Personally, I'm a dots guy and am planning to upgrade to the LED displays. Luckily, I hadn't converted my whole collection yet and only have three of the LCD displays (1x Stern, 2x WPC). Anyone who loves hi-res want to buy them?

I just received and installed an LED display in my MM. I was expecting to be so blown away that I would immediately sell all my old LCD displays and upgrade every game to LED. But I'm honestly not sure which one I like better between the two. For comparison purposes, I have an MM and MB right next to each other. LED is in the MM, LCD is in the MB.

LED:

Pros:
+ Brightness is amazing, just *glows* and makes you want to walk up to it in a row of games
+ The colors are vibrant and really "pop"
+ Off angle viewing is fantastic- no discernible brightness falloff.
+ New black frame is great, looks totally factory from any angle
+ Much cleaner installation

Cons:
- LED points are tiny and "piercing", leaving to a more quantized image than on the LCD (even with normal dots). Miles of dark space between the light points
- It's a bit harsh to look at even with the brightness turned down.
- The sub-pixel color separation (e.g. purple is visible as blue + red points since there's no diffusion) really annoys me.
- I can absolutely see the column ghosting, even from playing distance. I realize we were warned, but it still bugs me.
- Contrast in a lit room isn't great, since the LEDs are white when off.

LCD:

Pros:
+ DotsXL looks *great* the way it fills in the image
+ Colors are smooth and even. The entire "dot" is the same color.
+ For those that like the hi-res modes, this is the only way to get them.

Cons:
- Brightness *sucks* compared to the LED. It just looks drab and uninviting in the lineup by comparison.
- No real "black" in a dark room, even with the brightness turned down all the way.
- Metal frame + light bleed is visible from off-angle. I've attempted to mask this with black felt, but it's not perfect.
- Mounting concerns for games where it matters.

Overall, the LCD solutions looks very "clean" and "modern". The LED feels more "vintage" to me and as such perfectly at home with the late WPC games.

Honestly, I wouldn't mix and match. In a lineup with both- I expect almost everyone would walk up to the LED game first. It just pops with life. In addition to the overall brightness, the superior off-angle performance is a big part of this.

I'm still on the fence if I'm going to upgrade every game to LED. I'm not in any hurry, so I'm hopeful for a version 2.0 in a year or two that addresses the ghosting as well as possibly with individually diffused LEDs to improve the sub-pixel color blending issue.

I absolutely agree with the statements that it's impossible to photograph these accurately. If anyone in the San Jose, CA area wants to stop by and see them yourself side-by-side, let me know.

I've been experimenting with a number of different films. I finally found one I like, and just ordered enough to do several displays. I'll report back with photos once I have it installed.

From my testing with the samples, the one I've settled on does a nice job of increasing the contrast. The off pixels now look really black, which helps the brain do a better job of filling in the blanks. It does cut the brightness a fair bit, so I ratcheted it up to 9 to compensate. It really "takes the edge off" so the LEDs aren't quite as piercing. They're still bright and the colors are great (except white becomes a bit more grey). It also completely hides the ghosting.

Unfortunately, it does make the subpixel separation a bit worse since it's cutting the brightness enough that they don't blur together as much. I experimented with a few frosted films, and while they did help the subpixels fade together, they just made everything look blurry (like looking through a dirty window).