What is QD-OLED and how will it change television?
Why You Can Trust Pocket-lintThis page was translated using AI and machine learning.
(Pocket-lint) - There are a huge number of panel technologies available on modern high-end TVs such as OLED, QLED, Micro LED and now, to make matters even more confusing, we have the advent QD-OLED TVs.
To muddy the waters even further, Samsung often calls the new panels "QD display", but everyone calls it QD-OLED, so we'll do that too.
This year we've seen some fantastic sets launched by all the major manufacturers, but you might be wondering if it's worth the wait to see what QD-OLED brings.
With that in mind, we set out to find out what this new technology is all about and how it stacks up against its competitors.
What is QD-OLED?
Simply put, QD-OLED takes elements of OLED technology and combines them with Quantum Dot panels with the aim of delivering the best of two worlds. The goal is to deliver high peak brightness with little to no light leakage, deep blacks and vivid colors.
The technology is developed by Samsung, which has always been a critic of OLED technologies in favor of QLED (Quantum Dot) displays. That's not too surprising as competing manufacturer, LG, is the only supplier of large OLED panels in the TV market.
OLED panels produce the deepest possible blacks because pixels can turn off individually, unlike a traditional LCD panel which works by shining a backlight (or many backlights) through a layer of pixels on top. The downside is that they can't achieve the same brightness levels as other panels and are also somewhat susceptible to image retention or burn-in.
QLED panels excel in color accuracy and are therefore often cited as the best choice for dynamic HDR content. They can be brighter than OLED panels and don't suffer from the same tendency to burn-in, but they can't achieve the same deep blacks, so overall contrast is reduced.
How does QD-OLED work?
In QD-OLED displays, an OLED panel is basically used as a backlight and emits blue light through red and green quantum dots. Quantum dots divide each OLED pixel into three sub-pixels - red, green and blue. These can be combined to create pure white light or used in other combinations to achieve millions of colors.
Unlike traditional LCD filtering, almost no light energy is lost during color transformation via quantum dots. This means that QD-OLEDs should be able to appear brighter than current OLEDs while maintaining black levels.
Samsung says its 4K QD-OLED TVs will have around 8.3 million individually controllable light sources, which would enable a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio and, in turn, better HDR performance.
Samsung believes that QD-OLED will deliver one of the widest color representations of its current high-end displays. The brand expects over 80% color volume with a brightness range of between 0.0005 nits black and 1000 nits peak white.
When can I buy a QD-OLED TV?
At CES 2022, Sony was the first to reveal details about its upcoming QD-OLED panel. The new flagship Bravia XR A95K will be available in 55 or 65-inch options, both in 4K resolution. Although no price or final release date was given, the TVs will launch in 2022.
Alienware has unveiled the world's first QD-OLED gaming monitor, in the form of a giant 34-inch 175Hz curved monitor. Its launch is scheduled for March 29, 2022.
Samsung was expected to cause a stir with its QD-OLED at the show. Instead, Samsung opted for a somewhat quiet launch, and the largely unannounced panel received a CES Innovation Award ahead of the conference.
The price list tells us that Samsung's QD-Display TV "combines a revolutionary new QD-OLED display with Samsung's beautiful Infinity One design and immersive object-tracking technology. It's built with our Neo processor Quantum 2022 for superior image quality, while boasting a 144Hz refresh rate and four HDMI 2.1 inputs.
How much will QD-OLED TVs cost?
Nobody knows for sure, but given the integration of already expensive OLED technology, we don't think it will be cheap.
The best guess at the moment is that the new QD-OLED displays will fall between Samsung's current QLED offerings and the brand's bank account destroying MicroLED offerings.
Written by Luke Baker.
