Oled screen on laptops is it worth it?

OLED technology has been one of the most important revolutions in the Smartphone world. Since its appearance as a technology in 2004, step by step it has penetrated the market, especially with the help of Samsung, Apple and LG for its smart terminals. Its qualities were clear: incredible color contrast, real black, low power consumption and perfect viewing angles. But is the OLED display on laptops really worth it ?

Today lives what is perhaps its sweetest moment, since technology has come en masse to Smart TV, Smartphone practically of all price ranges, and even now to laptops such as the Gigabyte AERO 15 OLED. But where there are lights there are also shadows, so we will try to see a little in depth this technology and what it can really offer us regarding IPS.

Index of contents

What is and how OLED technology works

OLED technology is a technology based on organic light-emitting diodes that are used to generate the image thanks to electrical impulses that make them emit light on their own.

This type of diodes basically have an electroluminescent layer, such as that of a normal diode, but based on organic components. These are capable of reacting to electrical stimuli, normally controlled by a signal by pulse width modulation, which allow them to generate light by themselves and emit it at different shades and brightness power.

They are made up of different layers based on organic materials, such as polymers capable of conducting electricity under certain conditions. Hence they are called semiconductor polymeters, for example, derived from plastic or aluminum. As in all diodes, there is a cathode and an anode, so that the electrical stimulus creates a current of electrons that ultimately generate light due to the recombination between atoms and electrons. Due to the emission of radiation at a certain frequency, modulated by pulse width, a certain color is generated. The combination of many of these OLEDs cause the image to be generated.

This image technology continues to be based on RGB colors, using Red, Green and Blue sub-pixels that generate the color that we perceive at any time based on their brightness. However, in the beginning these displays still had some sharpness and calibration issues. We just have to look back and see how the Samsung Galaxy S6 had a noticeable bluish color in the color representation, due to having more green sub-pixels because they are the longest lasting. Fortunately this is a mere anecdote today.

The AMOLED variant

In OLED technology we can differentiate between two variants, passive and active matrix OLED, the latter being called AMOLED. The difference lies in the management of the light emitting diodes. In the passive matrix, these are controlled by rows and columns, while in the active matrix they can be controlled independently. This implies that the matrix illuminates each pixel only when it is activated by energy.

AMOLEDs improve contrast and optimize power consumption by only operating the strictly necessary pixels.

What is the difference with IPS or QLED screens

At this point, we will be wondering what is the main difference between an LCD or LED panel, and its different variants, and an OLED panel, so we will explain it in a summarized way.

Technology in LCD or LED displays is based on the backlight principle. While OLED diodes are capable of emitting light on their own, in liquid crystal displays it is a panel behind the TFT transistors that generates the light. So what these transistors do is modify the path of the light that reaches them to generate the colors.

In the first monitors, this rear lighting was generated using fluorescent lights similar to those we have in kitchens. This changed as they were consuming a lot of energy, so high power LEDs are now being used throughout the panel. In this way, somewhat better blacks can be achieved by turning off local areas on the panel, which is called local dimming. But never at the OLED level.

There are many types of screens based on this principle, such as TN panels, or the very popular IPS. Likewise we have other similar technologies such as QLED, or Quantum Dot LED that improves contrast and brightness by activating the pixels independently. Or the NanoCell, which is also based on an LCD panel and backlight, but with a layer of nanoparticles that filter colors to produce an image faithful to what our eyes see in reality.

It will be the IPS screen the great rival, and the one that will really determine if the OLED screen in laptops is worth it.

The bet of the AERO 15 OLED for gaming and design

Today, in the market we do not have too many laptops that have OLED technology screens, mainly due to the cost of building these panels ensuring a high pixel density and also due to the excellent quality of the IPS.

However, nowadays the mass production of OLED screens has advanced a lot thanks to Samsung and LG, especially on Smartphone and smart TVs. In this case, we ignore Apple for being one of the first manufacturers to implement OLED in their mobiles, but it does not manufacture other brands. Precisely the manufacturer Samsung is the architect of the screens that this new series of laptops has.

In fact, these laptops, despite having a gaming design similar to their normal series, we can rather classify them as design-oriented. It has an AMOLED panel (you know, active matrix) with a 15.6 or 17.3-inch diagonal capable of giving us a UHD 4K resolution (3840x2160p) with a 16: 9 format, of course. The manufacturer has provided it with only 1 ms of response, and a 60Hz refreshment as usual in 4K, being suitable for gaming. It also surprises, or not so much, with DisplayHDR 400 certification and a sensational color coverage with more than 100% DCI-P3, being 25% wider than sRGB. All panels have been reviewed and calibrated by X-Rite Pantone ensuring a Delta E> 1.

Very good input characteristics on a screen at the level of the best smartphone OLEDs, although with a slightly lower pixel density. These features will help us determine if the OLED display on laptops is worth it.

