Samsung's record-breaking QD-OLED gaming monitors are perfection, but you can't have one — yet

Samsung display two newly unveiled QD monitor panels at CES 2025, Las Vegas, Nevada, USA.

(Image credit: Samsung)

OLED displays have always been a great panel for gaming thanks to their near-instant response times and HDR-friendly pixel-by-pixel lighting with perfect contrasts. However, the slower refresh rates of most OLED panels made it difficult to sell a QD-OLED display to most gamers.

That said, QD-OLED is well on its way to getting over that hurdle. With refresh rates on the rise, QD-OLED displays might be on their way to becoming a gaming essential, and Samsung is leading the way with its latest breakthrough in display tech.

Samsung debuted the “World’s First 27-inch 500Hz QD-OLED” display at January's CES 2025 event, but MWC 2025 is where the company chose to showcase its gaming potential — all 500 frames-per-second of it.

MWC 2025 Best Display Debut: Samsung's 500Hz QD-OLED gaming panel

Samsung displays two 27-inch gaming panels, one a conventional 240Hz LCD and the other a world's-first 500Hz QD-OLED panel at MWC 2025, Barcelona, Spain. (Image credit: Laptop Mag)

Laptop Laurels, a Laptop Mag award for consumer tech at MWC Barcelona, 2025. This image is a part of the Laptop Mag special issue for MWC 2025. — Samsung displays two 27-inch gaming panels, one a conventional 240Hz LCD and the other a world's-first 500Hz QD-OLED panel at MWC 2025, Barcelona, Spain. (Image credit: Laptop Mag)

A Laptop Mag award image for MWC 2025, featuring an image representing the best monitor winner: a record-breaking 27-inch, 500Hz, QD-OLED Samsung display. This image is a part of the Laptop Mag special issue for MWC 2025.

At MWC 2025, Samsung cleverly set up its 500Hz QD-OLED panel side-by-side with a “conventional” 240Hz LCD panel to highlight the difference in gaming on an OLED display. The difference was stark and immediately apparent.

Thanks to the infinite contrast ratio of OLED displays, dark game environments are clearer and easier to navigate versus conventional LCD panels. Colors "pop" more vividly, and the crispness of the image was second to none.

The showcase also highlighted the clear gaming advantages of higher refresh rates, which offer a smoother gaming experience that is ideal for gamers, even on the single-player RPG side of the gaming spectrum.

You can make some compromises to enjoy gaming on a lower refresh rate traditional monitor, but competitive gamers will struggle with slower monitors — which sacrifice precious frames and milliseconds that can make or break the outcomes of games that require your reaction times to remain on point at all times.

Sadly, despite stealing the hearts and eyes of every passerby, this display tech isn't found in any high-performance gaming monitors — for now. Samsung Display will be shipping this high-refresh rate QD-OLED display to various monitor partners later this year, so you’ll likely see some gaming monitors sporting this fresh new panel as early as Summer 2025.

While the Samsung 27-inch 500Hz QD-OLED Gaming panel isn’t a monitor itself just yet, the advantages of a 500Hz QD-OLED display made it the most impressive monitor at this year's MWC.

A former lab gremlin for Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Tom's Hardware, and Tech Radar; Madeline has escaped the labs to join Laptop Mag as a Staff Writer. With over a decade of experience writing about tech and gaming, she may actually know a thing or two. Sometimes. When she isn't writing about the latest laptops and AI software, Madeline likes to throw herself into the ocean as a PADI scuba diving instructor and underwater photography enthusiast.