In the new iPad Pro recently launched by Apple, one of the most eye-catching changes is to abandon the LCD screen and switch to a double-layer series OLED, which is also considered by many industry insiders to be a symbol of further marginalization of LCD. In fact, the marginalization process of LCD screen on smartphones has already begun, and the starting price of iQOO Z9x, which has just been released not long ago, is equipped with LCD screen, which is as low as 1149 yuan, which is very close to 100 yuan machine, and this market status quo also shows that LCD even in the mid-range market is further compressed.
Although some users have long said that "LCD will never be a slave" and hope that mobile phone manufacturers will launch more models with LCD screens, the main support point of this view is no longer so tenable. For example, LCD is more eye-friendly than OLED, and has the advantages of service life and cost, although this view was once very marketable, and even derived from the speculation that the use of OLED is to promote "planned scrapping".
Under the current technical conditions, taking eye protection as an example, OLED was limited by technology and did have some deficiencies in strobe control, especially in low-brightness environments, which will bring a certain amount of discomfort to some users. Although some manufacturers have improved it by introducing DC-like dimming, it will also bring problems that affect the visual experience.
However, with the progress of OLED-related technologies and the continuous improvement of users' demand for related functions, mobile phone manufacturers have put the eye protection function in an extremely important position, and continue to promote the extension of high-frequency PWM dimming to low-end products, and the strobe problem that has plagued some users has also been effectively improved.
From a technical point of view, high-frequency PWM dimming is to reduce the stimulation of strobe on the human eye by accelerating the speed of alternating between bright and off screens, so as to achieve the purpose of eye protection. In the standard of the IEEE Association of Engineers, the flickering frequency higher than 1250Hz belongs to the "low risk" category, and most of the current models are equipped with OLED screens that are already higher than this standard, plus high-frequency PWM can effectively avoid the problem of DC-like dimming affecting the display effect, so it is now believed that LCD is more than OLED eye protection is obviously the old yellow calendar.
Service life has also been a controversial aspect of OLED screens before, although OLED was indeed plagued by this kind of problem at the beginning of its appearance, but with the wide application of anti-burning screen technologies such as pixel refresh, pixel migration, etc., it effectively avoids the rapid aging of the screen caused by the long-term display of static images. At the same time, compared with LCD, OLED screens now have better market competitiveness in terms of brightness, contrast, color saturation, and power consumption.
In terms of screen brightness, the LCD screen on the mobile phone is limited by size, and in the case of not being able to use a large-size panel backlight module, it can only reach a peak brightness of 1000nit with enough "strength", and most of them can only be in the 600-800nit range. In contrast, the OLED screen used in mobile phones basically has a full-screen peak brightness of 1000-1600nit, and the local peak brightness is higher, which means that the latter will have a better display in bright light environments and can display HDR content more easily.
In addition, the single-pixel self-luminous nature of the OLED screen allows it to completely turn off the pixels when it displays black, thus achieving lower power consumption, which means that devices using OLED screens under the same conditions will have more advantages in terms of battery life. In addition, OLED does not require a backlight layer, so it can also effectively reduce the thickness of the fuselage, meeting users' higher requirements for lightness, thinness and portability.
Therefore, in the current market environment, it is obviously a bit anachronistic to continue to think that OLED is inferior to LCD on the technical grounds that are already outdated. Although there are still some users who prefer LCD screens on devices such as smartphones, it is clear that this has become a relatively niche need under the current technology trend.
Even from a purely market point of view, it is not difficult to find that LCD screens are no longer mainstream on mobile phones. Previously, with the advantage of cost, some low-end models can also use LCD to achieve the leapfrog performance of other components, but now with the intensification of market competition, users' requirements for display effect and cost performance are increasing, LCD's living space has also been further compressed, especially represented by Redmi, which has always been a cost-effective brand, and the turn in the screen scheme has also brought a heavy blow to the LCD screen.
Taking the Redmi Note 13 as an example, this model was positioned in the mid-range market at the beginning of its release, and has been favored by a large number of users with its consistent cost-effective characteristics, and its global sales have exceeded 15 million units so far. But it is worth mentioning that this model, which currently starts at only 999 yuan, also uses OLED screen, and even the cost of screen replacement and maintenance is only 300 yuan, such a price undoubtedly breaks through the cost advantage barrier of LCD screen, squeezing it to a lower positioning model.
In addition, it is worth noting that there is another factor that cannot be ignored in the marginalization of LCD screens in smartphones today, that is, the rapid popularization of biometric technology, especially under-screen fingerprint recognition. Nowadays, in the Android camp, mid-to-high-end models are almost fully equipped with under-screen fingerprint recognition technology modules, from ultrasonic to optical recognition, various solutions emerge in an endless stream, and for relatively low-cost optical solutions, it has begun to go down to the sub-category of entry-level products.
However, due to the structure of the LCD, it is difficult for the optical signal to penetrate the screen, so it is also difficult to use with this biometric solution. Although Redmi announced in 2020 that it had overcome this problem, it enhanced the light transmittance of the screen by using an infrared high transmittance film, so that the infrared light emitted by the infrared emitter can penetrate the screen, obtain fingerprint information, and perform feedback verification through reflection. However, there is no mass production machine with this solution on the market so far, which obviously means that the related technology still has unsolvable problems in terms of cost, power consumption, or other aspects.
In contrast, the use of OLED to carry a relatively low-cost optical under-screen fingerprint recognition solution shows more advantages, in addition to the cost, due to the larger usage, it also enables it to effectively shorten the primary cycle of this function point, and further reduce costs through scale effect. Therefore, starting from this aspect alone, LCD has now become an almost irreversible trend in the "sidelines" of smartphone products.
Although LCD screen was the absolute mainstream solution in smartphones in the past with its eye-friendly characteristics and relatively low cost, with the significant advantages of OLED in brightness, size, power consumption, etc., it has been continuously compressing the former's living space in this market. In addition, the development direction of mobile phone biometric technology, especially the popularization of under-screen fingerprint recognition technology, has become a major shortcoming of LCD screens. Therefore, it is not surprising that OLED in the field of smartphones will continue to be popularized in the future, and become the absolute mainstream solution.