2021: A Missed Opportunity for OLED TVs

No real progress this year for the most cinematic display tech, 2022 might not bring about enough change either

There were high hopes at the beginning of the year that top OLED TVs would finally get brighter… but did this prove to be the case in practice? (Image: LG)

As 2021 is slowly drawing to a close — Q4 will fly by in a blink as it always does — it’s worth taking a step back to consider what this year meant for one of tech’s most important markets: the TV set business. During CES 2021 in January, it seemed to make a lot of promises for real progress in picture quality, especially regarding OLED TVs. Arguably the display tech most capable of delivering the kind of cinematic picture that makes every creator’s vision justice, OLED remained excellent but also stagnant for the last two or three years. Was there no room for improvement, after all?

“No!”, LG, the world’s practically only OLED TV screen manufacturer, claimed, “that’s not the case”. The company not only promised to produce better, brighter “Evo” OLED panels capable of delivering a higher quality picture, but to also offer (for the first time in a decade) “more affordable” OLED TVs to all. It was a time of joy, it was a time of hope. For, as capable as LED/LCD TVs were getting — with advanced MiniLED backlighting and impressively effective processing — OLED TVs always held a special place in our hearts. Of course we’d want to have a brighter OLED picture to go along…