Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Computing

VESA’s new OLED standard is reserved for only the brightest displays

Jacob Roach
By

VESA, which creates display and interface standards, revealed a new tier for its DisplayHDR certification on Thursday. DisplayHDR True Black 600 now occupies the top spot on the certification chart, with validated displays boasting 600 nits of peak brightness and black levels down to 0.0005 nits.

The DisplayHDR standard tracks high-dynamic range (HDR) across display types, but the True Black certification is reserved for OLED displays. OLED displays don’t have a backlight like most other display technologies. Instead, each pixel can emit its own light, allowing OLED displays to achieve “true black” levels, boosting the contrast and color.

Asus Vivobook Pro 16X OLED sitting on a table top.
Luke Larsen/Digital Trends

There are only three displays available under the new standard — the screens on the Asus Vivobook Pro 14, 14X, and, 15 laptops. Asus announced these new laptops along with a new desktop, monitor, motherboard, and more. Each of the new laptops feature the same OLED panel, which should offer excellent display quality and color accuracy.

Recommended Videos

“Asus is proud to announce its family of Vivobook Pro laptops with industry-first VESA DisplayHDR True Black 600 certified displays,” Rex Lee, head of personal computing at Asus, said. The Asus ProArt laptops are the first to adopt the new standard, but further adoption should come soon.

Related

Of all the DisplayHDR True Black tiers, DisplayHDR True Black 600 has a higher peak brightness. The 500 and 400 tier displays top out at a peak brightness of 500 and 400 nits, respectively. Although DisplayHDR True Black 600 displays are brighter, all three certification tiers come with a minimum brightness of 0.0005 nits.

If you do the math, that works out to a contrast ratio of 1,200,000:1. For reference, most standard LED displays have a contrast ratio of 1,000:1. Although displays that fall under the DisplayHDR 1400 standard are brighter — they can reach up to 1,400 nits — they don’t have as much contrast. A display in this category has a contrast ratio of 70,000:1.

OLED displays are showing up in more laptops. Asus’ refreshed ProArt range features them across the board. Although they look much better than a traditional LED or LCD display, OLED displays have a problem — burn-in. Over time, static images will remain on the display, laying over the top of whatever’s on screen.

There are various ways to prevent burn-in, and most panels have technologies like pixel shifting and pixel refresh to avoid it. However, burn-in is still possible, which could present an issue for laptops. Unlike an OLED TV or monitor, you can’t swap out the display on your laptop, forcing you to replace the entire machine if your display has burn-in.

Thankfully, burn-in prevention technologies help passively. On top of that, you need to leave a static image on screen for hundreds of hours for burn-in to happen — think a news logo or score counter. The only potential issue on a desktop is the Windows Taskbar, which you can hide in the Windows settings menu.

Although Asus is the first to capitalize on the new standard, adoption among laptop makers is happening fast. “Several dozen laptop product families from multiple vendors have already been certified to the DisplayHDR True Black specification at the 400 and 500 tier levels. This demonstrates the growing acceptance and adoption of … emissive displays in the PC industry in general,” Roland Wooster, chairman of the VESA task group, said.

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Jacob Roach
Jacob Roach
Senior Staff Writer, Computing
Jacob Roach is a writer covering computing and gaming at Digital Trends. After realizing Crysis wouldn't run on a laptop, he…
Asus Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition hands-on review: To the stars
Asus Zenbook 14X OLED with its accessories.

It’s not often we see collectors' laptops like the Asus Zenbook 14X OLED Space Edition. Announced at CES 2022, it’s an updated version of the already-released Zenbook 14X OLED, fit with new 12th-gen Intel processors and a more robust build -- but hardware isn’t what makes the Space Edition special.

The machine is inspired by Asus’s own P6300, which launched into space in 1997 and managed to stay outside the atmosphere for 600 days without any defects. It’s an homage, a celebration, and a retrospective on how far laptops have come.

Read more
The ROG Swift PG42UQ is the 42-inch OLED gaming monitor I’ve been waiting for
Asus ROG OLED monitors on a starry background.

Asus announced two new OLED gaming monitors at CES 2022, including the world's first 42-inch 4K OLED display. The monitors may target gaming with their high resolutions and refresh rates, but Asus says they come with excellent color and contrast thanks to the OLED panel, as well.

There are two versions available, a 48-inch model (PG48UQ) and a 42-inch one (PG42UQ). We've seen 48-inch OLED displays before, including the Gigabyte Aorus FO48U and LG C1, but never a 42-inch display. At 42 inches, it's still a little big for some setups, but it's a lot closer than the 48-inch displays that have made the rounds over the past year.

Read more
LG Display uses exotic deuterium to make OLED TVs 30% brighter
Models stand beside a demo of LG Display's OLED EX panel.

Only days before CES 2022, LG Display, the company that manufactures the OLED panels used by Sony, LG Electronics, Vizio, and virtually every other OLED TV maker, has created a new OLED display that it calls OLED EX. The new panels incorporate deuterium into the manufacturing process, which LG Display claims can make them 30% brighter than the OLED panels used in current large-size TVs. The company plans to produce OLED EX panels at two of its OLED plants starting in the second quarter of 2022.

Deuterium is an isotope of hydrogen with twice the mass of a regular hydrogen atom, and LG Display is using deuterium compounds to improve the efficiency of its organic light-emitting diodes, which lets them emit a stronger light.

Read more