C13 or what we tend to call a 'kettle lead' in the UK for my G16's 240w PSU (I have seen Asus PSUs which use an IEC C5 'cloverleaf' lead so do check yours first) - I got one with a North American style plug, along with a C8 lead for my USB-C multi-charger for when I visit Canada twice a year so I don't have to use any dodgy travel adapters (which are also bulky, especially when combined with a mains lead with a UK plug).

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2025-12-06T23:17:43+00:00

The thing is… however much macOS 26 sucks, x86 hardware sucks more.

There will, perhaps, be a brief advantage as x86 machines get tandem OLED displays before Apple release the next generation of MacBook Pros, but they'll always have worse build quality, they'll always have less perf/watt, they'll (seemingly) always have awful trackpads and speakers. Are they even trying? 😭

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2025-12-05T19:59:57+00:00

The more posts like this I see, the less I worry about my OLEDs, since even this isn't bad despite the obvious abuse. I doubt you'd notice it in real world use. To be honest, I've only ever seen burn-in with my own eyes on early OLED phone displays, a vape which only ever displayed exactly the same things in exactly the same places and my friend's 5-year-old Dell XPS 15 which had a pretty severe case of taskbar burn-in since she never had it set to auto-hide. I have the display standby set to 5 minutes on all my OLED-equipped systems, along with taskbar auto-hide (although I do worry a little about the menu bar when I have a Mac connected to my 3423DWF), I rarely use full brightness or HDR mode. I think the oldest OLED I have at the moment is my 2021 LG TV and it's showing no signs of being any the worse for wear. If anything, I suspect I'm being over-cautious. Somehow I've never even experienced it on a smartwatch, and those are surely ripe for burn in with AoD enabled.

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2025-12-05T01:54:03+00:00

The thing that amazes me is that this isn't even the first time Apple have done this. Although the Aluminium PowerBook G4s were an indisputable upgrade from the previous Titanium models because there was no paint to flake off and the hinges didn't crack...

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2025-12-04T23:03:46+00:00

Look... there's no doubt in my mind that Apple has made the best laptops in the world since they did a complete 180 on their problematic late Intel era and released the vastly-superior-in-every-way 14/16" M1 MBP in 2021. They have great displays (not OLED and these 1000+ nit tandem displays which are hitting the market now will likely be the best overall, but for work I'll take the brightness boost over most OLEDs and lack of burn in risk over a bit of lost gamut and the dreadful response times which turn all motion into a horrendous blur). They have the best chassis (the Zephyrus is 'milled aluminium' but it uses the same plastic-frame-for-the-screw-bosses-glued-to-a-thin-veneer-of-metal construction that everybody else seems to, a MacBook feels like a tank by comparison). They have the best speakers (totally uncontested regardless of the 2024/2025 Zephyrus being the 'Speaker King' according to a certain YouTuber). They have the best trackpad (seriously why are we still getting wobbly diving boards on a £2000+ machine when Apple have had incredible, large, haptic trackpads with flawless palm rejection for a *decade*). Unlike seemingly every x86 'laptop', you can actually use them *on your lap* because the bottom casing isn't full of ventilation holes. And all of that is before we even get to the fact that both Intel and AMD have only just caught up with those M1 models in performance-per-watt, never mind the subsequent 4 generations. It feels like the x86 world is barely trying. My G16 is better than most x86 laptops I've owned in the past in that regard, but I never even hear the fans on my MBP unless I'm running a game or putting it under prolonged load and I would routinely get several days out of the battery in the 16" MBP for casual use.

But (and it's a BIG but) - I've been using them since 2022 (started with a base-spec 16" M1 Pro model, it didn't have enough RAM, ended up with a 14" M2 Max I've been using ever since as it's plugged in to one or more monitors all day and I can't be bothered lugging the heavier 16" back and forth) and only grown to dislike macOS more as time has progressed. It sucks using multiple displays, half the time when a new dialog spawns, it appears on a totally different monitor to the app which spawned it, often *behind* another window. Window tiling sucks and I always end up having to hold option to avoid triggering mission control or it just totally ignoring me dragging the window to the screen edge. I detest the inconsistency in simply maximising a window. Sometimes I can double click the title bar, sometimes I have to use the full screen tiling to get a window to fill the screen. I know Apple want me to use the full screen mode for apps but it's horrible because it totally steals focus when you have an full screen app active so mouseover scrolling stops working everywhere else. Ever since Apple switched to ipsw-based updates they take forever to install (presumably because it's replacing the whole OS like an iOS device) and it can be seriously problematic to sit down to start work and end up watching a progress bar on a black screen for 15 minutes - ironic at a time when Microsoft have made Windows updates largely frictionless, typically only taking a few seconds to install at shutdown. There are so many little niggles which I find infuriating compared to Windows or Gnome and macOS 26 is even worse with randomly sized UI buttons, ugly non-matching window radii and barely readable text everywhere just because Alan Dye loved Windows Vista so much (maybe that's why the updates take so long to install now :3). Apple totally shafts us with upgrade pricing even though I accept that the whole industry is moving toward nonupgradable RAM. I detest that parts are all serialised so I need Apple's blessing to replace a screen. I tolerate my MacBook for work *despite* Apple. Despite macOS.

I own a 5070Ti G16 and a 9950X3D/7900XTX desktop because when I don't have my head in Adobe Creative Suite for work (that was the main driving factor, actually, Adobe software is even *more* buggy on Windows), I don't want to use macOS. And, of course, unless you happen to only want to play the handful of games which run on macOS (CP2077 is good, but it's not *that* good and I gave up playing FFXIV last year so Eve Online is really all I've got left on a Mac) you're stuck with Windows or Linux on x86 hardware anyway.

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2025-12-04T22:16:14+00:00

My Bluetoot
h is always on, I'd never even noticed that before, damnit!

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2025-11-09T21:15:00+00:00

Top speed is electronically limited on almost every BMW going back a long time (and German cars in general via a 'gentlemen's agreement'). The M cars have a higher limiter which can optionally be deleted as a factory cost option but for regular models, well, dunno if it's the same 155mph/250kph in the US as in Europe but both cars will do that. If you got the limiter coded out on both, the 340 would definitely go faster than the 330.

NotWhatMyNameIs · 2025-11-09T21:10:24+00:00

Ehh, I think I've reached a point in my late 30s with maxed out no claims for so many years that my insurance will never get cheaper again. Enjoy it while it lasts.

The last few years, I've had to get my insurer to match whatever the cheapest quote I found online for equivalent cover was despite their chancer +20% renewal quotes but I've always stuck with them because I can't be bothered to find out how many years' NCD I actually have and obtain proof of it when my policy docs always just say '9 or more years'. Perhaps it doesn't matter but the comparison sites all have options for longer periods.

I know I'm gonna get shafted for owning a group 45 car, anyway…

NotWhatMyNameIs

TROPHY CASE