4K OLED: introduction and market status

What is an OLED?

OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) is an emerging display technology that enables displays that offer better image quality and are thinner and more efficient than current LED and LCD displays. OLED TVs deliver the best picture quality ever, and in the future will also become flexible, rollable and transparent.

What is a 4K OLED TV?

A 4K OLED TV (also called UHD OLED TV) is an OLED TV that features a resolution of 3840x2160 pixels. While especially useful for large TV panels, 4K has gained in popularity and is now being offered on all premium TVs.

OLED is still a relatively premium technology - and all OLED TVs released from 2016 forward support 4K resolution. The entire LG's 2018 OLED TV lineup support 4K resolution - the flagship Wallpaper OLEDW8 (which attaches to the wall using magnets), the high-end OLED-on-glass OLEDG8 and OLEDE8, the basic OLEDC8 and the entry level OLEDB8.

LG Display is the only OLED panel producer, but it ships its panel to over a dozen TV makers, not just LG Electronics. All of these TVs also support 4K resolution - including the ones from Sony, Panasonic, Philips, Skyworth and more.

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The latest 4K OLED news:

Icelandair first to install Panasonic's latest 4K OLED Astrova inflight entertainment monitors

Panasonic Avionics announced that it shipped its first batch of the latest Astrova 4K OLED inflight entertainment monitors. These monitors will be installed on Icelandair's forthcoming new fleet of leased Airbus A321neo LR aircraft (due in Q4 2024).

Icelandair will install 16" panels in its business class seats and 13" panels in economy. The new Astrova 4K OLED monitors offer HDR10+, high-fidelity multi-channel audio, USC-C 100W fast charging ports, and an external processing unit that can be placed in the seat box for easier installation.

Read the full story Posted: Mar 18,2024

SDC upgrades its QD-OLED line, starts producing 31.5" 4K panels

Samsung Display announced that it is beginning to produce a new 31.5" 4K QD-OLED. This is SDC's highest density QD-OLED display, at 140 PPI. The company recently upgraded its QD inkjet printing deposition system to support this higher resolution. It will also enable SDC to produce 8K 65" QD-OLED displays (that will also be 140 PPI). 

Samsung Display also announced that next year it will start producing 27" QHD QD-OLED monitor panels that will support a 360Hz refresh rate, targeting the gaming monitor market. 

Read the full story Posted: Dec 13,2023

Apple aims to adopt lower-cost OLED microdisplays at future Vision Pro products, in talks with BOE and Seeya

Apple first VR headset, the Apple Vision Pro, adopts dual 1.3" 4K OLED microdisplays made by Sony. According to reports, Apple is looking to replace Sony as its supplier and is testing displays made by Seeya and BOE. Apple seems to be aiming to adopt these in its next-gen Vision Pro model - and also in a future low-cost mixed-reality headset.

Apple Vision Pro

Sony officially launched its 1.3" 4K OLED displays last week, with an official price of $1,000 per unit. Some reports suggest that Apple is paying $350 per display - which is still very expensive, as the two OLED displays cost almost half of the total production cost of the Vision Pro (estimated at $1,500).

Read the full story Posted: Aug 30,2023

Sony officially launches its 1.3 4K OLED microdisplay product

Back in 2021, Sony unveiled a 4K OLED microdisplay prototype. In June Apple announced the Vision Pro headset, which uses two Sony-made 1.3" 4K (3,552 × 3,840) OLED microdisplay, made by Sony. And today Sony finally officially introduced its ECX344A display, targeting VR and AR devices.

Sony says that in order to develop the new display it developed new miniaturization processes as well as a new pixel drive circuits and a high-speed driver circuit. Sony says that the display will ship by the end of 2023 and its price is set at 150,000 Yen, or just over $1,000 USD (it is estimated that Apple pays around $350 for each panel).

Read the full story Posted: Aug 24,2023

LG Display demonstrated its 30" and 77" transparent OLED displays for the first time

LG Display is demonstrating its new 30" and 77" transparent OLED displays for the first time, at the company's booth at K-Display 2023, in Seoul, Korea.

Credit: LG Display

The new 30" transparent OLED offers HD resolution, while the 77" panel offers 4K resolution. All of LG's latest transparent OLED displays offer 45% transparency. LG showed its entire range of T-OLED displays in a coffee shop setting, in partnership with Starbucks.

Read the full story Posted: Aug 18,2023

Samsung officially launches its first OLED TV based on LG's 83" 4K WOLED panels

Samsung officially launched the 83S90C, the company's first TV to use LG's WOLED panels. It uses a 4K 120K 83" OLED display, and is powered by Samsung's AI-powered Neural Quantum Processor. The S83S90C will start shipping in a few days in the US, with a suggested price of $5,400.  

Samsung 83S90C

Interestingly, Samsung decided to have its first WOLED TV sit in the same range as its QD-OLED TVs, the S90C, which includes 55-, 65- and 77-inch QD-OLED TV panels. It's likely the company will try to blur the differences between the QD-OLED and the WOLED panels, and not discuss too much its reliance on LG Display's supply.

Read the full story Posted: Jul 12,2023

United Airlines to install 4K OLED passenger seats displays at its new aircraft

United Airlines has ordered Panasonic Avionics' Astrova aircraft internal entertainment platform to be installed at United's new Airbus A321XLR and Boeing 787, starting in 2025. 

Panasonic's Astrova platform is based on 4K OLED displays. United did not specify which OLED sizes will be used, but we know that Panasonic offers 13-, 16- and 22-inch options for regular (economy) passenger seats (while it offers 19-, 22-, 27-, 32- and 42-inch for business-class seats, these displays were just announced a few days ago).

Read the full story Posted: Jun 11,2023

Panasonic Avionics adds larger 4K OLED options to its Astrova aircraft internal entertainment platform

In 2022 Panasonic Avionics launched its Astrova aircraft internal entertainment platform that is based on 13-, 16- and 22-inch 4K OLED screens. The company is now adding larger OLED screens to the Astrova lineup.

The new OLED displays, aimed for business-class and first-class cabins, will be available in five sizes 19, 22, 27, 32, and 42 inches. Beyond the increased performance, Astova also offers significant weight savings compared to other seat-end architectures.

Read the full story Posted: Jun 07,2023

TCL CSoT shows new foldable and rollable inkjet-printed OLED prototypes

TCL CSoT had several interesting new OLED demonstrations at SID DisplayWeek 2023, all of which were produced by inkjet printing, which shows the company's commitment to the new production process.

First up is the company latest inkjet-printed panel, this time CSoT showed a 8K (7680 × 4320) 65" TV panel that is foldable (with a bending radius of 25 mm). The panel offers a peak brightness of 800 nits, a response time of under 1 ms and a refresh rate of 120Hz.

Read the full story Posted: May 31,2023

BOE developed a 1.3" 4K OLED microdisplay, hopes to supply it to Apple's future VR HMDs

During DisplayWeek 2023, BOE demonstrated a new OLED microdisplay. The panel is 1.3" in size, and it offers a 3552x3840 resolution (4031 PPI), a refresh rate of 90Hz, and a color gamut of 90% DCI-P3.

This is BOE's largest and highest-resolution OLED microdisplay to date. BOE's current OLED microdisplays, already in production, include a 0.39", 0.49" and 0.71" FHD panels (all of which are available on the OLED marketplace, by the way).

Read the full story Posted: May 30,2023