Samsung Australia is set to roll out an aggressive OLED TV campaign, up against LG Electronics. Among their new offering will be a 77-inch OLED TV and a 49-inch OLED monitor. Also in the range will be a 55-inch and 65-inch QD-OLED TV.
ChannelNews understands that Samsung is set to still use reference to QD-OLED while also positioning some of their premium display products as featuring ‘Samsung OLED’.
The move is bad news for LG Electronics whose Display division recently reported a billion-dollar loss.
According to sources, Samsung Australia, who have not been a direct competitor in the OLED TV market, will have several OLED TVs and a 49” monitor in their range this year.
When asked about the upcoming OLED battle with LG, Chirag Shah, Principal Professional in the Samsung Display Marketing Team, said, “We’ve decided to raise the bar when it comes to QD-OLED.”
Recently Sound Mag and SmartHouse writer Steve May visited Samsung in South Korea to see first-hand how Samsung’s new OLED panels will be produced and how they stack up against LG Electronics, the market leader in OLED TVs.
The brand’s second-generation QD-OLED displays aren’t just tweaks of the original panel design (used in the class-leading Sony A95K TV, as well as the Samsung S95B), increasing brightness by a few percentage points, he says, but a core upgrade that dramatically improves performance.
May was one of the first journalists in the world to visit the facility, and take a deeper dive into the technologies that will shape Samsung’s 2023 QD-OLED line.
No Australian journalists have been invited to Samsung South Korea to see the new panel offering.
May was told the picture boost in 2023 QD-OLED panels has been made possible by two main innovations: a hyper efficient ETL (electron transport layer) and partnering Intelligence AI v2.0, which offers high-precision pixel control.
By making improvements in the material used for the ETL, Samsung Display has been able to increase the resonance of light within the ETL and minimize light absorption, allowing for brighter screens and better black levels.
To prove the point, Shah has laid on demos that pitch a 65-inch OLED from LG Display (used in the all the best OLED TVs that don’t feature QD-OLED) against both a QD-OLED panel from 2022 and a new 2023 QD-OLED panel. Content includes material from the Spears and Munsil UHD HDR benchmark disc.
The aforementioned improvements are immediately apparent claims May.
The next gen QD-OLED panels will be 30 per cent brighter, and the maximum screen brightness on 55-inch and 65-inch QD-OLED screens will rise from 1,500 nits to 2,000 nits.
A conventional white pixel OLED can hit around 1,100 to 1,150 nits using a three per cent measurement window using Dynamic mode. 2022 QD-OLED managed 1,490 50 1,500 in the same conditions. For 2023, that will rise to 2,000 nits, and be consistent across all three screen sizes: 55-inch, 65-inch and 77-inch.
The switch to the use of ‘Samsung OLED’ could see Samsung procuring W-OLED panels from LG Display as well.
The new 77″ and 49″ models for TVs and monitors will continue to use QD-OLED panels provided by the Samsung Display subsidiary.
Research shows that most customers of Samsung TVs don’t understand the difference between QLED, Neo QLED or OLED.
last year, Samsung’s consumer division asked Samsung Display who manufacture OLED display panels for Apple to manufacture 48-inch OLED panels for TVs.
But Samsung Display refused this and instead offered to make 49-inch panels.
Sources said this is because, from a single Gen 8.5 substrate, Samsung Display can get two 77-inch panels and two 48-inch panels or two 77-inch and two 49-inch panels.
This means cutting out a 48-inch panel isn’t really more economical for Samsung Display to do as compared to a 49-inch panel, so there was no reason for it to not offer a bigger panel.
According to Samsung management the 2023 QD-OLED panels will benefit from reduced power consumption and improved lifetime reliability (said to be twice that of its first-gen QD-OLED).
Among the QD OLED 2023 offering will be a 55-inch, 65-inch and 77-inch TV.
Samsung Australia have not commented on the move to aggressively market OLED TVs as their premium TV offering in 2023.
