On paper, OLED displays can last for 100 years - if it wasn't for one color

[Redaktion]

Display Week wrap-up: At Display Week 2023, two researchers from the University of Michigan dispelled a few preconceptions about OLED technology. On the one hand, OLEDs can be very bright, and on the other hand, the short shelf life thing is only partially true. Nevertheless, OLED technology, which is about two decades younger than LCD technology, still needs optimization.

https://www.notebookcheck.net/On-paper-OLED-displays-can-last-for-100-years-if-it-wasn-t-for-one-color.729391.0.html

[LL]

Interesting article. Thanks.

[A]

Yeah, we all know blue has been the weakness of OLED in both lifespan and energy consumption, which is why it boggles my mind why many OLED phones pick blue color themes as the default. The first thing I do with a Samsung phone is deblue them

[sh4dow]

Yeah, we all know blue has been the weakness of OLED in both lifespan and energy consumption, which is why it boggles my mind why many OLED phones pick blue color themes as the default. The first thing I do with a Samsung phone is deblue them

Probably mainly because the UI is done by completely different people/teams than the hardware.
It's difficult enough to make designers care about computational costs of design choices (think about how many applications transitioned to electron/web UIs from far more performant "classical"/native ones), not to mention the lifecycle of hardware components ...

[Sam mann]

Can the use of selective "quantum dots" solve the blue problem?

[Hunter2020]

Author of article is a technical noobie.  The same problems exist in LCD displays too.  We have a Samsung LCD monitor from the year 2003.  The blue is almost gone.  It's the dimmest color of the three.  If it weren't for the messed up blue color, monitor could probably be used for another decade (that's 30 years after it was made).  Also in a TN/IPS display, green is easily the brightest color on the screen at the same color intensity.

[jrharbort]

Yeah, we all know blue has been the weakness of OLED in both lifespan and energy consumption, which is why it boggles my mind why many OLED phones pick blue color themes as the default. The first thing I do with a Samsung phone is deblue them

Gotta make sure those displays wear out so you buy a new Samsung every few years. 🤪

[A]

Yeah, we all know blue has been the weakness of OLED in both lifespan and energy consumption, which is why it boggles my mind why many OLED phones pick blue color themes as the default. The first thing I do with a Samsung phone is deblue them

Probably mainly because the UI is done by completely different people/teams than the hardware.
It's difficult enough to make designers care about computational costs of design choices (think about how many applications transitioned to electron/web UIs from far more performant "classical"/native ones), not to mention the lifecycle of hardware components ...

But it's a bit of common sense no? Like I can understand why companies went to web UIs, javascript is the most common language making it much easier to find programmers and tooling for. You also don't need to worry about your app being compatible with Windows, OSX, ChromeOS, mobile and etc. You can just reuse code. And computers are far more powerful than back in the day. So there is at least a cost reason for it. But sticking so much blue onto an OLED screen makes 0 sense. Samsung goes through so much money and effort to extend the life of the blue pixels only for all of it to go down the drain with how much blue the include in their default theme

Even if it is different teams, the ones doing the final checks should point that out

[geemy]

Also in a TN/IPS display, green is easily the brightest color on the screen at the same color intensity.

well green is "brighter" than red and blue. there's nothing you can do about that it's how we see colors. screens have to be calibrated so that 100% green + 100% red + 100% blue looks white

[NikoB]

As proven in dozens of reviews - for example, the last review of the "top" Asus ProArt for a monstrous amount of money - AMOLED screens almost never can be calibrated with dE below 2, and to be less than 1 is generally fantastic.

The fate of AMOLED technology is the mass of uneducated noobs. Professionals ignore AMOLED.

[Young]

It is true one can continue to improve the stability of OLED just like LCD 35 years ago. However, one should realize that what can be improved are the extrinsic aspects, such as passivation, defect reduction, etc., and the intrinsic aspect, the strength of the chemical bonding, is hard to change for certain types of materials. Likely, as in biology, difference species seem to have different lifespans. It is probably hard to make a dog last as long as a human. So could an OLED ever last as long as a LED under the same conditions? Maybe at low intensity applications the difference is not practically important.
To assessing the long-term stability of OLED materials, one should come up with a reliable accelerated aging technique instead of waiting for 35 years while trying to get incremental improvement.