QD-OLED vs. MLA OLED: Samsung, Sony, and LG Battle for the Future of Screens

Which of the following topics are you most excited by?

OLED TV Technology and its evolution into QD-OLED and MLA WOLED from Samsung, LG, and Sony

Why does it excite you?

It's fascinating to me because OLED display has been one of the hottest topics for the last 10yrs with Samsung Display and LG Display (The two-panel technology divisions of their respective parent companies) trying to out-innovate each other since what seems like the dawn of time. Things have certainly heated up in the last 2yrs with QD-OLED (Samsung Display) & MLA or META (but for the sake of clarity, we'll stick with MLA for now) WOLED (LG Display), Each offering their take on what they believe to be the best performing OLED display technology on the market.

What are the trends in this area or products in this area that you are the fondest of? Why?

QD-OLED AND MLA WOLED The newest OLED display technologies collided for the first time this year, so what makes them unique?

Quantifying QD-OLED

QD OLED, which marked Samsung's long-awaited debut into the OLED market in 2022, takes the W or white color filter out of WOLED and instead uses Samsung's Quantum Dot or QD technology to increase the panel's brightness while removing the white filter that can wash out colors on display. The results are a screen that gives you the perfect blacks and contrasts from WOLED while vastly increasing the brightness and increasing color vibrancy from the white filter. QD-OLED becomes excellent for gaming and cinema on the big screen in your living room and is reliable enough to use as a monitor for your workstations due to the increased brightness and improved color accuracy for content creators.

This year, Samsung launched its 2023 QD-OLED model, the S95C, and its performance left many pundits amazed. I should note that Sony's flagship TV, the A95L, which uses Samsung's QD-OLED panels, has yet to be released at the time of writing. But from early previews of Sony's highly anticipated flagship display, it has a great chance to outperform the S95C.

So what does this mean for LG, who for close to 10 years were the kings of OLED? Well, they stated that they wouldn't be investing in the QD-OLED market and decided to continue development into WOLED.

Enter MLA

MLA WOLED, known as Micro Lens Array, is LG's answer to QD-OLED, which essentially doubles down on the (W)hite in WOLED. The increase in brightness is achieved by taking a panel with billions of microscopic lenses and placing them over a standard WOLED panel. The lenses help redirect any lost light back towards the screen, allowing the display to increase the white light and brightness overall. The result gives you an increasingly brighter picture of traditional WOLED, but what about the difference in color compared to QD-OLED?

This year was LG's first use of MLA display on their flagship model, the G3, and well, MLA is the real deal. A comparison of the G3 to Samsung's S95C showed the G3 can achieve a higher brightness level. Even though we talked about how the increased white can wash out colors, the G3 stays very competitive with regard to color against the S95C. LG says they're going all in on MLA technology, so it'll be a QD-OLED vs. MLA WOLED battle for the foreseeable future.

Ultimately, when it comes to which one is better, I think it's too early to tell. One year MLA may be the best option, while the next, it could be QD-OLED. The displays are so close in performance that it will come down to individual use cases for prospective buyers and looking at which strengths would benefit them more. What matters is we as consumers are getting high-end competition that pushes technology to bounds not thought conceivable.

What are the negative impacts they can have on consumers?

The most concerning downside of OLED technology, including QD-OLED and MLA, is the risk of burn-in. Burn-in is simply put when a static image is left on display for an extended period, which causes the screen to display an almost watermark-looking image. Situations where this would come up are if you left your TV on for hundreds of hours on CNN or used your OLED TV as a monitor. Now, I want to mention that burn-in risk has been significantly reduced and is getting better with each concurrent generation of display, but technically the risk is still there.

What are your predictions on how these technologies will evolve?

LG, Samsung, Sony, have done so much with advancing where OLED brightness and color can go and my predictions on how the technology will evolve are hopefully to continue the reduction of burn-in along with pushing the boundaries of what brightness on OLED while preventing loss in color accuracy can look like. That said, it seems like the next improvement for OLED is not far off, and it comes in the form of phosphorescent blue, but I'll leave that for later.

Do you have any more thoughts on this topic?

I really just want to emphasize that these displays are so competitive and impressive that I genuinely believe there is NO clear-cut winner or loser between QD-OLED and MLA WOLED at this time. It's an exciting time to be in the A/V space, and if you're currently or will be in the market to buy a new OLED TV or monitor, it's hard to say there's a wrong choice.