So, Just What Is An OLED Anyway?

With the BracketBall madness underway, you’ve probably heard about LG’s curved OLED smart TV — rated as having the “Best Picture Ever” by C|Net. Most people can figure out what a curved screen is and, these days, it seems like everything is “smart.” However, most people don’t know what an OLED is or why it’s a big deal. After all, a screen is a screen is a screen right? There are some energy savings and maybe some color balance issues but, overall, one screen is just as good as the next… or isn’t it?

If life were that simple, we’d have warp drive already. Alas, it is not so. The difference in screens does matter and OLED screens are one of the best choices for television screens out there with the current technology (we’ll let you know when holodeck technology hits the market). Traditional LED screens use light-emitting diodes to display a broad (near infinite) range of colors. Each diode is one pixel (roughly) and, taken as a whole, the screen renders a beautiful picture with rich color depth where the blacks are truly black. However, these screens do require a backlight which makes them bulkier, much like LCDs. OLEDs use an organic substrate, allowing them to be made much thinner and with less bulk than an LCD or plasma television but while keeping the same screen size (something that traditional LED screens had a hard time keeping pace with).

Bear in mind that the “OLED” refers only to the display — the screen — the rest of the features we’ve come to expect with televisions — the ability to connect to our Blu-Ray players, to hook up to our satellite/cable boxes, to handling our remotes and more. For further information on LG and OLED technology, be sure to read our in-depth OLED Technology information page!