Tuesday, August 8th 2023
Dough Announces New Spectrum Black Model Featuring a 4K 240Hz OLED Panel at 32-inch
Dough GmbH today announced a new monitor as part of their Spectrum Black lineup of flagship OLED gaming monitors. It is the first monitor in the market offering 4K at 240 Hz and will be available with Corning's Gorilla Glass, like the QHD Spectrum Black variant. Dough had started development of this model behind the scenes alongside the QHD variant but commented that they had not been able to share it publicly because of now-expired NDA's. They will be reusing components like the motherboard, which has been shared in their newly opened development subreddit r/doughcommunity. Thanks to these advancements in the development, they estimate the release in April 2024, but just as with their current projects, users will be able to follow the development with a live project timeline.
The Spectrum Black 4K will be a 32-inch OLED monitor with a 240 Hz refresh rate and 0.03 ms response time. Dough will offer both a matte and glass version, taking full advantage of the Gorilla Glass with DXC they are using for the QHD variant, which delivers best-in-class optical performance and industry-leading abrasion resistance. In fact, when compared to the glossy coating used in previous Spectrum monitors, ambient contrast ratio is increased by 40%, and reflections are reduced by 70%.
Dough has confirmed that they will be implementing Black Frame Insertion like on the other Spectrum Black variants, which enhances visual clarity for fast-moving objects and boosts performance in fast-paced games. This is done by inserting a black frame in between all lit frames. Effectively, the pixels in the panel go black a]er every full refresh, resulting in smoother perceived motion. The company is the first and only manufacturer to incorporate this technology in OLED gaming monitors so far and is expected to be the first to implement it with this panel.
As is expected from the Spectrum lineup, the Spectrum Black 32" model will feature a wide array of ports, including DisplayPort, HDMI, and USB C 100 W for the upstream connection, and USB C, USB A, and a 3.5 mm headphone jack for the USB hub.
Dough will start sales for this monitor using their usual pre-order model, with the lowest price being offered to the first backers, and slowly increasing as the final release date approaches. The matte model will start at $699 and the glass model at $799. Both prices will increase until they reach the final retail pricing of $1099 and $1299, respectively. Customers who wish to purchase can subscribe to Dough's mailing list to receive an exclusive invitation once orders open.
The monitor will be available at several retailers at launch, including the retailers that currently offer Dough's existing products, like Amazon (UK, Fr, It, De), Digitech Switzerland, and B&H, along with additional retailers Dough is in negotiations with.
The Spectrum Black 4K will be a 32-inch OLED monitor with a 240 Hz refresh rate and 0.03 ms response time. Dough will offer both a matte and glass version, taking full advantage of the Gorilla Glass with DXC they are using for the QHD variant, which delivers best-in-class optical performance and industry-leading abrasion resistance. In fact, when compared to the glossy coating used in previous Spectrum monitors, ambient contrast ratio is increased by 40%, and reflections are reduced by 70%.
Dough will start sales for this monitor using their usual pre-order model, with the lowest price being offered to the first backers, and slowly increasing as the final release date approaches. The matte model will start at $699 and the glass model at $799. Both prices will increase until they reach the final retail pricing of $1099 and $1299, respectively. Customers who wish to purchase can subscribe to Dough's mailing list to receive an exclusive invitation once orders open.
35 Comments on Dough Announces New Spectrum Black Model Featuring a 4K 240Hz OLED Panel at 32-inch
- Spectrum QHD/144, Announced 2019, Not shipping
- Spectrum QHD/240, Announced 2020, Not shipping
- Spectrum QHD/240 Glossy, Announced 2022, Not Shipping
- Spectrum 4K/144, Announced 2020, Shipped 18 months late
- Spectrum 4K/144 Glossy, Announced 2022, Shipped 12 months late
- Spectrum OLED, Announced 2022, Not Shipping
- Spectrum OLED Glossy, Announced 2022, Not Shipping
- Eve V (2021), Announced 2021, Not Shipping
Surely this OLED will release on-time and paying in full now won't be a free loan to a questionable Chinese brand for the next 2 years. Dough themselves reported last week that this panel wouldn't even be available until Q3 2024 and yet they're promising to ship months before this? This tactic has been used by them for product after product, just to tease people to ignore their preorders until juuuust outside of the normal bank chargeback window so they aren't required to refund customers who ask. Take their current OLED for example, people paid in full in December 2022 with a ship date of June 2023, in July 2023, they delayed shipments until (currently) October 2023. While yes they announced and took orders on a product before LG/Corsair/ASUS, all these other brands have announced, shipped, and now offer cheaper equivalent OLED/240Hz monitors while Dough is still baking away.Also their "warranty" is a sham, as you can see on their (relatively censored but now locked) community forum, multiple users have received a defective product with no solution after 8+ months except "have you tried turning it off and on again."
Also, tftcentral showed roadmaps this week, samsung and lg will also offer 32 inch oled 4k 240hz in 2024 and likely, that will be my next monitor.
As a pixel peeper myself, and after using DSC for 4 months, I can tell you DSC is flawless. No compression artifacts are visible, no matter how hard you try to find them.
Have you used it?
I have been owed my $100USD deposit since early 2022. More than a year has passed and still no way to get my money back. Contacting customer service will always result in ' we are processing the refund, however we are unable to confirm when it will be completed'
This monitor will have to use Display Stream Compression from the get go, both over HDMI and DP, to be able to display its full image 4K/240Hz 10-bit RGB image.Can do full RFB, but with DSC over HDMI. Lack of DP 2.1 port is a red flag on 4K 240Hz monitor. Nonsense.
Second of all, you can absolutely do 4K 240hz with 4:4:4 chroma over DisplayPort 1.4 or HDMI 2.1. This won't even be the first such monitor on the market. This is possible due to DSC, which is a visually lossless compression technique. And in my two years of using a monitor with DSC side-by-side with non-DSC monitors, I can tell you that I've never been able to tell the difference, even when I knew exactly what to look for.
32” on my relatively small desk (30x58) fits just fine including full sized bookshelf speakers, mic atm, keyboard, dac stack etc… not to mention you don’t need to mess with scaling, and can comfortably sit 30-36” away.
Agree to disagree, but microscopic icons and often times poor UI scaling across a multitude of professional software and games, has always made 27” 4K a poor choice for me.
Buy a meme product, get a meme experience.
Literally 2 things for me, Glossy & industrial monitor design.
I am repulsed by the so-called gamer aesthetics the likes of ROG monitors seem to love and flaunt.
I know earlier The Verge pointed out they were doing it to their brand without their permission and had their name removed presumably due to the history (and present) of how this company treats it's customers.
Step 1 - make a press release with grandiose statements
Step 2 - distribute that press release to be quoted by websites
Step 3 - use the websites quotes as an endorsement
Step 4 - Profit!
I guess we're due for another rebrand since the new one caught up with the scumminess of the original :D