OLED Tablets - Introduction and Latest Industry News - Page 17

According to Korea's Naver portal, Samsung is developing two new tablets that sport AMOLED displays - an 8" one and a 10" one. One of them will be launched together with the Galaxy S5 (which may go into production as early as January 2014).

Samsung's AMOLED tablets will be high-end ones, aimed to grab market share from Apple's new iPad and iPad mini. Samsung will continue to use LCDs is low-cost and mid-range tablets. Until these new tablets are launched (if the story is correct), the only OLED tablet by Samsung was the the 2011 Galaxy Tab 7.7 with its 7.7" Super AMOLED Plus 1280x800 display.

DisplaySearch posted an interesting article regarding Apple and how they plan to once again rely on display technology for the new product innovation. DisplaySearch estimates (based on supply chain research) that Apple will revamp nearly all of the displays in its products in 2014. Specifically, DisplaySearch estimates that the iWatch will indeed adopt a flexible OLED.

Apple 2011 flexible OLED watch patent

Specially, DisplaySearch says that the iWatch will use a 320x320 flexible AMOLED and the size of the display will be either 1.3" or 1.63". We heard reports last week from Korea suggesting pretty much the same specs. Last week I reported that I can't see either LGD or Samsung being able to supply Apple with the flexible displays. But DisplaySearch estimates that the iWatch will only arrives towards the end of 2014, so it may be that LGD (or Samsung) will indeed have the capacity to supply Apple by then.

DisplayMate, the display testing, measurement and calibration experts just got their hands on a pre-release Galaxy Note 3 production unit, with its 5.7" Full-HD Super AMOLED display (386 PPI, PenTile). They put the unit to extensive testing (and also compared it to the Note 2). The conclusion? This is the best performing OLED display ever and it beats LCDs across the board!

The most notable advancement in this new panel is the high brightness. It can achieve 660 cd/m² in high ambient light. It's not just 55% brighter than the Note 2, it's actually the brightest display ever tested at DisplayMate. A very notable achievement for Samsung's OLEDs, which were lagging behind LCDs in brightness.

Frost & Sullivan posted a new analysis (as part of their Technical Insight research) regarding medium and large-area OLED panels. They forecast that further technology development and new manufacturing techniques will reduce OLED panels prices to a level suitable for mass production by the end of 2014.

In fact, F&S say that this will enable OLEDs to enter the TV, tablet and laptop markets. Looking even further into the future, flexible OLEDs will promise newer applications as well.

Samsung announced that they sold over 38 million Galaxy Note and Note 2 smartphones since launching the original Galaxy Note in 2011 - those large "phablets" phones have been very successful for Samsung, and all of them use Super AMOLED displays. Samsung expects to sell over 10 million units of the recently announced Note 3.

The Galaxy Note 3 sports a 5.7" Full-HD Super AMOLED display (386 PPI), a 2.3 Quad-Core CPU (or a 1.9Ghz octa-core in some markets), 3 GB of RAM, 32/64GB of storage, a 13 MP camera (will be capable of 4K videos in some markets) and Android 4.3. It is smaller and lighter than the Note 2.

As expected, Samsung launched two new mobile devices today with Super AMOLED displays. First up is the Galaxy Note 3 that sports a 5.7" Full-HD Super AMOLED display (386 PPI), a 2.3 Quad-Core CPU (or a 1.9Ghz octa-core in some markets), 3 GB of RAM, 32/64GB of storage, a 13 MP camera (will be capable of 4K videos in some markets) and Android 4.3. Samsung managed to pack all this in a phone that is smaller and lighter than the Note 2.

The Galaxy Gear is Samsung's first smartwatch and it features a 1.63" 320x320 (275 PPI) Super AMOLED display, a 1.9 mp camera (can do 720p videos), 800Mhz processor, 4GB of storage, 512MB of RAM, Bluetooth 4, and a 315 mAh non-removeable battery. The watch will support third-party apps and 70 partners signed up to supply applications at launch.

Some web sites are reporting that Panasonic is set to unveil a 20" 4K OLED tablet at the IFA 2013 event next week. Those sites are relying on auto-translated Japanese text. But in fact the company will not show such a tablet. In an English PR, Panasonic says they will show a 4K 20" tablet and a 4K OLED panel prototype - those are two different devices.

I'm guessing Panasonic's 4K OLED panel will be the same 56" 4K (3840x2160) OLED TV panel shown at CES 2013. This panel was made using an "all-printing" method. Sumitomo Chemical revealed that this TV prototype used the company's PLED materials. Panasonic's panel uses a substrate (probably Oxide-TFT) provided by Sony (which are actually made by AU Optronics) - as part of the two companies collaboration.

Samsung just sent out invitations for their Samsung Unpacked 2013 episode 2 event - which will take place on September 4 (7 PM in Germany). Check out the invitation below, it's highly likely they will unveil the Galaxy Note 3 phone:

In past months we had several reports and rumors with information on the Note 3 displays. Some say it will have a plastic-based flexible OLED while others claim it will have an LCD display. Some reports suggest that Samsung will actually release several Note 3 variants with different displays. We only have one month to wait, but my own estimate is that it will have a 6-inch "regular" Super AMOLED display.

My friend Raymond Soneira from DisplayMate wrote an interesting article for the SID Information Display magazine on Tablet displays technologies in real world ambient light. The displays obviously progressively degrades as ambient light is increased, and Raymond then shows how you can compensate and correct images by by dynamically modifying the color gamut and intensity scale.

The article points out the importance of using a managed wide color gamut in displays. Here OLEDs (and also LCDs with Quantum Dots) have an advantage obviously over regular LCDs. This basically means that by having a wider color gamut, a display can be made to look better under ambient light.

Two days ago we reported on new rumors from Korea saying that Samsung will have to use IPS-LCD displays in about 10% of the Note 3 phones due to expected AMOLED production shortages. Today MT Media (a Korean publication) posted an "Exclusive" article in which they say that Samsung will in fact use a plastic-based unbreakable 5.99" YOUM OLED display in the Note 3.

YOUM phone prototype, CES 2013

This coincides with the OLED Association claim back in April that the Note 3 phone will use a YOUM display. Samsung's YOUM capacity (especially for these relatively large 5.99" panels) will be quite limited at first, but it seems that Samsung really has to innovate in their new phones. The GS4 is a great phone with a terrific display, but it isn't really innovative in hardware or design (and some suggest that sales aren't as good as Samsung hoped for).