What everybody must find out about Tandem OLED and WOLED TVs

I’ve stated it elsewhere, however I generally 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 a lot of phrases and standards to know that purchasing may be intimidating. HDR alone has 4 main requirements, solely two of that are liable to be vital going ahead.

Panel expertise would be the most complicated facet in the mean time. For a very long time, all you needed to know was that OLED was la crème de la crème. Now, nevertheless, it isn’t 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 may be extra acquainted than you’d count on.

What’s WOLED?

An outdated acquainted face that also has a spot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 doubtless solely as a result of it wasn’t vital to differentiate earlier than. The reality is that if you happen to’ve owned any type of OLED TV up to now, it was in all probability WOLED-based, since shopper alternate 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 in your lounge. This most elementary tech passes white gentle via purple, inexperienced, and blue colour filters, producing the colours you see in every pixel. However the consequence is not very brilliant, or not less than not robust sufficient for regular viewing situations. You’d have to observe in a dim room — daylight viewing could be out of the query.

WOLED’s resolution to this can be a fourth, unfiltered white subpixel, which boosts brightness to affordable ranges. In truth, trendy WOLED TVs are highly effective sufficient that in scenes with robust 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 can be not often shut off utterly.

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 gentle, which is definitely extra intense than white, regardless of the way in which your mind may understand it. This passes via the quantum dots, which emit totally different colours based mostly on their measurement. The result’s much more spectacular colour saturation versus WOLED. Notably, QD tech has since unfold elsewhere, as an example showing on Sony TVs.

Different corporations have caught with variations of WOLED, nevertheless, together with LG, which tried to compete with QD-OLED utilizing one thing known as MLA (micro lens array) OLED. This helped focus gentle 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 had 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 doubtless Apple’s 2024 iPad Professional. Up till that time, the corporate had solely used LCDs for iPads. It’s also possible to 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 brilliant as newer TVs, after all, however a pill is normally not more than a few toes away out of your eyes. Most TV viewers are sitting not less than 3 times as far-off, and the inverse-square legislation dictates that depth diminishes as a sq. of the space from a lightweight supply. You really want larger 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 purple and inexperienced layers, elevating peak brightness to 4,000 nits, and general colour 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 unhealthy 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 colour gamuts, as much as 99.5% and 83% respectively. Your eye in all probability will not discover the additional colour shades, however this does put LG’s tech roughly on par with QD-OLED.

The unhealthy information is that there are only a few tandem OLED TVs in the marketplace, 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 a must to be deeply obsessive about image high quality to justify the leap. The financial savings might be put in direction of a soundbar, a recreation console, or just paying off your payments.

Relative to QD-OLED, there can also be barely inferior element in near-black shades. For a purist with a fats funds, this may be a problem, provided that one of the best QD-OLED TVs are already as brilliant as tandem OLED.

The elephant within the room

Some notes on the longer term

Credit score: Samsung

Finally, all types of OLED could also be on their method out. Do not get me unsuitable — any mannequin you purchase immediately goes to look superb, and final a really very long time so long as you preserve it correctly. However inside the subsequent few years, OLED might be supplanted by MicroLED and micro RGB, which use microscopic purple, inexperienced, and blue LEDs. These merge the precision of OLED with the brightness and longevity of LCD/LED panels. On prime of this, they ship near-perfect colour accuracy.

The actual catch in the mean time is worth. Each codecs are so new and costly that if you happen to may even discover a set, it is liable to price you tens of hundreds of {dollars} — Samsung’s 115-inch micro RGB set is $30,000. It will take smaller sizes and mass manufacturing to carry costs right down to affordable ranges.

In the event 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 endurance might land you one thing higher, assuming these manufacturing hurdles are overcome.