OLED technology enables the world's best displays, and as OLEDs can be made flexible, light, thin and highly efficient, these displays are especially useful in mobile devices such as wearables, smartphones and tablets.
AMOLED displays are already very popular in smartphones - in fact OLEDs are being adopted by high-end smartphones from all leading producers, including Samsung, Apple, LG, Xiaomi, Huawei and others.
OLED displays traditionally found it more difficult to penetrate the tablet market. Larger displays are more expensive to produce and with the tablet market is smaller and of less interest to display markets, OLED producers did not focus on this market in the past - we're all waiting for an iPad air with an OLED display, or a Huawei tablet, or any android tablet for that matter with an OLED display.
Samsung, as the leading producer of mobile AMOLED displays, does use OLED displays in its high-end tablets. Samsung's newest tablet, the Galaxy Tab S4, for example, introduced in August 2018, sports a 10.5" 2560x1600 Super AMOLED display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Octa-core chipset, 4GB of RAM, 64/256 GB of storage and a microSD slot. The Tab S4 includes Samsung's S Pen and supports DeX. The Galaxy Tab S4 is now shipping for $649.99 for the Wi-Fi, 64GB model (note: affiliate link to Amazon) and $750 for the LTE, 256 GB model.
In the past we have also seen some companies introduce hybrid tablet/notebook devices - for example the Lenovo OLED tablet notebook hybrid in 2017 and the HP OLED tablet/hybrid Spectre X360 in 2016. In early 2019, China-based ALLDOCUBE introduced an interesting tablet, the ALLDOCUBE X with a high-end 10.5" 2560x1600 Super AMOLED display.
Towards the end of 2018 we have witnessed the emergence of a new class of display, foldable OLEDs. It is expected that in 2019 we will see the first wave of foldable devices, which could have interesting effects on the tablet market.
For example both Samsung and others demonstrated (in the case of Royole, also an early launch) foldable smartphones that open-up to a tablet-like device. These mobile hybrid phone/tablet devices could shake up the tablet market. While prices initially will be very high and production volume low, it is likely that only very high premium devices will appear and shipments will be limited. But in a few years it may be possible that the traditional tablet market will shrink as people will be able to combine their smartphones with their tablets in one sleek device.
Samsung's Galaxy Tab S5e is a light and thin tablet - it is Samsung's thinnest tablet yet at 5.5 mm. The tablet features a 10.5" WQXGA (2560x1600) Super AMOLED display with a 81.8% screen-to-body ratio.
Samsung's Tab S53 offers mid-range performance with a snapdragon 670 octa-core chipset, 4/6 GB of RA and 64/128 GB of storage (with a microSD slot). The 7,040 mAh battery provides up to 14.5 hours.
Samsung's Galaxy Tab S4 is the company's 2018 flagship tablet - with a 10.5" 2560x1600 Super AMOLED display, a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 Octa-core chipset, 4GB of RAM, 64/256 GB of storage and a microSD slot. The Tab S4 includes Samsung's S Pen and supports DeX.
The Galaxy Tab S4 is now shipping for $649.99 for the Wi-Fi, 64GB model (note: affiliate link to Amazon) and $750 for the LTE, 256 GB model.
Huawei's first foldable smartphone, the Mate X, sport a 8" 2200x2480 foldable AMOLED display that folds outwards. When closed, the phone operates as it has two displays - a 6.6" 1148x2480 on the front and a smaller 6.38" 2480x892 display on the back (which makes room for the cameras).
The Mate X specifications include 5G connectivity, a Kirin 980 octa-core chipset, 8 GB of RAM, 512 GB of storage, a NM memory slot and a quad camera setup with Leica optics.
Huawei will start shipping the Mate X sometimes in Q2 2019. The price will be around $2,600.
The ALLDOCUBE X is a high-end tablet designed for movies and music that features a 10.5" 2560x1600 Super AMOLED display. The tablet features a mediaTek MT8176 CPU coupled with a IMG Power VR GX6250 GPU and high-end AKM Hi-Fi Audio.
The ALLDOCUBE X runs on Android 8.1 and comes with 4GB of RAM, 64 GB of storage and a MicroSD slot. There's also fingerprint scanner, a large 8,000mAh battery. The ALLDOCUBE X is now shipping globally via AliExpress ($275) or Amazon. Note: affiliate links to Amazon and AliExpress.
Samsung's Galaxy Book 12" is a Windows 10 professional tablet that features a 12" 2160x1440 Super AMOLED display, an intel i5 CPU, 4/8GB of RAM and 128/256 GB of storage.
Samsung's Galaxy Book 12" is now shipping - for around $1,100 (4GB RAM, 128GB storage).
Royole's FlexPai is a foldable smartphone/tablet device that has a 7.8" 1920x1440 AMOLED display, when unfolded. The display folds outwards, and when folded the device has three different displays (front, back and spine). The FlexPai is based on a Snapdragon chipset, has two cameras, a microSD slot and a fingerprint sensor. The device uses the company's unique Android-based Water OS that automatically adapts different viewing modes for different folding angles and user scenarios
The Developer Mode FlexPai is now available from Royole for $1318 (128GB model) and the company says it will start shipping the devices in December 2018.
The Samsung Galaxy Tab S3 is a Android (v7) tablet that is optimized for gaming and entertainment. It features a 9.7" QXGA (2048x1536) Super AMOLED display, a quad-core Snapdragon 820 CPU, 4GB of RAM, 32GB of storage, microSD slot and quad-stereo speakers.
The Tab S3 is now shipping for $699 (Wi-Fi edition).
Lenovo's X1 Yoga 2017 edition is an update to the 2016 edition with stronger processing power, double the storage capacity and a lighter and thinner body. This hybrid tablet / laptop has a 14" 2560 x 1440 display - either an LCD or an OLED.
The X1 Yoga 2017 is now shipping. The OLED version with a 256GB SSD, 8GB of RAM and an intel Core i7 CPU costs $2349.
Samsung's Galaxy TabPro S is a Windows 10 convertible hybrid tablet, that features a 12" 2160x1440 AMOLED display, an Intel Core m3 CPU, 4GB of RAM, 128/256 GB SSD drive.
HP's Spectre X360 OLED is a hybrid laptop/tablet that comes with a 13.3" OLED display (2560x1600). The OLED model weighs 50 grams less than the equivalent LCD model. HP says that the OLED outperforms the LCD in terms of color gamut (103% RGB vs 72% in LED displays) and is also more power efficient.
