Google

Google announced five new devices, all powered by AMOLED displays. We'll start with the Pixel 9 smartphone series, with the plain Pixel 9 offers a 6.3" 120Hz 2,700 nits (peak) 1080x2424 AMOLED display, a Google Tensor G4 chipset, 12GB of RAM and 256 GB of storage. The Pixel 9 Pro offers a 6.3" 3,000 nits (peak) 120Hz 1280x2856 LTPO AMOLED, and up to 16 GB of RAM and 1 TB of storage. The Pixel 9 Pro XL offers a similar but larger display - 6.8" 1344x2992 LTPO AMOLED.

Google's Pixel 9 Pro Fold smartphone is based on a 8" 120Hz 2,700 nits (peak) 2076x2152 foldable LTPO AMOLED display, and an external 6.3" 120Hz 1080x2424 AMOLED. The Pixel 9 Pro Fold is powered by a Google Tensor G4 chipset, and offers up to 16GB of RAM and up to 512GB of storage.

DSCC estimates that foldable smartphone shipments reached 7 million units in Q3 2023, up 16% from last year and 215% from last quarter, as Samsung successfully launched the ` and Z Fold 5 phones, and other smartphone brands from China also ramped up their foldable smartphone sales.

Samsung's market share in the smartphone market was 72%, followed by Huawei (9%) and Honor (8%). DSCC expects foldable smartphone sales to fall 35% in the next quarter (but rise 47% compared to last year) on lower Samsung shipments and delays in new product announcements. In 2023, DSCC sees foldable smartphone shipments to reach 15.8 million units in total.

According to a new report by The Elec, Samsung displays for Apple's upcoming iPhone 15 phone series will use the same material stack (M12) that were used in the iPhone 14. The M12 was used in the upper-range iPhones 14 series, but this year in the iPhone 15 series, all four models will use the same material stack.

The Elec also says that Samsung's next foldable phones will also use the same M12 stack, used in the previous generation foldables (Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Galaxy Z Flip 4).

DSSC says that more smartphone makers will join the foldable phone market in 2023, with 37 new models introduced (up from 19 in 2022) - including new models from Google and OnePlus. DSSC says at least 16 new clamshell phones will be released, at least 20 in-folding type and one new out-folding device.

Looking at foldable smartphone shipments, DSSC says that the market will grow 45% to reach 18.6 million units, as performance increases and price decreases.

The COVID-19 pandemic created an increased demand for high quality IT solutions, including monitors and collaborative tools, which prompted OLED display makers to start offering solutions for this market for applications like computer monitors, signage and more.

OLED displays that are 20-inch or more suffer from incompatibility with standard capacitive touch, because the thin OLED panel results in large parasitic capacitive coupling with the touch surface. The dynamic driving of OLEDs (where only lit pixels draw current) further reduces the capacitive touch performance by introducing unpredictable “display pattern noise”. These issues are easily mitigated in small area displays, but as OLEDs increase in size, the performance and costs of capacitive solutions suffer.

Korea's The Elec says that it has learned that Samsung display is developing in-folding OLED displays for Google, Xiaomi and Oppo.

Xiaomi, who has in the past shown prototypes that use Visionox out-folding displays, is now aiming to adopt an SDC in-folding display - 8.03" in size. The Elec says that the same phone will use a large 6.38-inch external display, which will be produced by both SDC CSoT.

Update: Google has removed the P-OLED brand name from their web site - this could have been a mistake, and now we do not know whether these are LGD's displays or not.

Google announced its fourth-generation Android smartphone, the Google Pixel 4, that features a 90Hz 5.7" 1080x2280 (444 PPI) OLED. The Pixel 4 XL features a larger 90Hz 6.3" 1440x3040 (537 PPI) AMOLED display.

Display measurement experts DisplayMate reviewed the display and found that it is a state-of-the-art flexible OLED display that sets or matches several records, including the highest absolute color accuracy, the lowest screen reflectance and the smallest brightness variation with viewing angle.

Korea's ETNews reports that Samsung has shipped foldable OLED display samples to both Apple And Google. According to the report, the displays sent to Apple were 7.2" in size (just slightly smaller than the Galaxy Fold OLED display).

This is hardly a surprise - it's highly likely that all smartphone brands are now looking into foldable displays for next generation devices - and all leading brands are also likely to want to design prototypes and start looking at displays.

Google's 2017 Pixel 2 XL was one of the first phones to adopt LG Display's pOLEDs (6" 1440x2880) - and initial reviews of the display were rather dismal - as both reviewers and customers complained about bad color reproduction, graininess and problematic viewing angles. Many users also reported serious image retention issues.

In 2017, Google used Samsung's Super AMOLED displays in the smaller in 2017. This year, for the 2018 Google Pixel 3, Google chose SDC's 6.3" 1440x2960 Super AMOLED for the larger Pixel 3 XL - with proved to be a top-notch display. For the smaller Pixel 3, Google picked LG Display's 5.5" 1080x2160 - probably hoping that LGD managed to improve its displays - and most importantly its quality controls.