Calibration at the IPS level

DCI-P3 color space

Delta E DCI-P3

To know if they are really worth it, it is necessary to attend to their calibration, which determines the degree of fidelity to reality of the colors represented in it. In this battle, it is the IPS that are one step ahead, since they are cheaper panels and with less saturated colors. This makes them excellent true-to-color displays, despite having a low contrast compared to OLEDs.

During our analysis of the AERO 15 OLED, we also took care of calibrating it, checking if it actually did what the manufacturer promised. And indeed it was, with an impeccable Delta E in the DCI-P3 space and a coverage that far exceeded DCI-P3. In such a case, this calibration did not cover 100% Adobe RGB, something that for example the best IPS screens are capable of, but at an expensive price.

This tendency to show cold colors is also far away, since the calibration curves turned out to be a marvel, with a Gamma located at the ideal value of 2.2, a color temperature very adjusted to the D65 point, and great consistency in all three RGB primary colors.

DCI-P3 AORUS CV27F color space

Delta E DCI-P3 AORUS CV27F

In these previous screenshots we can see the calibration for the same DCI-P3 color space on the IPS AORUS CV27F monitor, with very similar results on the Delta E although with lower coverage because it is not a design-oriented panel.

Adobe RGB Space Asus PA32UCX

In the second case we have color coverage as impressive as the Asus PA32UCX IPS Mini LED panel, far exceeding the demanding Adobe RGB space.

Advantages that bring us closer to the future

All of the above has given us high hopes of seeing more laptops on the market with OLED technology. Thanks to two manufacturers as established in technology as Samsung and LG, we hope that more of them will join, in order to see OLED desktop monitors soon.

Like everything, this technology has lights and shadows, and above all, a good margin for improvement despite the image quality it already shows. Thanks to them, it will be possible to get closer to the futuristic screens that we see in films, transparent and flexible. And it is that this can only be achieved with diodes of this type, and never with an LCD matrix.

Thin, transparent and roll-up screens

LG Transparent OLED Screen

If the curved screen design of the Samsung Galaxy or Huawei surprised in its day, this is only the beginning. In this 2019 these manufacturers and Motorola have already presented terminals with folding screens, (Galaxy Fold or Motorola Razr). Not having a backlight and being an extremely thin diode array, it gives us incredible possibilities such as bending or bending the screens, since many of the polymers used in its manufacture are based on plastic.

After LG will present a prototype of roll-up television, this 2019 has done the same with being the first manufacturer to create a transparent television. So wide are its viewing angles that we can see it from 360 degrees in space. Once again polymers give this possibility so futuristic where other technologies cannot reach. With many fewer layers, the thinness of these screens is extreme to the point of being transparent.

Finally, if you have the possibility to do the test, compare an LCD screen and an OLED in the sunlight. Having diodes with their own lighting will make the screen look much better

Better contrast and color depth

The possibility of independently controlling the lighting of each diode is an undeniable advantage from the point of view of color. The fact that they can emit light directly unlocks the ability to turn them off, giving the deepest, most realistic black possible, something that cannot be achieved with an IPS, unless you have exceptional local dimming.

The same goes for color depth, OLED technology has been refined a lot and these displays reach 100% NTSC or DCI-P3 coverage without much effort. Diodes are capable of being created with a wide range of materials, so their scope for improvement in this regard is still very large.

This also maximizes its contrast capacity by being able to turn LEDs on and off as we please. Despite this, the brightness still has a lot of room for improvement, as it is not yet possible to reach the brutal 1000 and 1500 nits of LCD screens thanks to the backlight.

No Bleeding, Glow IPS and better viewing angles

Bleeding IPS

These are the typical problems of LCD-based screens, the appearance of glare on the edges of the screens due to poor construction (bleeding) or uneven brightness in large panels (glow IPS). OLED technology gets rid of all this by not having a backlight.

As LG has already shown with its transparent screen, not only can we see perfectly at 180 degrees, but we could even see the image from behind perfectly.

Less consumption and reduced manufacturing costs in the future

Again being diodes that can be turned off individually and do not require constant backlighting, power consumption improves considerably. Plasma screens have already laid the foundations for creating this imaging technology, and with the OLED it has been rounded. Clearly they are the ideal displays for portable computers.

Exceeded the biggest picks in R&D costs, they will be relatively inexpensive screens to manufacture, since their construction base is organic materials such as plastic. Production methods have been vastly improved, and implementing diodes of just a few microns is no problem compared to CPUs with 7nm transistors.

There is room for improvement and the IPS are very strong

But of course, not everything is perfect, and we still have certain limitations that should not be overlooked, and that the IPS do take advantage of them.

Shelf life and brittleness

In this sense, there is still a way to go, since these diodes are less durable than LCD panels. Especially it happens with the blue sub-pixels, giving half of useful life that the red and green sub-pixels, being this last one the most durable. This also worsens as higher brightness power is generated by the diode, with a useful life of between 14, 000 and 60, 000 hours currently estimated.

Yes, it is possible to make roll-up and folding screens, but they are still more fragile than LCDs when it comes to handling and humidity. The diode electric charge injection system can be easily broken due to humidity, by using hydrophilic materials such as LiF.

