OLED vs QLED: For your viewing pleasure

A burn-in and image retention test set-up of TV review site Rtings.com.

Televisions are, as it is said, 'the cheapest form of entertainment'. But with innovations over the decades, this might be a thing of the past.
However, it's great that spending power is increasing over time, which means we can keep in pace with the latest. From those cathode ray tube-powered thick sets to smaller plasmas to today's slim units, entertainment has never been better.
At present, OLED and, more recently, QLED, have been dominating TV headlines, and there's been quite a debate on which is better. Both obviously have its own pros and cons, so let's try to break it down as simple as possible.
Google Trends, as at Thursday, show that the UAE is 34th most-interested region for OLED, and this shoots up to 20th for QLED. Broken down, Dubai tops for OLED, followed by Abu Dhabi, Sharjah and Ajman; for QLED, the first three remain.
To start off, an LED - light-emitting diode - uses electroluminescence, which is the concept of a material lighting up in response to electricity flowing into it. OLED stands for organic light-emitting diode. Compared to the standard LED, OLED is a semiconductor that uses organic compounds (read: any compound with carbon) that light up when electricity is run through it, plus they are significantly smaller than LEDs - anywhere between 100 to 500 nanometres - making them useful in manufacturing thinner TVs.
QLED, meanwhile, means quantum-dot light-emitting diode (at least 'QDLED' wasn't used; it sounds too squishy). To make it sound not too technical, it's powered by a quantum dot filter and enhanced compound, boosting its lighting capabilities. And, in a little irony, here's a big thing about it: it's only two to 10 nm 'thick'; you'll be able to squeeze in more of them in panels.
Just for fun, a strand of human hair is anywhere between 80,000-100,000 nm.
One issue swirling around OLEDs is getting burn-ins. But let's get one thing out of the way first: 'burn-in' is different from 'image retention'; the former is permanent, while the latter will go away after a certain period of time.
A good example is a news channel, especially when it's doing a marathon coverage of something, which means their logo will be at the same spot for the duration of that coverage - it's termed 'static content', or an image that remains in the same place for an extended period of time. After, say, hours of viewing and you switch the channel, you may notice the logo seemingly stuck in that corner - a 'ghost', in TV parlance.
Rtings.com, a website that extensively tests TVs, sums it up pretty simply: OLEDs, no doubt, have great picture quality.
Its test is a bit of the extreme type: a TV will be left running for a year at a rate of 20 hours per day - four hours switched on with maximum brightness and one hour switched off; the '20/7' test, as they call it - which means that's a whopping 7,300 straight hours a TV will be on.
To be able to quantify results, they overlayed their 'RTINGS' logo on each corner of the screen, with varying opacities:

In the TVs tested, burn-ins were confirmed only after 4,000 hours. Long periods of static content, they said, causes burn-ins in OLEDs. Rtings.com also noticed that the red sub-pixel appears to degrade the fastest, followed by green and blue. Colour gamuts, however, "haven't changed appreciatively".

Results of the tests after week 42.
That's not to say OLED are that worse compared to QLED; to put it simply, both of them have their own strengths. OLED TVs have pixels that emit their own light, and are significantly better than garden-variety LCDs.
QLEDs, meanwhile, are brighter compared to OLEDs, taking full advantage of HDR content. And, as Trusted Reviews points out, it is "immune" to screen burn, since it doesn't use organic elements.
The biggest concern here would be the price. QLED is the most recent innovation in TVs, so it's understandable that it's still at the top of the price mountain.
QLED TV makers also normally offer 10-year warranties on their products. TVs are supposed to last for seven to 10 years, so considering all factors before investing in a really good one is not a bad idea. As they say, you get what you pay for.
- alvin@khaleejtimes.com