Difference Between LCD and OLED

LCD vs OLED

Liquid Crystal Displays or LCD is a fairly old technology that has seen a recent burst in advancement. From calculator screens, LCDs are now fairly common in mobile phones, PDAs, computers, and a lot more applications. OLEDs (Organic Light Emitting Diode) are an improved version of LEDs that utilizes organic compounds to produce light. OLEDs have been eyed by many manufacturers as a good replacement for LCDs in many applications due to multiple advantages.

From the phrase ‘light emitting’ we can deduce that OLEDs produce their own light unlike LCDs which require a backlight that means fewer parts. Another advantage that this presents is the lower power consumption; a great amount of the power consumed by LCDs goes to the backlight, thus the big power difference. The lack of a backlight also means that an OLED display can be significantly slimmer than an LCD display. OLEDs have also been observed to show warmer images with better contrast making their image quality far superior than what LCDs currently achieve.

Manufacturing OLEDs could also be a lot cheaper than manufacturing LCDs. LCD screens are made out of transistors that are expensive to manufacture. OLEDs on the other hand can be applied to a substrate that has been treated to accept organic compounds via printing methods just like ink. Any inkjet printer can do this, making it easier and more economical to mass produce OLED displays. The printing method of production could also make it viable to have OLED displays on different mediums like cloth and paper which are unthinkable places for LCD displays.

The current problem that most OLED displays face nowadays is the very short lifetime. OLEDs are currently rated to last for up to 14,000 hours of operation before elements in the display begin to fail. This means that it won’t last four years if used for 10 hours every day. LCDs are known to last for over 4 times longer at 60,000 hours. This limitation is currently being looked into to make OLED displays more viable and a good candidate as an LCD replacement.

Summary:
1. OLED does not require a backlight while LCDs do.
2. As a consequence of the first, OLED displays consume less power than LCD displays.
3. OLEDs have better contrast compared to LCDs.
4. LCDs cost more to manufacture than OLEDs due to the printable nature of OLEDs.
5. Printing techniques could lead to more applications for OLEDs than LCDs.
6. OLED displays have a significantly lower lifetime than LCD displays.

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