Recently, a piece of news claimed that Apple is testing three OLED panels, namely 20-inch, 27-inch and 32-inch. The 20-inch panel is being tested on MacBook, and the 27- and 32-inch versions are on iMac. If the news is true, then with the previously exposed OLED version of iPad, Apple has almost completed the deployment of OLED panels across the entire product chain.


Source: Twitter

In the past two years, Apple has been trying to apply new panel technologies to its product line. For example, the Mini-LED panel used in the iPad Pro made Apple the first manufacturer to use this panel on a tablet. In its attempts to display panel technology, Apple is more radical than in other fields.

However, Mini-LED is not a particularly good choice today. When used on small mobile devices, there will be serious heating and overflow problems. Even if Apple has maximized the number of partitions, the nature of Mini-LED determines that it is difficult to completely solve these shortcomings on small devices.

Therefore, there have long been rumors that Apple is considering abandoning Mini-LED and using OLED as the next-generation panel choice for iPad Pro. The dissatisfaction of Mini-LED on iPad Pro naturally affects the application on MacBook and iMac. Judging from the current situation, Apple should decide to skip Mini-LED directly and choose OELD directly.

Why should Apple bet on OLED instead of more advanced micro-LED?

Can OLED take the lead?

OLED is not a new technology. In the field of mobile phones, the penetration rate of OLED panels is quite high. Most of the domestic mobile phone models with a price of more than 1,000 yuan use AMOLED panels. LCD can only be seen in models with a price of less than 1,000 yuan.

Although it has become popular in the field of mobile phones, OLED panels have been very slow in other markets. In the TV market, OLED TVs are still the flagship products of a small number of brands. The price is basically more than five digits, and the sales ratio is not comparable to LCD and Mini-LED TVs.

The same is true in the field of displays. Until June this year, the starting price of OLED displays was close to 10,000 yuan. It was not until July that it gradually dropped to the 5,000-6,000 yuan range. Even so, for most PC users, this price is far beyond the budget.


Source: JD.com

It can be said that the only ones that can barely keep up with the pace of popularizing OLED panels are laptops. In the past two years, laptop manufacturers led by Asus have been promoting the low-end of OLED laptops, and have reduced OLED screens that were originally only available in the high-end price range of more than 7,000 to 8,000 yuan to the 4,000 to 5,000 yuan range.

Maybe you are curious, why OLED on mobile phones has become so popular, but it cannot become mainstream in other markets? The reason is actually very simple: expensive. The unit cost of OLED panels is not constant. The larger the panel size, the higher the unit cost. Among display panel manufacturers, only a few companies have the ability to ship large-area OLED panels, and the price for external sales is basically locked.

However, although the display effect of OLED panels is not as good as that of micro-LEDs, judging from the current progress of various manufacturers, it is still difficult for micro-LED panels to be mass-produced in a short period of time. Currently, the top players in the industry have only completed production verification. How to ensure the yield rate and cost during mass production is still a problem.


Source: LG

Therefore, many manufacturers have begun to turn their attention to OLED. OLED technology has actually matured, and all that needs to be solved is the production cost issue. In fact, as long as the market demand increases, the cost of OLED panels can definitely be reduced. Taking notebook computers as an example, domestic manufacturers have taken practical actions to popularize OLED panels to the terminal price range.

The next thing that needs to be conquered is the monitor. The market dominated by 27-inch to 49-inch has already seen signs of price cuts. It can be said that Apple is verifying the OLED version of iMac and MacBook at this time, and it should also see the future trend of OLED panel price reduction.

Apple plans to popularize OLED across the board?

If Apple really wants to popularize OLED screens across its entire product line, can it drive OLED screens in related fields to quickly enter the mature stage? First, let’s take a look at why Apple chose OLED screens to make them the mainstream of its future product lines.

OLED screens have many advantages. Extremely high color gamut coverage, theoretically infinite static contrast and excellent response speed make OLED very popular among users in the high-end display market. Moreover, the flexible characteristics of OLED can also allow it to be bent to a certain extent and the panel thickness is extremely thin, which can further reduce the thickness of mobile devices and make the borders narrower.


Source: Samsung

In addition, the independent light control characteristics of OLED screens allow them to greatly reduce screen power consumption in daily use. Taking mobile phones as an example, mobile phones with OLED screens can increase their battery life by about 10% to 20% after turning on dark mode (this may vary depending on the actual usage scenario). For mobile devices such as MacBooks, the powerful combination of OLED + ARM can further improve their battery life.

However, OLED also has many shortcomings. In addition to high cost, lifespan and brightness have yet to be solved. In the field of mobile phones, the problem of OLED screen burn-in has only been solved in the past two years, and even so, many users still report that their screens have burn-in and have to go to after-sales service for replacement.

Compared with mobile phones where the screen changes frequently, the problem of OLED screen burn-in on PCs is more serious. Taking Windows as an example, most people's bottom taskbar is permanent. In daily use, except for a small amount of changes in the label area, the pixels in most areas are fixed and always on.


Source: Zhihu

As a result, the life of the OLED lamp beads in the corresponding area will be exhausted very quickly. As a result, when you play games or watch videos in full screen, you will find that there is a "permanent" taskbar at the bottom that cannot be removed at all. However, current notebook computer manufacturers reduce the possibility of screen burn-in in corresponding areas by regularly fine-tuning colors. Within the normal service life, the possibility of screen burn-in has been greatly reduced.

In addition to the problem of screen burn-in, brightness is also a problem that needs to be solved for OLED screens. We have always used brightness as one of the benchmarks to measure the quality of the screen. The brightness of Mini-LED can easily reach more than 1,000 nits, and some even reach as high as 2,000 nits. However, under the same size, the brightness of OLED is often only 400-500 nits globally, and the peak brightness is only about 1,000 nits.

Although with the support of extremely high contrast, the actual look and feel of OLED is not bad even if the brightness is slightly lower, but when it comes to large-area high-light display requirements, OLED's performance is inferior to screens such as Mini-LED. It is not difficult to increase the brightness. The global brightness of AMOLED screens used in mobile phones can reach more than 1,500 nits, and the peak brightness is as high as 2,500 nits. The difficulty is the cost.

The brightness of OLED mainly depends on the panel material. Samsung's E6 material is one of the brightest OLED materials currently, and the price is even higher. Even with the screen size of a mobile phone, the cost of a panel using E6 material is about 1,500-2,000 yuan (referring to the manufacturer's purchase price). If it is to be made into the size of notebooks and monitors, let alone whether Samsung has a corresponding production line, the light cost will be completely unbearable.

Therefore, if Apple wants to popularize OLED across its entire product line, the first thing it must solve is the brightness problem of OLED. In other words, it must support a manufacturer to develop new OLED materials and reduce the supply cost of such materials, so as to meet the demanding requirements of users.

It is not difficult for Apple to open up the use of OLED in the entire product chain. What is difficult is how to control costs while ensuring user experience. If Apple can solve the above problems, other brands of products will also benefit from it, and the real spring of OLED panels may be coming.

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