Samsung Display has vowed to make its QD-OLED displays bigger and brighter this year as it attempts to challenge LG Display in the premium TV and monitor markets. The company, a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics, said in an announcement on the eve of CES 2023 that it’s launching additional QD-OLED panel sizes this year, and that they will also be much brighter, capable of reaching 2,000 nits.
The company actually revealed its 77-inch QD-OLED panel last September, but at the time of that announcement it made no mention of its improved peak brightness capabilities. Although the larger panel is now available, we don’t know yet which companies will launch a 77-inch QD-OLED TV, though both Samsung and Sony are good candidates to do so.
In addition, Samsung Display also confirmed the launch of a new 49-inch QD-OLED panel for monitors. The announcement means we can expect to see QD-OLED monitors in both 34-inch and 49-inch sizes this year, and TVs in 55-inch, 65-inch and 77-inch varieties.
With regards to the increased brightness of its QD-OLED displays, Samsung Display said it has applied a new OLED HyperEfficient EL material to the panels that is able to increase the luster of each RGB pixel. Apparently, this new technology is applied to the blue emitting layer in the QD-OLED panels, and ensures that RGB light that passes through the Quantum Dot colour conversion layer is much brighter than before, with more accurately defined colours to boot.
As such, Samsung Display claims a peak brightness of 2,000 nits, though it did not specify at which colour temperature this can be achieved. Last year’s QD-OLED panels were said to be able to achieve 1,500 nits peak brightness, but in the real world its TVs and monitors didn’t quite reach those heights.
It’s an important step for Samsung anyway because just yesterday, its main rival LG Display announced a new generation White OLED display panel that employs Micro Lens Array technology to increase the brightness of its high-end OLED TVs to 2,000 nits. LG said its G3 and Z3 OLED TVs will be the first to employ this new technology. Samsung’s improved QD-OLED panels therefore set the stage for a battle among the two display makers to claim the brightest OLED TV in the industry.
Samsung Display’s QD-OLED may also gain an edge in terms of power consumption. In a statement, the company said its 2023 QD-OLED displays will consume 25% less energy than its first generation panels due to the application of “high-efficiency organic materials and more advanced AI technology”.
CES 2023 kicks off tomorrow, so we can expect to see the first TVs and monitors with the second generation of QD-OLED launch in the coming days.
