The Complete Guide To... OLED Laptops

Fitted with a fresh ultra-vibrant panel that’s easy both on the eyes and on power, this new breed of laptops is on the rise and forever changing the premium notebook screen

- Michelle Rae Uy

The era of OLED laptops has arrived. Finally, those of us who have long relied on our notebooks for work, gaming and creative endeavours can now reap the many benefits of this new screen panel technology – eye-popping visuals, better efficiency, thinner form – in the compact convenience of portable PCs.

So what exactly is an OLED laptop? Simply, an OLED laptop is a notebook fitted with a display that uses an OLED panel. Folks who aren’t too anxious to keep up with the latest and greatest might not care, but those who spend a great part of their day staring at a computer screen should.

Short for ‘Organic Light Emitting Diode’, OLED is a type of panel that uses organic molecules, which enable its individual pixels to emit their own light every time an electric current is applied, forgoing the need for an external light source that an LCD panel typically uses. No external light source, no massive backlighting, no light leakage. This allows the pixels to produce deeper blacks, as well as better contrast and higher colour accuracy.

OLED technology itself isn’t exactly new. It’s been our gracing TV sets, mobile phones and even mobile gaming consoles with its extra brilliant presence for years now. It’s just taken a while to reach laptops. Part of the reason why is Samsung’s monopoly on the OLED market. By the end of 2018, the South Korean conglomerate had acquired more than 95% share of the small- to mid-sized OLED panel market globally. This meant that the decision to make OLED screens specifically designed for notebooks was left largely up to the company. It wasn’t until January 2019 when it announced the successful development of the world’s first 15.6-inch OLED display for laptops.