4K OLED

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.

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).

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).

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.

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).

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.

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.

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).

Samsung Display started producing laptop OLED displays a while back, and now we are happy to offer one of these panels at the OLED Marketplace.

The display is a 15.6" 4K (3840x2160) laptop AMOLED, with an LVD interface. It is possible to add a touch layer.

Esteemed US-based A/V retailer Value Electronics conducted its latest annual TV shootout, with very interesting results. It is not a big surprise, but OLED TV won the first places in both the 4K and 8K shootout.

In the 4K category, VE tested five TVs, out of which 3 were OLED TVs: The LG G2 OLED TV, Samsung S95B QD-OLED, Samsung QN95B (QD miniLED), Sony A95K QD-OLED and Sony's X95K mini-LED. The winner of this year's shootout was Sony's A95K QD-OLED.