A comprehensive breakthrough is coming to OLED monitors | Digital Trends

TCL is best known for making TVs, but the company is eyeing a slot among the best gaming monitors with its new OLED tech. During the Omdia Korea Display Conference, the company highlighted “comprehensive breakthroughs in image quality, power consumption, and lifespan” for OLED monitors and laptops utilizing its new inkjet-printed OLED displays, as reported by FlatPanelsHD.

Inkjet-printed OLED, or IJP OLED, sounds a little ridiculous, but it’s tech we’ve known about for close to a year. Current OLED production is problematic, according to OLED-Info, with deposits of the organic commands used for OLED displays introducing contaminants into the panel. This reduces the yield, but according to TCL, its new IJP OLED process can lead to not only higher yields, but also improvements in image quality.

“The technology also boasts lower power consumption, with materials efficiency doubled, a 50% reduction in light loss due to internal reflection, and a 1.5 times improvement in light output efficiency. Lifespan has also been significantly enhanced, with an aperture ratio three times larger and material lifespan improved tenfold,” reads TCL’s press release. “IJP OLED delivers cost competitiveness, with a 20% reduction in total cost.”

That all sounds like good news. We’ve heard about the low brightness of OLED monitors like the LG UltraGear OLED 27 and concerns about burn-in with displays like the Sony InZone M10S. It’s important to remember, however, that this tech isn’t available in a shipping product yet, and TCL’s rosy estimates likely won’t translate fully to a proper OLED monitor or laptop.

The company has some prototypes already, however. In particular, it has the TCL CSOT 14-inch 2.8K Hybrid OLED display, which you can see above. According to the company, it has a 2.8K resolution, 99% coverage of DCI-P3, and a refresh rate from 30Hz up to 120Hz. There are already half a dozen laptops a display like this could slot into, such as the Asus Zenbook S 14.

TCL says these are the applications it’s targeting with its new IJP OLED tech. It says “medium-sized display applications” will see it first, including in monitors, laptops, and other specialized products such as medical displays. Earlier this year, the company demoed a 65-inch rollable 8K TV sporting the same tech.