The role of OLED displays mainly stems from their unique "self luminous" characteristics, which make them significantly different from traditional LCD/LED screens in terms of display effect, design flexibility, and user experience. Its core role can be summarized as follows:
Presenting excellent picture quality, especially deep black and high contrast:
Key principle: Each pixel can independently emit light and turn off. When black is displayed, the pixels are completely extinguished and do not emit light, presenting a pure, almost unlit black color.
Effect: This brings almost infinite contrast (the difference between light and dark), with a strong sense of layering in the picture, clear details in the dark areas, and colors that appear more vivid, lively, and realistic. This is the core advantage of OLED.
Realize ultra-thin, flexible, and bendable screen forms:
Key principle: No need for thick backlight layer and liquid crystal layer. OLED has a simple structure, mainly composed of organic light-emitting material layers and electrodes.
Effect: The screen can be made extremely thin (even like paper) and has physical properties such as bendability, foldability, and even curling. This has brought revolutionary design possibilities to smartphones (foldable screens, curved screens), televisions (wallpaper TVs), wearable devices (smartwatches), and more.
Provide extremely fast response speed and smooth dynamic images:
Key principle: Organic materials exhibit extremely fast luminescence response, far exceeding the deflection speed of liquid crystal molecules.
Effect: Effectively reduces the phenomenon of dragging and blurring (dynamic blurring) during rapid motion of the image. When watching high-speed sports scenes (sports events, action movies) or playing fast-paced games, the visuals are clearer, smoother, and the experience is better.
Realize a wider and more accurate viewing angle:
Key principle: The self luminous property allows light to directly shine from pixel points towards the viewer.
Effect: Even when viewed from a large angle (side view), the color, brightness, and contrast of the screen can be maintained very well, with almost no color cast or whitening phenomenon, providing a better viewing experience for multiple people.
Support low-power functions such as "screen off display":
Key principle: Pixel independent control means that only the necessary pixels on the screen (such as time and notification icons) can be lit, while the rest remain turned off (pure black without power consumption).
Effect: When displaying dark images or small-scale information, power consumption can be very low. The off screen display function allows users to view key information without having to light up the entire screen, which is both convenient and energy-saving (especially important for devices with limited battery capacity such as mobile phones and watches). However, when displaying large areas of pure white images, OLEDs may consume more power than LCDs of the same size.
Provide more eye friendly display options (in some scenarios):
Key principle: The ability to completely disable the characteristics of pixels.
Effect: In dark environments, when displaying pure black content, the screen does not emit light at all, theoretically reducing the stimulation of light to the eyes. However, it should be noted that low-frequency PWM dimming (a brightness adjustment method used by some OLED screens) may cause discomfort to some sensitive individuals. Choosing OLED products with DC dimming or high-frequency PWM dimming provides a better experience.
In summary, the core function of OLED displays is:
Through pixel level self illumination, it provides unparalleled image quality (deep black, high contrast, vivid colors).
Breaking through the limitations of physical form, achieving ultra-thin, flexible, and bendable screen design.
Bring a smoother and clearer dynamic visual experience (extremely fast response speed).
Achieve stable image quality across a wider viewing angle.
Support innovative low-power interactive methods such as screen off display.
Therefore, OLED is widely used in devices that pursue ultimate picture quality, innovative form design, and high-performance experience, such as high-end smartphones, televisions, smartwatches, VR/AR headsets, and emerging foldable/scroll screen devices. Of course, it also faces challenges such as the "burn-in" phenomenon that may occur due to long-term static display, but with technological advancements, these issues are constantly improving.