If you’ve looked for a new OLED TV recently, there is a good chance you have come across a new display marketing term called “OLED evo.” It promises to be brighter than traditional OLED panels. Here’s what it actually means.
New Generation of OLED Screen Technology
“OLED evo” is a moniker given by LG to a new OLED panel used in its televisions. This panel marks the first significant improvement in the OLED panel space in the last few years and can reach 20 percent higher brightness than traditional OLED screens.
The higher brightness is particularly helpful in enhancing the HDR experience by bringing out small highlights. Moreover, all OLED panels, by their self-emissive nature, can produce perfect blacks. So with perfect blacks and improved highlights, the OLED evo panel can provide a better HDR experience.
Finding the Right Balance
It’s no secret that OLED panels have lower brightness than their LED counterparts. While the OLED manufacturers could simply increase the amount of current passing through the light-emitting material to boost its brightness, doing so will make the OLED material degrade quickly and significantly decrease the panel’s lifespan. LG Display found a smarter solution with the new OLED panel.
According to UBI Research President Choong Hoon Ui, LG Display achieved higher brightness by making two key changes. First, it has switched from a blue OLED material based on hydrogen to a blue OLED material based on deuterium. The higher atomic mass of deuterium makes the blue OLED material less prone to degradation and increases its overall lifespan.
Among all the color emitting layers (EMLs) present in an OLED panel, blue light-emitting material degrades the fastest due to the inherent nature of blue light, which has a high frequency. To counter this, the OLED panels already use two blue light EMLs instead of just one for other colors.
Now, thanks to the increased lifespan of the deuterium-based blue OLED material, LG can pass higher electricity voltage through it and increase the brightness without worrying too much about degradation.
The second change is the inclusion of an additional green emitting layer. LG Display’s older OLED panels pack two blue EMLs, one red EML, and one yellow/green EML. The extra green EML not only increases the brightness of the panel but also improves the color gamut.
With these two changes, LG Display has been able to offer higher brightness levels on the OLED evo panel without sacrificing its lifespan. Still, OLED evo is far from reaching LED-backlit LCD panel levels.
Which TVs Have OLED evo Panels?
As of late 2021, LG is using the OLED evo panel in just one television—the LG G1, its flagship 4K OLED TV. It’s an awesome gaming TV for gaming, and you can buy the G1 in 55-inch, 65-inch, and 77-inch sizes. But the new panel is sure to show up in more LG TVs over the coming years.
Being an LG moniker, you are unlikely to see OLED evo associated with any other brand’s televisions. But, it’s believed that this new and improved OLED panel is also being used by the likes of Panasonic and Sony in their flagship 4K OLED TVs. Like LG and other OLED TV manufacturers, both companies get their OLED display panels from LG Display. And, as Panasonic and Sony flagship OLED TVs can produce higher brightness levels than their other OLEDs, it seemslikely that they are using the new panel, just not with the OLED evo branding. That said, neither Panasonic nor Sony have said anything to confirm this.
LG OLED G1 Series 55-inch OLED evo TV
The LG G1 is the first TV with an OLED evo panel. It’s available in three different sizes.
OLED vs. OLED evo
While OLED refers to a complete display technology type that includes organic material to generate light and is self-emissive, the OLED evo is a marketing term coined by LG to highlight the new OLED panel used in its G1 television.
OLED evo moniker can help you differentiate between LG OLED TVs, but it’s of little use in determining whether an LG OLED evo TV is better than an OLED TV from another brand. As mentioned, Panasonic and Sony are also very likely using the same enhanced OLED panel from LG Display (but without any special branding) and can hit similarly high brightness levels.
The OLED Future Is Bright(er)
The underlying enhancements used in the OLED evo panel are a step in the right direction. Although the OLED panels have long been everyone’s favorite for their excellent picture quality, near-infinite contrast ratio, and viewing angles, they have fallen short on the brightness front.
OLED evo shows that it’s possible to excel on the brightness front as well.
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