Samsung on Wednesday announced that it has started mass production of 14-inch and 16-inch 90Hz refresh rate laptop OLED panels.
Samsung Display said it has been supplying the OLED panels to global manufacturers, including ASUS, Lenovo, Dell, HP, and Samsung Electronics, for use in laptops, including ASUS’s recently announced Zenbook and Vivobook Pro laptops.
An OLED panel responds much faster than an LCD panel and can display a more natural-looking image with a lower refresh rate than an LCD panel. According to Samsung Display’s internal tests, its 90Hz OLED panel showed a blur length of 0.9mm, a 10 percent improvement when compared to a 120Hz LCD panel’s blur length in video playback. Shorter blur length means less motion blur and clearer movement when watching videos.
While Apple was not mentioned as a customer, The Elec last month reported that Samsung Display was preparing its production lines for future MacBooks with OLED displays. Meanwhile, DigiTimes has reported that Apple has plans to launch a 16-inch MacBook Pro boasting an OLED display in 2022. Apple currently uses LCD displays with a 60Hz refresh rate in its MacBook Pro laptops.
A move to a higher refresh rate OLED displays would be a significant one, as OLED offers better brightness, improved contrast with deeper blacks., and more. The panels’ higher refresh rate will provide smoother text scrolling, as well as a smoother appearance while viewing videos or while gaming.
The Elec report claims that Samsung will be the supplier for those screens, and the move from LED to OLED will take place during 2022, into early 2023.
The report said Samsung is planning to ship up to six million OLED panels for tablets and notebook computers in the remainder of 2021.