What is Samsung QD-OLED? Differences from LG OLED

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Samsung knows that the biggest shortcoming of LG OLED is brightness, so it offers a hybrid panel technology with QD-OLED. We explain what QD-OLED technology is, how it differs from QLED and OLED, and what you can expect.

It is possible that we are facing a new era in television because Samsung can beat OLED for the first time and for everyone. Since LG conquered the market with organic diodes, it has won the image quality battle as backlighting in LED technology is still a big issue. Samsung has tried to replace that with QLED, but recently it has made another attack with QD-OLED.

What is Samsung’s QD-OLED and how does it work?

To compensate for the weak points of QLED and OLED technology, Samsung has developed a hybrid panel that aims to combine the best of OLED with the best of QLED. QD-OLED is an exclusive and patented technology from Samsung that was introduced at CES 2022 and will be released in 2022.

The real question is how to combine these 2 technologies. Samsung puts it this way:

  • Each pixel can emit its own light and we will also have Local Dimming, which means each pixel can be individually controlled to adjust blacks and contrast.
  • The main panel is an OLED, only a blue self-luminous layer is used, which is a superimposed Quantum Dots film.
  • A series of blue OLEDs (Blue Self-Glow) are used to illuminate pixels containing red and green Quantum dots.
  • Each OLED pixel is divided into 3 sub-pixels:
    • A blue sub-pixel derived from the original blue OLED material.
    • Red Another red derived from quantum dots.
    • The green is another green derived from a Quantum dot.
  • The 3 sub-pixels are combined to create white light.
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Therefore, QD-OLED TVs will be very thin as they will have 3 layers: Blue LED -> Quantum dots > White filter. If we compare the layers of an OLED or QLED, we see that the QD-OLED is one layer more than a traditional OLED. QLED is still an LCD-LED (VA) panel with Quantum Dots, so a QLED TV has more than 4 layers.

Although Samsung calls this technology QD-OLED, we do not know what commercial name it will give to its televisions that will come with this technology. You already know what happened to Neo QLED and Mini LED backlighting.

The advantages of QD-OLED over QLED and OLED

The first thing you ask yourself is how does it improve the existing one. Let’s review the weak points of each technology: QLED is still a backlit VA panel. It does not offer pure blacks. They have high response times. Viewing angles are bad. It emits a lot of blue light. The maximum brightness in OLED is lower than that of LCD-LEDs. There is a screen burn-in problem.

QD-OLED enhances both panels in the following ways:

  • As it has no backlight, it delivers the pure blacks of OLED and enhances QLED.
  • Provides more brightness than OLED and OLED Evo (1000 nits), which can reach 1500 nits.
  • Resolved QLEDs response time issue and reduced to 0.2ms.
  • Very interesting viewing angles with ΔE<2@60º ratio.
  • Blue light will be reduced by 40-50%.
  • 1M:1 contrast ratio, possibly “infinite contrast”.
  • Improved image quality with 99.7% coverage and BT.2020 and DCI-P3 color space.
  • Thinner TVs reduce thickness by 50%.

The Disadvantage of QD-OLED

Seen this way, there are no downsides and everything seems to be fine, right?

Samsung has campaigned to highlight OLED burnouts as they are organic diodes and degrade rapidly. Screen burn-ins are caused by prolonged reproduction of a static image (TV channel logo, video game HUD, etc.).

After all, QD-OLEDs take advantage of an OLED panel, and that includes burn-in issues. Also, keep in mind that Quantum Dots also tends to retain images on the screen.

LG has a long way to go in this regard and has managed to move forward with this issue, and Samsung seems to be following closely.

Price and launch

The final QD-OLED launch will be in the middle of 2022, i.e. from summer. Most televisions will come with 55, 65 and 70 inches. So far, Alienware has opened the curtain with the AW3423DW, the first QD-OLED monitor in history.

Bad news for those expecting “affordable” prices, because according to Korean sources, Samsung will position QD-OLEDs for the premium sector. That means we’ll see these TVs between €1,500-2,000, but the figure will be closer to (or even exceed) €2,000.

As with all technologies, the latest comes at a high cost, and look for 8K Neo QLEDs that cost €4,000 or more.

Samsung agrees with LG on pure blacks and OLED, but like all efforts with QLED, it spares its ego. It could mark a revolution in the panel world, as both technologies will be combined to fill each one’s own shortcomings.

It’s a smart move for Koreans because they’re partially right; otherwise they would only have the improvement of OLED. Currently, the only definition of QD-OLED is a success.