Black clipping, black smear and calibration

OLED screens are not without problems with image quality, and in this case two new phenomena related to dark tones appear.

But the high saturation and contrast they bring us can also be its Achilles tendon, although less and less in view of the excellent calibration of the AERO 15 OLED. What is a great claim for many, for imaging professionals is a problem, bluish screens, extreme color saturation and unbalanced whites was the most common a couple of years ago.

Black clipping on two AMOLED screens. Source: Erica Griffin

Black clipping on two AMOLED screens. Source: Erica Griffin

Black clipping is one of the problems still pending on many screens. This problem lies in the difficulty of OLED panels to reproduce grayscale. And is that as they get closer to black, color tends to disappear or "burn" impoverishing the variety of tones in both the darkest and lightest levels, since the overexposure in whites is also pronounced.

In this sense, the OLED screen in Gigabyte notebooks does improve this quality of exposure, as can be seen in the Delta E calibration placed in the calibration section. Its grayscale color rendering is some of the best.

Anandtech guys give multiple comparisons of this phenomenon on smartphone screens. And we see that in many cases it is not possible to differentiate the different shades of black and white at the ends of the scale.

Black smear or ghosting. Source: This is Tech Today

Black smear or ghosting. Source: This is Tech Today

Black smear can be considered as the ghosting or burned in of IPS in OLEDs. It is the latency or time it takes for an off pixel (black) to turn on and go to a certain color. This is especially the case for the blue sub-pixel, the one with the greatest room for improvement today. This is what causes the typical ghost image to see moving elements on the screen, since the pixel changes color more slowly than the image movement demands. On poor quality screens it is even more noticeable than ghosting in IPS, making it a pending subject for gaming.

This is one of the major concerns of users to opt for an OLED or IPS panel, since it is an area where technology still needs improvement. In fact, Gigabyte itself has carried out user surveys that confirm this concern at the time of the election. For this reason, the manufacturer implements a dissipation system behind the panel to improve its temperatures and prevent pixel burning. Likewise, all AERO 15 OLEDs have a guarantee on their screen that can be extended for 1 more year by registering on their website

Is the OLED display worth it on laptops? Best teams

After seeing how this technology works, its main advantages and disadvantages and how it is implemented in one of the few laptops that use it, it is time to take stock and see if the OLED screen in laptops is really worth it.

And the first factor to take into account is always the cost, in short, it is what makes the user decide between one product and another. So for this we have taken two Gigabyte AERO 15 XA laptops, with very similar technical characteristics. Intel Core i7-9750H, 512 GB SSD, 16 GB RAM, and GPU RTX 2070. In them, we see a price difference (base) of only 100 euros. 2599 euros for the AERO 15 OLED XA and 2499 euros for the normal AERO 15 XA. If we look in the same store, we will see that this difference remains almost the same in the other models, between 100 and 150 euros.

In view of the price, it is not a relevant difference in the very high figures that are handled. So the definitive factor to opt for one or the other will be the purpose of the laptop and the image quality we want. The OLED screen gives us 4K resolution, tremendous quality and sharpness, and excellent factory calibration for use in design and content creation. Meanwhile, the IPS screen is Full HD, with 3 ms of response and 240 Hz, it is also combined with very good image quality, so gaming will be your ideal terrain.

We have already commented that one of the main concerns of users is the pixel burning effect, also called burnin in or ghosting, which will sound a lot to you from gaming screens. OLED pixels have room for improvement, and achieving competent response times is not easy. In fact Gigabyte has specially worked on this to get 3 ms responses, and thus to alleviate the deficiency of the blue sub-pixel.

These are the recommended models of these Gigabyte AERO 15 OLED:

Available in PC Components Available in PC Components

conclusion

IPS technology is currently highly optimized, and boasts high quality panels for almost any purpose, not for nothing is it the most widely used screen for professional design and also for gaming. To this we add the almost total absence of ghosting, although some bleeding problems are still palpable in some panels and little optimization in those that use local LED dimming technology for the backlight.

Meanwhile, OLED screens do not have a trace of these previous phenomena, although they do suffer from a high latency in the image, so they are not yet an option for gaming. As for calibration, they are almost on par with IPS at a somewhat lower cost, adding their lower consumption and higher contrast are undoubtedly the present and future of high performance.

Ultimately, are they worth it? Yes, if we want a shiny image and design features for portable computers. For gaming, we believe that they are not yet at the level at least on computers other than smartphones. Of course for less demanding tasks such as television, it is undoubtedly the technology that will become a benchmark, here color fidelity does not matter, but it looks impressive.

We hope Gigabyte will be one of many to embark on this new path, because we certainly believe that OLED technology will be the future of the imaging industry. In addition, for users who opt for these devices for purchase, we recall that Gigabyte gives an extra 12 months of warranty for your screen, so we can be calm in this regard. Low consumption, flexible and transparent screens, can you ask for something more?

Now we leave you with some tutorials related to the topic of screens

We hope you liked this article and served to clarify the landscape of OLED screens for laptops. What do you think about this technology?