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On Burn-In vs Image-Retention and LG's new pOLED displays

In September 2017 LG Display started shipping its new 6" 1440x2880 (538 PPI) pOLED displays, which are adopted so far by two smartphones - the LG V30 and Google's Pixel 2 XL. On paper these displays are superb, but actual reviews were rather dismal - to the point that some reviewers say that these are simply "bad displays".

The reviews mentioned bad color reproduction, graininess and problematic viewing angles - and many consumers also reported serious burn-in issues. Samsung has recently started a marketing campaign that says that LG OLED TVs also suffer from image retention problems. In this article we'll explain what is burn-in, the difference between burn-in and temporal image-retention and also try to shed some light on LG's latest OLED problems.

Google announces the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL OLED smartphones

Google announced its 2nd-generation own-brand smartphones, the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. The Pixel 2, produced by HTC, sports a 5-inch FHD (441 PPI) AMOLED display (made by SDC), a Snapdragon 835 chipset, 4GB of RAM, 64/128 GB of storage and a 12 MP camera.

The Pixel 2 XL, manufactured by LG, has similar features, but with a larger 6" QHD+ (537 PPI) pOLED display - made by LGD.

LGD still struggles with very low yields at its E5 flexible OLED line, will not start mass production for at least 6 months

LG Display's first large flexible OLED Production line, the E5 line in Gumi was supposed to start producing panels in June 2017, but reports from Taiwan suggested that LG delayed the mass production to August (which caused LGD to lose a 3 million OLED supply deal with Xiaomi).

According to analysts from CLSA, the yields at the E5 line are still very low - at around 10%, and it will take LG quite some time to increase the yields enough to start mass production - yields will be at around 30% at year's end, still very low. The displays for upcoming LGD's V30 smartphone were supposed to come out of this line, but LGD has decided to produce these at the E2 4.5-Gen line which is not an efficient fab for smartphone panels.

Business Korea says Google aims to invest in LGD to secure VR OLED display capacity

Business Korea reports that LG Display is in talks with Google regarding a large investment in LGD's OLED facilities towards the development and production of VR displays. BK says the investment will amount of hundreds of billions of Won (equivalent to hundreds of millions USD).

LG VR headset prototype (March 2017)

LGD VR prototype, March 2017

The report is somewhat confusing, though. On the one had it says that Google is interested in OLED microdisplays, and on the other it says that LG will produce the displays in its existing flexible AMOLED lines, which use a different technology than microdisplays (which are produced on Silicon).

LGD confirms it is in talks with strategic partners to fund its aggressive OLED expansion plans

A few days ago LG Display disclosed its financial results for Q2 2017 and announced a large OLED investment plan to increase capacity for both OLED TVs and small-sized flexible OLEDs.

LG 77'' OLEDW7 Korea launch event

During its investor conference call, LG Display disclosed that it plans to finance some of the capacity increase through strategic partnerships such as customer commitments. In the past months we heard reports that both Apple and Google are in talks with LGD regarding an investment to secure OLED capacity. It seems likely that LGD now verified these reports - but the investments are probably not finalized yet.

Will LG produce the OLED screen for Google's upcoming 2017 Pixel XL smartphone?

AndroidPolice blog claims it has exclusive information regarding Google's upcoming flagship smartphone, the 2017 Pixel XL. Besides the leaked image you see below, the blog claims that the Pixel XL will use a 6" flexible OLED display (2:1 aspect ratio) - produced by LG Display.

The OLED display will have (according to the leaked image) curved corners - but it will not sport an edge-folded design.

Google and a leading OLED maker are developing a next-gen OLED VR display

Google's VR vice president, Clay Bavor, revealed that Google has partnered with "one of the leading OLED makers" on a secret project to develop a high-end VR display. The OLED display will support a resolution of 20 million pixels per eye.

SDC 806 PPI VR OLED at SID 2016

This is a very high resolution - a 4K display has 8.3 million pixels, so it means 2.5X the number of pixels in a 4K display. It terms of display density (which depends on the panel size of course, which we assume to be around 3.5"), this could be around 1,800 PPI.

ETNews: Google wants to invest $872 million in LGD to help secure flexible OLEDs for its next-gen Pixel phone

ETNews reports that Google aims to help LG Display to scale up its production of flexible OLED panels. Google offered to invest 1 trillion Korean Won ($872 million USD) as it seeks to adopt LG's flexible OLEDs in future Pixel phone devices.

Google first-gen Pixel use rigid AMOLED displays produced by Samsung Display, but Google reportedly could not get enough displays from Samsung Display (Google is not alone with this problem). Google wants to secure its supply of flexible OLEDs - the same as Apple does with its deal with SDC.

LG and Google launch two new smartwatches with round flexible OLEDs

LG launched two new smart watches based on Android Wear 2.0, designed in collaboration with Google. Both new devices use round flexible OLED displays, and both will launch tomorrow in the US.

The first model is the Watch Style, which sports a round 1.2" 360x360 display, 512MB of RAM and 4GB of storage. The Watch Style costs $249 - $279.