Unless you’re willing to spend over a grand on an OLED gaming monitor, this is almost as good as it gets in terms of affordable image quality. And with the Dough Spectrum One now starting at just $400, you’re getting a whole lot of 4K panel tech for your money. That’s the matte version, however, which is a nice high refresh rate 4K display though it’s not the zingy, high contrast goodness of the glossy version of the Dough screen.
With a recent price cut, ostensibly coinciding with the release of its first OLED, the Spectrum Black, the original Spectrum One panels have had a serious pricing haircut. My pick of the bunch, and one that still has pride of place on my own PC desk, is the Spectrum One Glossy for just $500 from Amazon, and that’s a $200 price cut on a screen that has already had a price cut from its original launch.
It’s a full LG IPS panel, runs its 3840 x 2160 display at 144 Hz and is rated as FreeSync Pro and G-Sync Compatible, too. I’ve also come to grips with its HDR experience, too. For a long time I’ve been resistant to its high dynamic range charms, mostly because of the muted experience on SDR content and the Windows desktop. But now I’ve learned the most powerful Windows shortcut in gaming, I’m actually taking advantage of its DisplayHDR 600 rating and the peak 750 nits luminance it can actually achieve.
And it made Cyberpunk 2077 Phantom Liberty an even more gorgeous experience than on a standard screen.
The most important thing, however, is that the Dough Spectrum One is on sale at both Amazon and B&H Photo at this price. That means you no longer have to go direct to Dough itself. And that’s important because the news which has always trumped its excellent displays is the furore around the unfulfilled pre-orders and generally poor customer service its direct sales activity is known for.
This is one occasion where you absolutely do not want to be cutting out the middleman. I’d be happy to pick up the Spectrum One at either Amazon or B&H Photo, less happy about going direct having spoken to people who had to fight to either get their screens or their money back.
That’s a real shame, because I’m a huge fan of this glossy display, and it’s what’s kept me from wanting an OLED for my home desktop setup. Nothing I’ve seen from either LG or Samsung’s OLED foundries can touch the clarity, full screen brightness, and colours of this 4K display. Until the $1,000+ 4K OLEDs arrive in the labs anyways.
It is worth noting, however, that Dough sells screen and monitor stand separately, so you will have to add another $100 on to the price of the panel itself. The idea was initially part of the crowd-sourced origins of the display, where the community requested the option for the screen to ship without a stand for those using VESA standard monitor arms who didn’t want to pay for something they wouldn’t use.
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