Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing
  3. Features

CES 2023 is a turning point for the dilemma between TVs and gaming monitors

Jacob Roach
By

The past few years have seen a convergence between TVs and gaming monitors, and CES 2023 is starting to see the two display types diverge once again. After all, the LG OLED Flex is a TV that looks like a monitor while the Samsung Ark is a monitor that looks a lot like a TV. This year, we’re starting to see the lines between TVs and monitors more clearly.

It’s not as clean-cut. Some monitors look like TVs and vice versa, but it seems the world of gaming monitors is exploring more exotic form factors and connectivity standards, while TVs are driving toward higher refresh rates, better panel technologies, and larger sizes.

Recommended Videos

Exotic form factors

The Samsung Odyssey OLED 49 playing Fortnite.
Image used with permission by copyright holder

The biggest difference I saw at CES this year was in the form factors of monitors. Samsung’s Odyssey lineup is a prime example. Out of the four gaming monitors Samsung announced this year, only one uses a 16:9 aspect ratio. The others either use 21:9 or 32:9, and Samsung isn’t alone. MSI has a 32:9 49-inch OLED monitor, and LG debuted a 45-inch 21:9 monitor, as well.

Get your weekly teardown of the tech behind PC gaming
Check your inbox!
Privacy Policy

It was only natural when we started seeing displays like the LG UltraGear 48-inch OLED that customers would start questioning why they should buy a monitor over a TV. CES seems like the opportunity for brands to separate monitors from TVs, and the key way to do that is the form. Now, we have OLED monitors as small as 27 inches, and with many of these displays charging a premium over their TV counterparts, there hasn’t been a good reason to buy a monitor over a TV.

TVs are driving at the refresh rate, with Samsung debuting models that can handle 144Hz (though many of them supported 120Hz in the first place). I see this as a short-term marketing play, as none of the consoles can support 144Hz, and there are plenty of monitors that drive far higher. This year, the standard for many flagship gaming monitors was actually 240Hz, further separating monitors from TVs.

DisplayPort is important

DisplayPort port pc connection
Image used with permission by copyright holder

One of the reasons TVs and monitors have grown so close over the past few years is the introduction of HDMI 2.1. If you’re unfamiliar, older HDMI standards meant you were locked to lower refresh rates at 4K, making monitors the de facto option for PC gaming due to their DisplayPort connection. HDMI caught up, which meant you could get 4K at 120Hz on a TV, and that isn’t too far off 4K at 144Hz on a monitor.

DisplayPort 2.1 changes that, offering far more bandwidth to drive 8K displays. Or, at least dual 4K displays. The 2023 Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 is a prime example, essentially placing two 4K panels side-by-side with a 240Hz refresh rate. DisplayPort 2.1 can drive this screen at its full resolution and refresh rate. HDMI 2.1 can’t.

Nvidia’s latest GPUs don’t support DisplayPort 2.1, but AMD cards like the RX 7900 XTX do. Over the next year, we’ll likely see a lot more DisplayPort 2.1 monitors, driving higher resolutions and refresh rates than HDMI can manage.

It’s not like 8K TVs are a pipedream, though. We’ve seen them for a few years now, and the momentum continues to grow behind them. At the moment, however, 8K TVs are driving at a general media experience where refresh rate isn’t as important. There’s still a lot of ground to cover for TVs with even managing streaming 8K content in homes. In the world of gaming monitors, they’ll need that DisplayPort 2.1 connection to drive higher refresh rates for gaming.

Still an awkward middle ground

LG OLED Flex TV.
LG

I won’t pretend like TVs and gaming monitors now fit into neat boxes separated from each other. Products like the LG OLED Flex and even Samsung’s recently announced Odyssey Neo G7 are proof that there’s still some blurring between what makes a monitor, a monitor, and what makes a TV, a TV.

However, there’s at least a solid effort to separate these two product categories, especially at the high end. As OLED continues to mature in monitors, we’ll see even greater separation, particularly in smaller screen sizes that we’re just starting to see at CES.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jacob Roach
Jacob Roach
Senior Staff Writer, Computing
Jacob Roach is a writer covering computing and gaming at Digital Trends. After realizing Crysis wouldn't run on a laptop, he…
LG’s new 480Hz gaming monitor just changed the game
God of War running on the LG UltraGear OLED 45.

LG isn't waiting for January to launch its next generation of OLED gaming monitors. The company revealed three new displays joining its lineup, as well as updates to the OLED gaming monitors it already offers. One of them, in particular, stands out due to a dual refresh rate feature that can reach up to 480Hz.

The UltraGear 32GS95UE is the star of the show. It's a 4K OLED monitor with a 240Hz refresh rate, but LG says you can switch to a 1080p resolution with a 480Hz refresh rate with a single click. You can map the function either to a hotkey or a directional switch on the joystick, allowing you to quickly swap between high-resolution cinematic gaming or competitive settings.

Read more
This was the most exciting gaming laptop I reviewed in 2023
The lid of the Lenovo Legion 9i.

I've never used a laptop quite like the Lenovo Legion 9i. It's the only laptop I've given a perfect score, which you can read about in my Lenovo Legion 9i review, and it puts many of the best gaming laptops to shame. It's out of reach for most people -- it's certainly too expensive for me -- but I didn't touch another laptop this year that excited me as much as the Legion 9i did.

Sure, it's a powerful laptop, but when you're spending $3,000 (or more) on a gaming laptop, you expect peak performance. The Legion 9i stands out so much because it refines this class of laptop. It takes all of the elements that make 16-inch desktop replacements impractical and turns them on their head. It's not a flawless laptop -- no laptop ever is -- but it's the closest I've seen this year.
Slimmed down

Read more
A look back at the best (and worst) PC games I tested in 2023
Cyberpunk 2077 on the Samsung Odyssey OLED G8.

I test the performance and features of dozens of new PC games every year. It's usually just a way to round up some optimized settings for the latest games, but 2023 challenged that approach. It was a notoriously troublesome year for PC releases, but for as many busted ports that we saw, I tested just as many technical marvels.

If you want to push your PC to its limits with the most demanding PC games, here are the games you should play -- and the ones you should avoid. Just to be clear -- this isn't a comment on the content of the games themselves, but on how they performed on PC and implemented (or didn't) the latest features.
The best PC games I tested in 2023
Alan Wake 2

Read more