Yes, OLED gaming monitors can work great in sunny rooms. Here’s what to look for
It seems ungrateful to complain about the warm, bright ambiance of a sunny summer day, but here we are. That life-giving glow is nice and all, but we’re trying to game over here. These deliveries aren’t going to walk themselves across the Australian outback. The trouble is that display technologies and sunlight don’t always play well together. High levels of ambient light can overwhelm a display, diminishing the color saturation and contrast that you perceive.
Now, this might not be a factor for you when you’re shopping for a gaming monitor. Maybe you only fire up your gaming PC in the evening hours when sunlight isn’t streaming into your gaming den, or perhaps that room doesn’t have big windows. But plenty of people need a gaming monitor that’s ready for action at any time of the day or night.
The good news is that you’re not without weapons in this war against the sun, and you have options other than hiding behind blackout curtains. With a monitor that offers sufficiently high full-screen brightness and a display coating that’s designed to perform in bright environments, you’ll be able to game (and work) in comfort at any time of the day.
Why sunny rooms change your perception of your display
Two factors come into play when we’re talking about display performance in rooms bathed in sunlight. The first is brightness. Your perception of a screen’s brightness can change quite drastically depending on the surrounding environment. You may have encountered this with your smartphone if you’ve ever maxed out its brightness level for readability out in your sunny backyard, only to get blinded later when you turned it on to browse TikTok in bed.
The same patterns hold true with computer displays, too. To use your PC comfortably in a bright, sunny home office, you’ll need a display capable of holding its own by cranking up the nits. Traditional LCD displays, armed with a dedicated backlight, can offer standout brightness levels. It’s not hard to find 300-nit or 400-nit models. Some, like the ROG Swift PG32UQXR, go all-out with a big array of local dimming mini-LEDs for up to 1000 nits of peak brightness.
While OLED panels offer many advantages over last-gen LCD tech, they’re not always equipped for comparable full-screen brightness levels. But not all OLED panel types are equal in this regard. If you’re looking for an OLED gaming monitor that will see use in a sunny room, you might be best served with a monitor that uses a third-generation WOLED panel, which uses MLA+ tech to achieve excellent levels of brightness.
Reflecting on reflections
But it’s not just overall brightness that matters when it comes to comfortable screen viewing in a well-lit environment. Reflections matter, too. With sunlight bouncing off every moderately reflective surface in your room, your screen can easily get cluttered up with reflections galore. Cranking up the brightness can help compensate, but so can your display coating.
Display coatings fall into two primary categories: matte and glossy. Matte coatings (and, to a certain extent, semi-glossy coatings) are formulated to help diffuse reflections to maintain color accuracy and reduce distractions. But while they’re great at reflection handling, they tend to offer muted color vibrancy and contrast in sunny spaces. Blacks can end up with an off-putting purplish tint. Glossy coatings, on the other hand, maintain inkier black levels and more saturated colors even with the sunrise streaming through your window, but reflections tend to show up bright and clear.
TrueBlack Glossy comes to the rescue
At this point you might be feeling discouraged about your ambitions to have a gaming monitor that works great in well-lit environments. You might feel like you’re stuck picking between last-gen display tech, diminished color performance, or poor reflection handling. But the year is 2025, and you’re not stuck with the compromises of the past. The latest ROG Strix OLED gaming monitors feature a panel and display coating combination ready to give you the experience you’re looking for at any time of the day or night.
One half of the equation is a third-gen WOLED panel with MLA+ tech. The other half is our new TrueBlack Glossy coating. This coating pairs a zero-haze optical layer with an advanced anti-reflective stack. The zero-haze layer keeps black hues intact in any lighting, allowing the monitor to deliver deep blacks even in bright environments. Even compared to standard glossy coatings, you’ll get inkier blacks with TrueBlack Glossy in well-lit environments.
The TrueBlack Glossy coating even excels when it comes to dealing with reflections. The anti-reflective layer results in a 38% drop in ambient reflections compared to previous-gen glossy WOLED panels, making it easier to get distraction-free gaming in rooms with multiple light sources. It’s like TrueBlack Glossy gives you the best of both worlds: a measure of the reflection handling that you love from matte alongside the color performance you love from glossy.
Get the display experience you’re looking for at any time of day
No two gamers are exactly the same. For you, this whole question about color performance and reflections in well-lit environments might be purely academic. The particulars of your gaming den and gaming schedule might make this whole discussion moot, leading you to prioritize other specs as you select a gaming monitor.
But many gamers need their display to be ready for action even when the sun is shining. Perhaps you’ve been waiting to invest in your first OLED gaming monitor, looking for a model that’s primed to perform when the lights are brightest. Your wait is over. The latest ROG Strix OLED gaming monitors equipped with a WOLED panel and our new TrueBlack Glossy coating bring the vibrant colors and signature contrast of OLED technology even into rooms with high ambient light levels, giving you premium display treatment throughout the day.
Right now, we’ve announced six options for you. The ROG Swift OLED PG27AQWP-W and ROG Strix OLED XG27AQWMG bring together the TrueBlack Glossy coating and all-new Tandem WOLED technology for a next-level gaming experience. The ROG Strix XG27AQDMG Gen 2 brings the TrueBlack Glossy WOLED treatment into the 27-inch monitor space, giving you an exceptional balance of specs with its 1440p resolution, 240Hz refresh rate, and 0.03 ms (GTG) response time. While it’s still in stock, you’ll be able to select the OG version of the ROG Strix OLED XG27AQDMG, too. Prefer something a little larger? Soon, you’ll be able to grab the ROG Strix OLED XG32UCWG or ROG Strix OLED XG32UCWMG. Sporting 4K resolutions, dual-mode technology, Aspect Ratio Control, and more, these are perfect picks for gamers who like to live large.
These ROG OLED gaming monitors are just a selection of the many, many new items we have coming your way. Check out the full lineup of gear we announced at Gamescom 2025 to see all the ways we’re preparing your ROG battlestation for the future. Also connect with us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Discord, YouTube, and Twitch to keep up with all our latest announcements.
For more information on pricing and availability for all these products in your region, please contact your local ROG representative.
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