Samsung's QD Display tech aims to unlock brighter, more colorful OLED TVs
Sony is using the panels in its upcoming A95K sets.
Samsung is best known for its QLED TVs, but at CES 2022 it's finally debuting QD-OLED, it's attempt to take on OLED TVs from LG. The tech is different from your standard OLED in that it only uses blue organic light-emitting diodes. Those diodes then shine the light they produce through a series of quantum dots, allowing the panel to produce the full spectrum of color visible to the human eye.
The approach has multiple advantages. The most notable, particularly compared to current OLED displays, is that the panel can get a lot brighter. In a demo FlatspanelsHD saw at CES, one display produced more than 1,000 nits of peak brightness across a 10 percent window. For comparison, some of the more recent TVs from LG can produce between 700 nits and 1,000 nits of brightness across the same area. Brightness is something LG has consistently tried to address with its WOLD panels. In December, the company’s display subsidiary unveiled its “OLED EX” tech, claiming it would enhance brightness by up to 30 percent compared to conventional OLED displays.
Another advantage of the technology is better color performance. The panels Samsung Display showed off at CES 2022 covered 90 percent of the Rec. 2020 color gamut. LG’s WOLED panels, which people consistently praise for their accurate and vibrant colors, hit about 70 percent of the Rec. 2020 standard. Lastly, viewing angles are improved, so you won't lose colors when when you're viewing QD-OLED screens from extreme angles. In addition to TVs, the technology will make its way to gaming monitors, with Samsung and Dell planning to use the tech in 34-inch displays.
We’ll have to see how the panels perform in the real world. But on paper, QD-OLED could easily become the new standard for high-end consumer TVs. One of the first companies set to release a TV with a QD-OLED panel is Sony with its A95K sets. Unfortunately, Sony has yet to announce how much those TVs will cost, and we won’t know until closer to release sometime this spring.
