QD-OLED
After spending a decade pleading with us not to buy OLED TVs, Samsung has just launched an OLED TV. To be fair, though, while Samsung’s OLED take still delivers the key advantage of every single pixel in the picture producing its own light independently of its neighbours, it does differ from ‘traditional’ OLED tech in two ways.
First, QD-OLED TVs, as their name suggests, combine the organic materials that give us the O in OLED with the non-organic Quantum Dot colour technology previously only found in LCD TVs. Specifically, QD-OLED TVs pass a phosphor-emitted blue light through layers of Quantum Dots containing larger dots that glow red and smaller dots that glow green – an approach that offers more precision than regular colour filters.
The second big QD-OLED difference is Samsung’s best excuse for changing its mind about OLED, because it removes the need to introduce a pure white element into the colour mix like traditional OLED TVs do. This should in theory enable QD-OLED TVs to maintain more vibrant colour tones in the brightest picture areas.
This strength has been born out by the first spectacular QD-OLED TVs launched by Samsung and Sony. There’s also some evidence, though, that the first generation screens may be more susceptible to developing permanent image retention over time than the latest traditional OLEDs (ironic given that this ‘screen burn’ was previously Samsung’s main argument for not buying OLED TVs). Changes to the materials used in the new Samsung S95C and Sony A95L QD-OLED TVs should greatly reduce the chance of burn, though – as well as, from what we’ve seen so far, making their pictures even more dazzlingly bright and colourful.
