I Bought A High-End Gaming Monitor From Aliexpress...

Battlefield 5 on the New Monitor: A Responsive but Imperfect Gaming Experience

I've been playing Battlefield 5 on my new monitor, and it's definitely been a pleasant experience. The monitor now runs at 144 HZ, which feels nice and snappy. It's a very responsive feeling monitor that's perfect for fast-paced games like Battlefield 5. However, I did notice some motion blur with fast movement. While it's not terrible by any stretch of the imagination, it's nowhere near the crystal smooth image of a 240 HZ OLED display panel. Those displays do come at a price, though.

In my gameplay sessions, I couldn't really see any kind of Bloom happening, which is a common issue with monitors that struggle to handle high contrast levels. However, I did find myself in games that are much darker and more contrasting than Battlefield 5, and even then, the void seemed to have descended around me, making it harder to distinguish between certain elements. This made it clear that the monitor's backlight performance was not ideal.

The reason for this became apparent when I started moving around the display off-axis. That's when I could very clearly see that Halo showing up, which pretty much invalidated one of the other benefits of a mini LED backlight – improved black levels. The IPS panel seemed to be the limiting factor here, rather than the backlight. It just looked like a wildly bright IPS display, which wasn't bad by any means.

Despite my reservations about the monitor's performance, I was impressed with its measured contrast ratio for an IPS display. However, the main benefit of the mini LED backlight in this configuration is the wild brightness it provides. The max brightness on this display is very impressive, and I did find myself turning down the brightness to make it more comfortable. But when compared directly to the OLED display that Corsair recently sent over, the difference became clear.

The first thing I noticed aside from the inkier black levels on the OLED was just how much less bright it was than my new monitor. Even at 100% brightness, the OLED seemed dull in comparison to this mini LED display. When playing DOTA on my Titan Army Monitor, it was way brighter than the OLED at 83%. This really puts into perspective the power of that mini LED backlight.

I did get a bit carried away comparing the two displays, but I think that's because I've been spoiled by the brightness and image quality of the OLED display. The factory color calibration on my AliExpress special was more accurate than the OLED, though. Aside from the significantly darker black levels and lack of IPS glow, the image seemed way clearer on the mini LED display.

I've been surprised by how good gaming displays can be found on AliExpress, despite the risks involved. Apparently, you can get pretty good gaming displays on this platform, although we still need to discuss price, which is a very interesting topic with this display. I paid around $500 for it, which for a mini LED display seems relatively affordable. However, considering that this technology is quite expensive, $500 does feel like a lot of money.

In conclusion, my experience with the Titan Army display from AliExpress has been largely positive. It feels like a normal IPS display but on steroids in terms of brightness. I'm sold on the value of insane peak brightness that's something that OLED displays really need to figure out over the next coming years.