Contrast & Black Level Test

Each square in the grid is numbered and set to a slightly higher brightness than the last, starting from pure black. In a dark room, count how many of the lowest-numbered squares you can actually distinguish from black — that's a rough measure of your display's black-level performance.

Room Lighting Matters

Ambient light and screen glare wash out near-black detail before the panel itself is the limiting factor. Dim the room and go fullscreen for a meaningful result.

OLED vs. LCD Black Levels

OLED panels can turn pixels fully off, so they typically resolve every step in this test. LCD/IPS panels rely on a backlight that never fully switches off, so the lowest steps often blend together.

Why It Matters

Distinguishing near-black tones is what lets you see detail in dark movie scenes and shadowy game environments, rather than a flat black blob.

Brightness & Gamma Settings

If every step looks identical even in a dark room, check your monitor's brightness and black-level (gamma) settings before assuming it's a hardware limitation.

FAQ

It varies by panel, but a good display should let you distinguish most or all of the near-black steps in a dark room. Struggling to see the first few steps often points to a lower contrast ratio or aggressive black crush.
It's when a display maps multiple very-dark shades to the same pure black, losing shadow detail. If several of the lightest steps in this test look identical, your screen may be crushing blacks.
Significantly — test in as dark a room as possible. Ambient light reflecting off the screen makes near-black steps much harder to distinguish, regardless of the display's actual contrast ratio.
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