I often hear people talking about LED and OLED, two acronyms that differ only by one letter. Is LED or OLED better?
To answer this question in one word: yes.
It turns out that an extra letter “O” makes a big difference, but doesn’t mean OLED is better than LED in any way. This article will compare the differences between the two display technologies in detail and explore the advantages and disadvantages of each.
What does LED mean?
LED means Light Emitting Diode. It is a small solid-state device that emits light as electrons move through a semiconductor. Now, the technology of choice for backlighting all LCD displays, LEDs can be much smaller than compact fluorescent and incandescent lamps, but much brighter.
What does OLED mean?
OLED means Organic Light Emitting Diode. Simply put, OLEDs are made of organic compounds that light up when powered. This may not seem like a huge difference compared to LEDs, but unlike LEDs, OLEDs can be made very thin, flexible, and very small.
Indeed, OLEDs can be made small for a single pixel—a TV screen can contain millions of pixels that can turn on and off completely independently. Because of this flexibility, when an OLED pixel is turned off, it is turned off completely—displayed in complete black.
OLED PK LED: Which technology is better?
Now is the time to pit the two technologies against each other to see how they compare in terms of contrast, viewing angles, brightness, and other performance factors.
brightness
In terms of brightness, LEDs have a considerable advantage. LEDs are very bright, and the addition of quantum dots makes them even brighter. OLED brightness can also be very high, and the contrast between the brightest and darkest points on the screen is exaggerated due to fairly deep blacks.
Raising OLED pixel brightness to maximum levels for extended periods of time not only shortens its lifespan, but it also takes longer for the pixels to return to full black. With these factors in mind, it’s important to point out that all modern TVs – OLED, LED – are sufficiently bright.
However, the location of use is also a factor to consider. In dark rooms, OLED TVs perform best, while LEDs perform better in brighter environments, so LEDs can be used outdoors in brightly lit environments.
color space
OLED used to be king in this regard, but by improving the purity of the backlight, quantum dots have given LED TVs a huge boost in color accuracy, color brightness and color capacity, making them comparable to OLED TVs. Users interested in purchasing features with wide color gamut and/or HDR (high dynamic range) will find OLED and LED models with these features.
OLED has better contrast and has a slight advantage in HDR when viewing in a dark room, but HDR on high-end LED/LCD screens has an advantage because it produces satisfyingly saturated colors at extremely low brightness , which is unmatched by OLED.
Response time and lag
Response time is the time it takes for each diode to go from “on” to “off.” Faster response times result in less motion blur and fewer artifacts.
OLEDs use smaller diodes as individual pixels and far exceed LEDs in response time. In contrast, the diodes in LEDs are not only slower, but sit behind the LCD panel and illuminate groups of pixels, not individual pixels.
This results in relatively slow transitions between the “on” and “off” states overall. In fact, OLED offers the fastest responsiveness of current display technology, making it the clear winner here.
Viewing angle
OLED is once again the winner in this segment. For LED, the best viewing angle is in the middle, and on either side, the image quality such as color and contrast will be degraded, even if the viewing angle reaches 154 degrees, it is difficult to match OLED. While the severity varies from model to model, it’s always fairly obvious.
In terms of LED display panels, LG uses an LCD panel called IPS, which has slightly better viewing angles than VA-type LCD panels, but has worse black levels than rival VA panels Some, not OLED competitors.
In contrast, the OLED display will not degrade the brightness at large angles, and the viewing angle is as high as 284 degrees. Compared with LED’s maximum viewing angle of 154 degrees, OLED has obvious advantages.
size
But correspondingly, under the large screen size, LED also occupies an absolute position, especially when the screen is up to hundreds of square meters, the advantage is more obvious.
service life
LG says that OLEDs have to be viewed for 5 hours a day, and 50 percent of the brightness won’t drop after 54 years of viewing. Whether or not this claim is true remains to be seen, as OLED TVs have only been rolled out rapidly since 2013. For this reason, we’ll only see LEDs as the winner in this segment.
energy consumption
OLED panels are so thin that they don’t require a backlight. As a result, OLEDs tend to weigh less than LEDs and are thinner. They also require less power and are therefore more efficient.
price
Since LED and OLED are two extremes, there is no comparison.
OLED is mainly a common way of micro and small high-end devices, while LED is mainly a common way of large-screen and super-large-screen display devices.
Bottom line: OLED still outperforms LED/LCD in terms of image quality, although the latter technology has seen major improvements in recent times. OLEDs are also lighter, thinner, consume less power, offer far better viewing angles, and while still a bit more expensive, have dropped significantly.
