Lightning-fast Oled Screen with a Mac!

Dough is out with another update to its Spectrum displays: the Spectrum Black, a 27-inch, 1440p OLED with a 240 Hz refresh rate. It looks like previous Dough displays, but there’s a lot new, including new cover glass. Dough sent me this display to try with a Mac, but isn’t sponsoring this video.

Design

Very similar to previous Dough displays, which I think is good. So many displays are covered in logos, RGB lights or crazy stands; this one has the simple, elegant look I prefer. The panel is thinner and the bezels look slightly larger than the regular Spectrum’s. It uses the same two-piece metal stand with height, tilt and 90° rotation. I still like it, but wish it wobbled less side to side.

The display

A 27-inch 1440p WOLED reaching 450 nits, with VESA DisplayHDR True Black 400. Because it’s OLED, you get real blacks with no backlight, and a 1.5 million to 1 contrast ratio.

I prefer glossy desktop displays because they look brighter and more vibrant. The new Gorilla Glass keeps it glossy while cutting reflections by 70%, a big reduction in glare compared with the Studio Display.

It’s factory calibrated and defaults to P3. Next to my Studio Display, the colors didn’t match until I calibrated it. It covers about 92% of P3, versus 98% on the Studio Display and the 4K Spectrum. Colors look good for everyday computing, photos and video, and HDR looks much better than on the regular 4K Spectrum with just 16 dimming zones. Colors in movies pop.

xCool sponsored this video, with its 4-in-1 100 W USB-C cable.

240 Hz

That’s 60% faster than previous Spectrums, with variable refresh, adaptive sync for NVIDIA and AMD, and 0.03 ms gray-to-gray. I’m not a big gamer, but games on my M2 Max MacBook Pro went well above 60 fps. High refresh is great for everyday use too; everything feels smoother, matching the MacBook Pro’s ProMotion. I got the full 240 Hz from my MacBook Pro and MacBook Air over USB-C and through a Thunderbolt dock. macOS defaults to a fixed 240 Hz, but you can enable variable refresh for gaming.

Ports and KVM

On the back: two HDMI 2.1, one DisplayPort 1.4, and two USB-C inputs. On the left: two USB-C and two USB-A at 10 Gb/s, and audio out. There’s a built-in KVM with a dedicated button, so a keyboard, mouse and storage connected to the display switch between two computers. A lot of people will like that.

The catch on a Mac

Resolution and scaling. Apple scales things so an icon is the same size on a 13-inch MacBook or a 32-inch Pro Display XDR. This display is 2560×1440. The 5K Studio Display is 5120×2880, double, but shows everything at the same 1440 size, so it’s much sharper. Coming from Retina displays all day, it’s hard to go back. Even the 4K Spectrum is sharper at a scaled 1440. Dough will sell a 32-inch 4K Black too, but at 32 inches that isn’t much sharper, in my opinion.

Verdict

A very nice display with lots of features, especially for gamers who can use the high refresh rate. For a regular person like me, over 60 Hz is nice and you can feel it, though I’m not sure I can feel above 120. For reading and office work, 27-inch 5K is better; 27-inch 1440p at 240 Hz will be killer for gaming.

Links

• Get it on Amazon
• Get it on Cool Gadget
• Spectrum Black with Gorilla Glass
• CalDigit TS4
• Twelve South laptop stand
• Vision Pro Is Not The Future Of Computing…Probably
• CalDigit is my dock partner
• https://www.threads.net/@jerryschulzeonyt
• My iPhone Art
• Grovemade Desk Mat and Knife (save 10% JERRY10)
• UNLIMITED Cloud Backup for your Mac with Backblaze