Samsung Display has cranked up the brightness yet again on its latest QD-OLED panels, reaching as high as 5,000 nits.
The breakthrough has been enabled by the removal of the polarisation layer that blocks external light from entering the display. Polarisers are used to improve picture quality, but they have the side effect of reducing brightness by as much as 50%. By removing it, Samsung Display says it can drastically increase the luminance of the display, though doing so may compromise its contrast and black levels.
As Flatpanels HD pointed out, Samsung Display’s experiments with polariser-less OLED displays date back to 2021, when it produced an Eco2 OLED panel that was stripped of the additional layer. Now, it has developed a more advanced version that utilises on-cell-film or OCF technology that further improved its OLED panel’s brightness and energy efficiency.
Showcasing its latest panel at MWC 2025, the event formerly known as Mobile World Congress, Samsung Display explained that it’s possible to achieve 5,000 nits peak brightness when the on-pixel ratio is at 10%. OPR is a measure of the number of active pixels on screen, so users are unlikely to see a 5,000 nits display during regular viewing. When it comes to applications such as watching videos, brightness should peak at around 3,000 nits, the company said.
Still, the display that was shown off at MWC delivers 1.5-times greater brightness than traditional QD-OLED displays that still use a polarising layer, the company pointed out, while maintaining the same level of power consumption.
For now, the company is only utilising its OCF technology in smaller panels for its foldable smartphones, but it has plans to introduce it into bigger panels later on, such as those used in tablets and laptops, where OLED is rapidly replacing LCD. Some of the new devices slated to get OCF QD-OLED panels include “bar-type” smartphones and a “rollable laptop”, the company said.
Sadly, there’s no sign that the company intends to bring the same technology to its QD-OLED televisions. Its flagship OLED television this year, the Samsung S9F, utilizes an enhanced QD-OLED panel but it’s still equipped with a polarising layer.
The technology is being used in devices such as the Realme GT7 pro smartphone and Lenovo’s ThinkBook Plus G6 Rollable notebook computer.
If Samsung Display’s OCF QD-OLED are a hit, we could well see them in devices from companies such as Apple and Dell, which also use the company’s display technology.
To encourage this shift, Samsung Display is also touting the environmental credentials of its QD-OLED technology. At MWC25, it told attendees that if it’s able to replace one million LCD panels with the new OCF OLED technology, this would prevent around 474 tons of carbon from going into the atmosphere as a result of less plastic being used.
