Today, our devices have become windows into the world. Everything, from work to entertainment usually takes place in front of an electronic device’s screen. In fact, we spend most of our waking hours in front of screens these days. The reasons for these are manifold: The democratization of technology, advent of 5G, work from home needs, coupled with the expedited growth of gaming, entertainment, and information.
The confluence of these trends has led to bigger screen on devices like mobile phones and tablets. Innovations like flexible and foldable phones shall push the barriers of actual screen sizes on devices further. Leading device manufacturers are using unique materials like ceramics for the outer phone body and flexible substrates among other materials to foster innovation in how electronic devices are built. Today, the screen technology can often be a distinguishing factor in your purchases. For instance, Samsung and Asus have come up with a range of OLED laptops. Whereas Apple uses mini-led screen technology on some of its newer products. Based on insights, let’s take a look at some of the key trends in display technology for 2021 and beyond.
Democratizing OLED
Today, you can find many phones in the budget segment that use active-matrix organic light-emitting diode (AMOLED) screens, a type of OLED screen technology. Until recently, OLED screens were considered the bastion of a high end flagship phones. Finding them in the budget segment shows how far the economies of scale for OLED technology has come, especially in the smartphone market.
This also holds true for television sets. As per this article, LG Display, a major manufacturer of OLED TV panels, has been producing OLED TV panels at a cheaper price in its Guangzhou factory, due to various, vis-à-vis its Korean factories. This is not a one-off trend as mass production and technological refinements have made OLED panels cheaper to produce over time. However, they are still more expensive than conventional LCD screens. Over a 5 year forecast period from 2021, the OLED market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 12.9 %, as per Mordor Intelligence.
A reason why OLEDs are so popular is because of their high contrast level vis-à-vis LCDs and peerless black levels: OLED have individual pixels that emit light and these pixels can be turned off completely to offer true blacks. They also emit far less blue light vis-à-vis LCD, QLED, and Mini-LED technology, which makes them easier on the eyes.
Mini-LED technology
Some of Apple’s recently released products like the latest iPad pro 2021 (12.9 inch variants) feature mini-led display technology and some of its upcoming products are slated to feature mini-led technology. Being a new and emerging technology, mini-leds are quite expensive. However, if you were to go beyond the hype then what exactly is mini-led display technology? It’s an advancement of conventional LCD technology. Where LCDs use a small array of locally dimmed or a single-large backlight, mini-leds use thousands of tiny backlights for significantly improved dimming features and contrast levels. Essentially, in Mini-LEDS the backlight that passes through a colour filter is replaced with a grid of tiny backlights. They are similar to QLED displays but are in a smaller package or form factor.
Apple Pro’s Display XDR, according to a Macworld article, has 576 backlight LEDs that are controlled individually. Mini-LEDs have higher contrast levels, fast response times, significantly better colour reproduction and power efficiency vis-à-vis conventional LCDs and darker blacks. However, they cannot compete with OLEDs when it comes to black levels but beat OLEDs in terms of brightness and can match or beat its contrast levels. In a nutshell, Mini-LEDs can lead to highly colour accurate displays. Also, they do not have the burn-in problems of OLEDs and usually are stated to have a longer shelf life. OLED manufacturers have managed to greatly mitigate the impact of burn-ins and have improved the lifespan of OLED panels but they are still estimated to be behind Mini-LEDs.
Future outlook
The interactive display market is expected to reach 35.03 billion by 2027 while growing at CAGR of 8.1 percent for the duration of its 8-year forecast period from 2020. Technologies like the Internet of Things, hybrid business models with increased cloud adoption, increased smartphone penetration, popularity of digital signages and other factors has led to the increased popularity of interactive displays.
