- LG’s next generation of OLED panels could reach 3,700 nits
- Coming to G-series TVs but not LG’s more affordable models
- Samsung’s also working on brighter QD-OLED displays
As much as we love the best OLED TVs, there’s one area where there’s still room for improvement: brightness. Even the elite models are a little dark compared to mini-LED, and that’s something LG in particular has been working on. The LG G4 was significantly brighter than the G3, and that in turn was significantly brighter than its predecessor. And now it seems that the 2025 LG OLED TVs will be brighter still.
A new report says that LG will be bringing a new four-layer OLED TV panel to market this year, and that this will be significantly brighter than the three-layer panel in its current flagship TVs.
What to expect from LG’s latest OLEDs
According to display industry analyst Ross Young, as reported by FlatpanelsHD, LG has been developing a four-layer OLED TV panel with an additional light-emitting layer of pixels; that panel tech is expected to reach the market this year “with a peak brightness of 3,700 nits”. That’s exceptionally bright for an OLED, though bear in mind that LG Display (which makes the panels) claimed last year that its latest-gen panel (as used in the LG G4) could hit 3,000 nits, and the TV was never close to hitting that (nor did it promise to).
LG has already shown off this new OLED tech: it displayed a small prototype at the IMID conference in South Korea back in August, telling reporters that the tech would not only boost brightness by 25%, but would deliver a longer lifespan and better energy efficiency too.
LG Display didn’t say when the panels would come to market. But the 2025 LG G5 already leaked with a 165Hz screen, and has been listed in Hong Kong’s electronics certification system with reported energy figures that suggest the new panel tech is inside: its consumption is listed as 132W for the 55-inch model and 164W for the 65-inch version, which is around 20% lower than the 161W and 209W for the equivalent G4 models.
That suggests that the new panel is about to launch, although LG Display is not listed as one of the firms appearing at CES 2025 – though LG overall is, and we expect the company to announce its new TVs there.
But when this screen is announced, don’t expect it in LG’s more affordable 2025 panels: the energy consumption listed in the database for the C5 is barely different to that of the C4, which suggests that this will be high-end only.
LG isn’t the only big name working on better panels. Samsung is doing it too. The same industry analyst, Ross Young, says that the 2025/26 QD-OLED panels will boost brightness even further to 3,600 nits or more, and possibly as much as 4,000 nits. The OLED TV arms race continues…