OLED TVs are among the most popular on the market. Thanks to OLED’s self-emitting pixels, it can produce perfect blacks while delivering sharp textures, vivid colors and strong contrast. Traditional OLED TV technology, now known as Tandem WOLED, has always struggled with its brightness, measuring significantly worse than mini-LED TVs.
Enter QD-OLED. Introduced by Samsung in 2022, QD-OLED adds quantum dots to the OLED equation, enabling very high brightness. While WOLED itself East Getting brighter, QD-OLED continues to promise higher brightness increases than WOLED can typically manage each year – and we now seem to know the secret sauce that has delivered a whopping 35% jump in 2026, which I’ll return to shortly.
But the progress of QD-OLED is not helping it conquer the sector. OLED and QD-OLED are used in some of the best TVs, but WOLED remains the most widely used, even though QD-OLED is the brighter of the two panel technologies. In 2023, I said that WOLED was dying thanks to the arrival of QD-OLED and since then, a QD-OLED TV has been named TV of the year by TechRadar every year, won last year by the Samsung S95F.
So why hasn’t QD-OLED completely taken over? Let’s explore.
Brightness QD-OLED vs OLED
When it comes to brightness, QD-OLED generally comes out on top. However, last year LG introduced a new OLED panel: the Primary RGB Tandem OLED, also known as “four-stack” OLED. It offered higher brightness and richer colors, and it even beat QD-OLED in one area when we tested flagship models from LG and Samsung last year.
We measured the LG G5’s peak HDR brightness at 2,268 nits, which was higher than the Samsung S95F’s peak HDR brightness of 2,132 nits. However, where QD-OLED had the advantage was in full-screen HDR brightness, with the S95F reaching 390 nits and the G5 at 331 nits, and this is a more impactful measurement for real-world viewing.
It should be noted that RGB Tandem OLED was reserved for flagship models. The mid-range LG C5 and its older WOLED OLED EX panel reached a peak brightness of 1,180 nits, while the 65-inch Samsung S90F, which used a QD-OLED panel, reached 1,400 nits. The mid-range is where QD-OLED has made the most difference.
QD-OLED versus the future of OLED
At CES 2026, LG revealed its 2026 OLED TV lineup, announcing that the LG G6 and LG C6H, the latter essentially being the LG C6 at 77- and 83-inch sizes, will use a next-generation Tandem 2.0 primary RGB panel. LG claims the G6 will be 20% brighter than its predecessor, the G5.
While that’s impressive, Samsung has revealed its own 2026 OLED TV lineup and we’ve learned that the Samsung S95H, its 2026 flagship, is expected to offer 35% higher brightness than its predecessor, the Samsung S95F. That’s a big boost and eclipses LG’s 20% higher brightness claim. How is such a boost possible?
Well, we actually learned from Nanosys, the manufacturer behind quantum dots, that QD-OLED will become brighter thanks (at least in part) to a new version of quantum dot color conversion (QDCC). QDCC is a type of ink used in QD-OLED and this new version is more efficient, allowing for higher brightness levels. Other factors probably come into play as well, but this seems to be the key technical development.
So, with all these exciting updates, why isn’t QD-OLED the most widely used OLED technology?
The fall of QD-OLED: the price
It’s no secret that OLED TVs are among the highest priced on the market. While there are “budget” options available such as the LG B5 and Samsung S85F, they are still much more expensive than mini-LED TVs. But while WOLED TVs are getting cheaper and available in more economical models, this is not the case for QD-OLED.
The price is the biggest drawback of QD-OLED. As QD-OLED appears to be a more expensive panel to manufacture, it has not found its way to cheaper models. In fact, it’s also not available (at the time of writing) in sizes smaller than 55-inch, leaving WOLED as the only OLED panel technology in the smaller 42- and 48-inch models. QD-OLED is also not available in 83-inch sizes.
At launch, a 65-inch Samsung S95F cost $3,399 / £3,399 / AU$5,295, very similar in price to the 65-inch LG G5 costing $3,399 / £3,299 / AU$5,299. And while the QD-OLED is priced similarly across its available sizes, 55 to 77 inches, the lack of a smaller, more budget-friendly model is noticeable. Samsung actually uses traditional WOLED in its entry-level S85F model and in some sizes of the Samsung S90F, with QD-OLED apparently unable to meet Samsung’s own requirements.
What’s also very remarkable is that other manufacturers don’t seem desperate to use QD-OLED. Panasonic and Philips use LG’s Tandem WOLED displays. Sony has used QD-OLED for its flagship OLED TVs, but Sony has historically sold TVs at a higher price than other manufacturers – so being the only user seems telling.
With LG Display recently announcing a cheaper OLED panel with impressive brightness, and no announcement from Samsung Display that it will be able to offer cheaper QD-OLED panels or new sizes (so far), it seems LG still has the edge over other manufacturers where it counts: bang for the buck.
I put the LG G5 and Samsung S95F side by side and it was an extremely close fight, with both producing incredible images. Putting these two models into a four-way OLED showdown, they both came out on top, with the S95F scoring higher in most categories. But as long as QD-OLED is more expensive, I can’t help but think that it still lags behind WOLED. If he can bring his price down, all bets are off.
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