While LG is just as prone to making big claims as the next TV brand, it’s traditionally been very reluctant to reveal hard performance numbers and hardware details. So it’s a huge surprise that LG’s David Seperson revealed specific peak brightness numbers for the new G3 in a recent video briefing, which will be the brightest OLED TV the company has ever produced – and by far.
The headline is that the TV will apparently be able to reach a maximum brightness of “approximately” 2040 nits. This is specifically in the HDR Vivid picture mode and is measured at a 3 percent window – that is, a pure white block that’s 3 percent the size of the entire screen, with the rest being pure black.
A Vivid/Dynamic picture mode is great for illustrating the extremes a TV is capable of, thanks to its cool but crisp balance, but it’s far from authentic to the source material overall. Thankfully, Seperson also delivered the G3’s peak brightness figure in its calibrated HDR Cinema mode, which aims to provide a more authentic movie experience. That figure is 1470 nits, again recorded at a 3 percent window.
That may sound like a lot less than the 2040 nit figure, but it’s much brighter than the G2 it replaces, which topped out at less than 1000 nits in the same mode.
Breaking the 1000-nit barrier is also a big deal, as this is the point where many home HDR movies are mastered. A TV capable of displaying brighter images should be able to reproduce the source material without compressing the brightest highlights.
MLA technology confirmed, but not for all models
The big leap in OLED brightness this year is due to the introduction of Micro Lens Array (MLA) technology, which consists of a layer of tiny lenses that focus the light from the OLED materials to create a brighter screen without you having to drive said OLEDs more difficult.
LG Display, the LG panel manufacturer that supplies all panels to manufacturers of traditional OLED TVs (as opposed to QD-OLED TVs), has confirmed that MLA has been added to its third-generation panels, which it refers to as “META” panels . Panasonic and Philips have also confirmed that their 2023 flagship OLED TVs (the MZ2000 and OLED908, respectively) will use MLA-enhanced META panels. However, LG has always refused to be so specific.
That’s now changed, with David Seperson confirming that the G3 does indeed use MLA technology – at least to some extent. “All G3 TVs have Brightness Booster Max, a combination of both hardware we call ‘light control architecture’ and software we call ‘light boosting algorithms’ that allow the G3 OLED Evos to be brighter,” he says. “The hardware that comes in each size of the G3 differs, and in some sizes MLA is part of that hardware solution.”
The obvious follow-up question is; which sizes of the G3 have MLA and which don’t? Seperson wouldn’t directly answer the question, but did say this:
“The 55, the 65 and the 77 [versions of the G3] are 70 percent brighter, the 83 is 30 percent brighter.”
So you don’t have to be a genius to figure out that the 83-inch version of the G3 is the only one that doesn’t have MLA technology. That makes sense, as LG Display has so far only confirmed that it produces META panels in 55, 65 and 77 inches.
Not the only super-bright OLED in town
As mentioned earlier, Panasonic and Philips have confirmed they’ll be launching OLED TVs this year that use LG’s MLA-enhanced META panels, but there’s also QD OLED to consider.
Manufactured by Samsung Display (the panel manufacturing arm of the Samsung company) and launched last year in the Samsung S95B and Sony A95K TVs, QD-OLED combines OLED technology with Quantum Dots for more vibrant and brighter performance than traditional OLED TVs at the time. OLEDs with MLA technology look set to surpass the brightness of those first-generation QD-OLED TVs, but second-generation QD-OLEDs – specifically the Samsung S95C – are coming to market this year and are expected to reach peak brightness numbers that are very similar to those touted by LG for the G3.
In short, traditional OLEDs and QD OLEDs should go toe-to-toe in terms of brightness this year. Of course we don’t take any manufacturer’s claims when it comes to TV performance, and we won’t be releasing our verdicts on these sets until we’ve had them all in our test labs for extensive, comparative assessments, but it’s already shaping up to be a fantastic , super bright year for OLED TVs.
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