Apple Supplier Unveils 'Industry First' Tandem OLED Laptop Panel
OLED iPad Pro panel maker LG Display has begun mass producing the industry's first 13-inch tandem OLED panel designed for laptops, the Korean company announced this week.
LG Display supplies the majority of OLED panels for Apple's latest M4 iPad Pro models, which use a similar tandem structure. Tandem OLED panels combine two stacks of red, green, and blue (RGB) organic light emitting layers, which together offer better durability and performance compared to single-layer OLED panels such as the one used in Apple's iPhones.
LG has been developing the panels for the automotive industry since 2019, and says that efficiency gains mean they reduce power consumption by up to 40%, and enable up to three times the brightness. By designing the components and enhancing the structure of the 13-inch tandem OLED panel, LG Display says it has also been able to make it around 40% thinner and 28% lighter than existing OLED laptop screens, allowing for a sleek design and greater portability.
From LG Display's press release:
The new panel combines convenience and performance with high definition. It boasts a WQXGA+ (2880×1800) high resolution and accurate color expression that meets 100% of the DCI-P3 standard color area established by the Digital Cinema Initiatives (DCI), allowing high-definition content to be presented with increased clarity.
With OLED's characteristic self-emissive pixels and infinite contrast ratio, it has also been certified as Display HDR (High Dynamic Range) True Black 500 by the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA). This confirms its ability to show both bright and dark images so well that it enhances their three-dimensionality and produces a display quality that is as close as possible to what the human eye naturally sees.
There are currently no Macs with OLED displays. However, according to a November 2023 report by analyst Jeff Pu of Haitong International Technology Research, Apple is actively developing an OLED screen for the MacBook Air, although the release of an OLED MacBook Pro is expected to come first.
An earlier report by Bloomberg's Mark Gurman claimed that a new MacBook Pro with an OLED display could be the first touchscreen Mac in 2025. Notably LG Display says that it has also embedded a touch sensor inside its latest tandem OLED panels to improve touch performance.
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