LG Display is said to be working on implementing a technology called “micro lenses” that could potentially improve the brightness of OLED TV displays by up to 20%.
The report from Korean news outlet The Elec said micro lenses offer a way to improve the efficiency of displays so they can increase their brightness output without consuming additional power. That’s important because if a display consumes too much energy, it can have a negative impact on its overall lifetime. LG Display is believed to be testing their implementation now, and hopes to be able to increase the brightness of its OLED displays to around 1,200 nits without impacting the life expectancy of the display.
Micro lenses are not a new technology. They have previously been implemented in projectors and LED displays, and also in some smaller OLED displays used in smartphones, such as Samsung’s new Galaxy S21 Ultra. Micro lenses work by redirecting light in the direction in it needs to go, which is towards whoever is viewing the screen.
LG Displays newest OLED displays, termed “OLED.EX”, have already delivered a claimed 30% boost in luminance over its standard models. So if micro lenses can add another 20% boost, that would mean we could see OLED displays that are 50% brighter than the standard displays. Given that LG Display’s original large OLED panels deliver a peak brightness of 800 nits, OLED.EX should up this to 1,000 nits. Throw in the micro lenses and we could soon see displays with up to 1,200 nits brightness.
The big question of course is whether or not LG Display can actually implement micro lenses successfully. The Elec says that not only does it believe it can do so, but also immediately implement the technology. Meaning that we could see LG’s 2022 TVs benefit from this improvement. That would seem a bit rushed though, and there’s no guarantee that LG Display can actually get micro lenses to work properly with the claimed performance boost, so a more likely scenario would be that we’ll see the improved, brighter displays appear in force next year.
As to why LG Display is doing this, it seems to be a counter to Samsung Display’s new QD-OLED displays which are much brighter than its own RGB-OLED technology. QD-OLED displays currently boast a peak brightness of 1,500 nits and the company may also be able to implement its own improvements.
There are of course many people who argue that brightness shouldn’t be a primary concern for most TV buyers anyway, but if LG Display can indeed deliver a boost, it’s doubtful we’ll see too many complaints about it.
