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Remember when OLED was just OLED?

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Perfect blacks, gorgeous colors, and one

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price tag that stung. Simple. Now it's W

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OLED, QD OLED, penta stack this, tandem

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that. And with the prices ranging from

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shockingly affordable to, oh my god,

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that's 2 months rent. It's more

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important than ever to know what these

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buzzwords mean. So today, we're breaking

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it all down. What these OLED flavors

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actually mean, how they work, and which

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one is right for you. The OG OLED type

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that dominated the high-end TV segment

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in the 2010s was LG's W OLED. You could

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say WOLED, but I don't. Where the W

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stands for white because the pixels only

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emit white light, which color filters

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then separate into red, green, and blue.

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There's also an extra white sub pixel

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for brightness. Think of WLED like

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sticking colored tape over a flashlight.

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It works, but the filter absorbs light,

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so you need more power to hit the same

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brightness. That's where the extra white

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sub pixel comes in. But like watering

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down lemonade to make it last longer, it

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dilutes color saturation in bright, high

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dynamic range scenes. W OLED's been on

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the market the longest, and it earned

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that run until tandem stacks and quantum

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dots showed up to challenge it. W OLED

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was widely considered the best TV panel

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money could buy and arguably the best

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ever made. And while OLED wasn't the

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first type of OLED to hit the market, it

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was the first to come in large screen

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sizes. Before that, RGB OLEDs like your

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phone screen were already doing the

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whole every pixel emits its own light

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and can be turned on and off

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individually for individual contrast and

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inky black levels thing, just not on the

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big screen in your living room. But LG's

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engineers were up against a fundamental

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manufacturing wall and it came down to

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size.

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>> The main problem they tried to solve was

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the fact that you cannot deposit and

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pattern OLEDs on a very large substrate.

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So, you know, when you make TVs, you

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make them on glasses that are like 3 m

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by 3 m size, much larger than what you

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use for smartphones. The fine metal mask

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used to print RGB pixels on phone

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substrates literally sags at TV scale,

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causing blurry and uneven prints. LG's

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workound was to ditch colored pixels

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entirely. Big W. But there are a few

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L's, too. Losing all that light to the

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inefficient color filters meant low peak

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brightness and shorter lifespan. and

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cranking up the voltage sent to the

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pixels to address the brightness issue

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only exacerbated the lifespan problem.

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>> OLED devices are quite limited in their

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lifetime. As OLEDs move from smartphones

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and smart watches to applications that

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need higher lifetime like laptops and

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automotives, this is a challenge that

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display makers had to solve.

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>> And blue is the weak link. Today's blue

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pixels need more energy than red or

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green to hit the same brightness. And

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they don't last as long doing it. Every

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OLED variant that's come out after W

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OLED is essentially a different answer

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to that problem. And we're going to

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break down how they do it and how well

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or not well right after this message

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bonus and start playing today. Probably

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Samsung Display went the opposite

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direction to LG, skipping white

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entirely. QD OLED, that's theirs, uses

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blue OLED emitters as the base and

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covers the red and green sub pixels with

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quantum dots. tiny nano crystals that

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absorb the blue photons and remit them

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as vivid red or green. Cutie OLED is

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essentially X-Men's mystique. The pixels

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don't hide behind a color. They morph

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into it. Color conversion rather than

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color filtering. At the end of the day,

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it's kind of a weird architecture

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because the blue OLED is the most

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challenging of OLEDs to make. It's the

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least efficient and the least, you know,

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the lifetime is the most limited. So

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they took like the worst performing

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emitter and had to you know convert it

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into the other colors.

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>> The reason they start with blue is

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because blue is the highest energy

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color. So you shine it into a quantum

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dot and step the energy level down to

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whatever color you want. In our case,

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greens and reds that are ridiculously

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pure. This all amounts to great color

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accuracy with particularly stunning reds

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and golds and higher brightness without

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the shorter lifespan. And with that,

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display technology was solved and they

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lived happily ever after.

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Just kidding. There's always a

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trade-off, right? The downside is that

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the conversion trick forces the sub

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pixel layout from a classic sidebyside

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RGB stripe into a triangle. If you've

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ever gotten uncomfortably close to a QD

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OLED monitor and thought your eyes were

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broken, they're not. The faint color

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fringing around fine text is the

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triangle layout doing its thing. For

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gaming monitors, QD OLED wins on color

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volume, but the text fringing means you

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might not want to be working on it all

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day. But technology marches ever

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forward. The newest innovation making

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the rounds in 2026 is something called

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Tandem or Pentastack OLED. The idea

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behind the Tandem is that you simply

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have one OLED device on top of the

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other. Each level can emit at half the

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brightness. In total, you get the full

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brightness or double the brightness of

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each layer, but the lifetime is longer.

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>> Samsung's version Pentatum keeps the

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QDLE approach with blue emitters plus

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quantum dots, but stacks multiple blue

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layers to feed the conversion. The dots

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must feed. And most importantly, they

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actually got the normal RGB stripe

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layout to work. So, text fringing is

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finally fixed. For LG's part, their

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primary RGB tandem ditches the W OLED

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color filters entirely, separating red,

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green, and blue emitting layers. So each

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color is produced directly. Two of those

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layers are blue though because blue

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still needs the help. So they call it a

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tandem stack even though it's more than

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two layers. Like you say, it's four,

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even five layers today in some

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architectures. So, it's a confusing

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name, but at the end of the day, the

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idea the more is that the more layers

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you add, then you can drive the OLED

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brighter and have longer lifetimes.

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>> LG shipped multistack displays in the G5

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last year, and the C6H is now bringing

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them to 77 and 83 in sizes, the first

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time the tech isn't locked behind a

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flagship. But which tech should you buy?

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Well, you may love the nitty-gritty

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details, but here's a reality check.

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when you go to a store today, I think,

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and you look at these panels, the image

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quality is stunning in whatever QD OLED

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or W OLED you're going to buy. So,

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they're pretty interchangeable these

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days.

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>> Ron here has been covering OLEDs for

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over 20 years. So, take that as

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permission to relax. Every one of these

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panels is genuinely incredible. But if

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you want to learn more about how OLED

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stacks up with LCD, QLED, and exactly

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why some pixels are better than others,

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click right here. I'm not going to point

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because YouTubers are just always

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pointing the wrong spot with these

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things.