This year the two South Korean television manufacturers are going to step on the accelerator to the fullest. Of that there is no doubt. At CES we have been able to see in action many of the innovations that will be placed in stores in a few months, but there is a technology that will be forcefully reinforced: la OLED. And it is not at all a coincidence.
Samsung’s entry into the large-format organic panel manufacturing market has put an end to LG’s effective monopoly, but it is clear that the latter brand has not thrown in the towel. It had been many years since I introduced such ambitious news in its W-OLED matrices, and it has done so, there is no doubt about this, in response to the pressure that Samsung is exerting.
These are the improvements that the QD-OLED and W-OLED panels incorporate this year
Before going any further, it is worth making an important point: Samsung and LG are the protagonists of this article because they are the two producers of large-format organic panels that they share the market, but the other television manufacturers also prepare very attractive proposals. After all, they are going to incorporate the new OLED matrices developed by LG Display and Samsung Display into some of their screens by 2023.
In any case, what matters to users, beyond the trade war between brands, is to identify what improvements these new technologies are going to give us. And one of the most compelling is its ability to deliver shine.
LG’s new META panels equipped with MLA technology promise us up to 70% more light
LG’s new META panels equipped with MLA technology (Micro-Lens Array) promise up to 70% more light and 30% more viewing angles. In addition, they can deliver peak brightness of 2,100 nits (although, yes, in a very small portion of the panel) and are more efficient for the purpose of respect European regulations It will enter into force on March 1.
If we stick to the delivery of brightness, Samsung has also put all the meat on the grill. It seemed unlikely that this brand would profoundly renew its organic parent companies just one year after introducing them to the market, but it has. And it is that the QD-OLED panels with which we can get hold of this year will be able to touch, according to this brand, 2,000 nits. And, in addition, they promise us to reach this figure without degrading the color. In fact, this is the other great advantage of the new technologies from Samsung and LG: their ability to reproduce a wider color volume.
LG’s new W-OLED panels are going to touch 100% coverage of the DCI-P3 color space. Vincent Teoh, who is a reputed expert in display calibration, has adjusted and measured the MZ2000 TV (it has one of LG’s new matrices), which is Panasonic’s flagship model for 2023, and has confirmed both its brightness-delivery capability (1.500 nits in a window of 10% of the panel), as well as its colorimetry. And, on paper, the color reproduction of Samsung’s second-generation QD-OLED panels will be even better than LG’s METAs. We’ll check it out when both solutions hit the stores.
In addition to increasing their ability to deliver brightness and optimizing the way they reproduce color, TV manufacturers will refine picture processing algorithms to, among other things, reduce high-frequency noise and increase the level detail in shadow and highlight regions. But the most surprising thing is that they are going to do all this while consuming less.
The new OLED TVs will be less sensitive to the retention of static images on the panel
And it seems that the OLED televisions that both Samsung and LG will place in stores in 2023 will comply without a problem European regulations which enters into force on March 1 without sacrificing even minimally its benefits. And, as a tip, will be less sensitive to retention of static images, so this weak point of organic panels is becoming less relevant.
At CES we have had the opportunity to see some of the OLED televisions that Samsung and LG they will release in a few weeks. And yes, objectively they look very good. We trust that both these and those being prepared by brands such as Sony, Panasonic or Philips are up to the task.
Whatever happens, there is no doubt about one thing: the fierce competition between the two South Korean manufacturers of organic panels has forced them to get their act together, and this is going to cause OLED technology to take a step forward very important this year. We definitely win consumers.