What everybody must learn about Tandem OLED and WOLED TVs

I’ve mentioned it elsewhere, however I typically pity folks coming into the home theater house in 2026. Whereas the expertise is healthier than ever — a $500 TV may blow away a $1,000 mannequin launched only a few years in the past — there’s such numerous phrases and standards to know that buying may be intimidating. HDR alone has 4 main requirements, solely two of that are liable to be vital going ahead.

Panel expertise stands out as the most complicated side in the intervening time. For a very long time, all you needed to know was that OLED was la crème de la crème. Now, nonetheless, it is not solely being challenged by requirements like MicroLED, however enhanced variations of itself. On this piece I will distinguish between two applied sciences, WOLED and tandem OLED, each of which could be extra acquainted than you’d anticipate.

What’s WOLED?

An previous acquainted face that also has a spot

WOLED is brief for white OLED (organlc light-emitting diode). Whereas that time period may really feel new, it is seemingly solely as a result of it wasn’t vital to tell apart earlier than. The reality is that for those who’ve owned any type of OLED TV up to now, it was most likely WOLED-based, since shopper options to WOLED solely emerged in 2022. Extra on that in a second.

The gist of WOLED is that by itself, a real vanilla model of OLED would not be nice to your lounge. This most elementary tech passes white mild by means of pink, inexperienced, and blue shade filters, producing the colours you see in every pixel. However the outcome is not very vivid, or at the very least not sturdy sufficient for regular viewing circumstances. You’d have to observe in a dim room — daylight viewing can be out of the query.

WOLED’s answer to this can be a fourth, unfiltered white subpixel, which boosts brightness to cheap ranges. Actually, fashionable WOLED TVs are highly effective sufficient that in scenes with sturdy highlights, the whites may be blinding. That is enhanced by the first benefit of OLED: superior distinction, created by the power to show particular person pixels on and off. Blacks on an OLED are pure. Most LCDs can solely get near black, since they’re depending on LED backlights which are hardly ever shut off fully.

What occurred in 2022 was the emergence of Samsung’s QD-OLED, the QD standing for quantum dot. This differs from WOLED by beginning with blue mild, which is definitely extra intense than white, regardless of the best way your mind may understand it. This passes by means of the quantum dots, which emit completely different colours primarily based on their measurement. The result’s much more spectacular shade saturation versus WOLED. Notably, QD tech has since unfold elsewhere, for example showing on Sony TVs.

Different corporations have caught with variations of WOLED, nonetheless, together with LG, which tried to compete with QD-OLED utilizing one thing known as MLA (micro lens array) OLED. This helped focus mild output. Certainly LG’s third-generation OLED units can obtain 3,000 nits of peak brightness, sufficient to be plainly seen in noon solar. Its first-gen OLED merchandise have been capped at simply 500 nits.

So what’s tandem OLED, and what makes it higher?

Double the enjoyable

Credit score: Apple

For many individuals, myself included, the primary they’d ever heard of tandem OLED was seemingly Apple’s 2024 iPad Professional. Up till that time, the corporate had solely used LCDs for iPads. You may also discover a tandem show in 2025 Pro fashions.

Apple’s model of the expertise actually stacks two panels collectively. This may sound ridiculous, however the result’s amplified brightness, as much as 1,600 nits peak — about 1,000 greater than the LCD-based iPad Air. That is not as vivid as newer TVs, in fact, however a pill is often not more than a few ft away out of your eyes. Most TV viewers are sitting at the very least thrice as distant, and the inverse-square legislation dictates that depth diminishes as a sq. of the gap from a light-weight supply. You really want increased brightness the additional away you’re, in different phrases.

There are different methods of going tandem. For its fourth-gen OLED TVs, LG has developed one thing dubbed Main RGB Tandem OLED. This separates a yellow layer (used within the third gen) into separate pink and inexperienced layers, elevating peak brightness to 4,000 nits, and total shade brightness to 2,100. You are not getting a number of sandwiched panels. As a substitute, there are merely 4 layers within the stack, the opposite two being blue.

There’s each good and dangerous information right here. The excellent news is that Main RGB Tandem OLED may also be present in some Panasonic and Philips TVs, and with all three manufacturers, the result’s a noticeably brighter image than earlier efforts — it doesn’t matter what you are watching. LG particularly claims decrease energy consumption, in addition to wider protection of the DCI-P3 and Rec.2020 shade gamuts, as much as 99.5% and 83% respectively. Your eye most likely will not discover the additional shade shades, however this does put LG’s tech roughly on par with QD-OLED.

The dangerous information is that there are only a few tandem OLED TVs available on the market, they usually’re not low cost. As of this writing, the LG G5 begins round $1,800 for a 55-inch mannequin, and the Panasonic Z95B is $2,000. On condition that some similarly-sized WOLED units are promoting for $1,200 or much less, it’s important to be deeply obsessive about image high quality to justify the leap. The financial savings may very well be put in the direction of a soundbar, a sport console, or just paying off your payments.

Relative to QD-OLED, there might also be barely inferior element in near-black shades. For a purist with a fats finances, this could be a difficulty, on condition that the very best QD-OLED TVs are already as vivid as tandem OLED.

The elephant within the room

Some notes on the long run

Credit score: Samsung

In the end, all types of OLED could also be on their approach out. Do not get me fallacious — any mannequin you purchase in the present day goes to look superb, and final a really very long time so long as you keep it correctly. However inside the subsequent few years, OLED may very well be supplanted by MicroLED and micro RGB, which use microscopic pink, inexperienced, and blue LEDs. These merge the precision of OLED with the brightness and longevity of LCD/LED panels. On high of this, they ship near-perfect shade accuracy.

The true catch in the intervening time is worth. Each codecs are so new and costly that for those who may even discover a set, it is liable to price you tens of 1000’s of {dollars} — Samsung’s 115-inch micro RGB set is $30,000. It is going to take smaller sizes and mass manufacturing to deliver costs right down to cheap ranges.

In case you already personal a WOLED TV and also you prefer it, then, you should not be in a rush to purchase a tandem OLED product. Somewhat persistence may land you one thing higher, assuming these manufacturing hurdles are overcome.