LG Unveils 4K Micro-OLED Display for “Next-Generation” VR.

At SID Display Week 2024 LG Display unveiled a micro-OLED display with “4K” resolution and 10,000 nit brightness.

Micro-OLED displays are manufactured using a very different process than regular OLED and offer much higher pixel density than any existing production-ready display technology. This enables ultra-high-resolution headphones with relatively thin designs – and of course OLED’s signature infinite contrast.

BigScreen Beyond currently uses 2.5K OLED micro displays from Chinese startup SeeYA Technology, and 3.7K OLED micro displays from Sony are used in the Apple Vision Pro.

Apple Vision Pro Extended Teardown Reveals Its Resolution

iFixit took a microscope to Apple’s Vision Pro OLED microdisplays to find out their true active resolution.

While Sony’s display on the Vision Pro is said to put out 5,000 nits of brightness, LG is claiming 10,000 nits. But if you’re currently wondering “why on earth would anyone want or need such a bright screen next to their eyes?” there is something very important to understand.

Pancake lenses, which are used in high-end headsets to achieve a slimmer design and are needed to magnify smaller screens into an acceptable field of view, have extremely poor optical efficiency. This means that most of the light passing through them is lost, significantly reducing the initial brightness. For Apple Vision Pro lenses, this loss is 90%.

Worse, to avoid motion blur, all VR-style headset displays deliberately light up for only part of each frame, known as the duty cycle, while remaining dark for the rest of the frame, and with OLED displays this makes the effective lighting even lower.

When taking into account the poor optical efficiency of the pancake lenses and the intentionally low duty cycle of the displays, the Apple Vision Pro’s first brightness is only about 100 nits, despite having 5000 nit displays.

This means that LG’s display in a similar optical configuration can achieve about 200 nits of first brightness. Alternatively, headset manufacturers could use an even lower duty cycle to reduce or even eliminate the display “motion blur” we criticized in our Vision Pro review, rather than increasing the brightness.

In addition to higher brightness than Sony’s micro-OLED displays in the Vision Pro, LG is also claiming higher resolution and wider color gamut.

LG claims its display has a resolution of 3840×3840 and a color gamut of 97% DCI-P3, which compares to 3660×3200 and 92% DCI-P3 for the Apple Vision Pro.

But what will they be used for?

LG Display is a subsidiary of LG Group. Yes, it makes displays for LG Electronics, but it sells most of its output to other companies. So which company could use the micro-OLED display in an actual headset?

In 2022, South Korean news outlet SBS Biz reported that Meta had entered into talks with LG Display in order to secure the supply of micro-OLEDs for the upcoming headset.

Since then, two other South Korean media, Maeil The Business Newspaper and The Korea Economic Daily have published reports citing “industry sources” claiming that LG would build the next Quest Pro headset, starting with a $2,000 headset in the first half of 2025.

Meta and LG Confirm Next-Generation XR Device Partnership.

Meta and LG just officially confirmed their partnership, including the “development of the next-generation XR device.” This comes after multiple reports that LG will produce upcoming Quest Pro headphones.

In February, LG and Meta officially confirmed a “strategic cooperation” XR, including the “development of the next generation XR device”, although neither company was more specific about what exactly this will entail.

When announcing Meta’s new Horizon OS strategy to support third-party headset makers, Mark Zuckerberg said that one of the Horizon OS headsets he could “imagine” arriving from a third-party company would have “higher resolution OLED screens”. And the concept image for Lenovo’s Horizon OS headset showed a design so thin it would likely require micro-OLED to achieve.

So it seems possible that LG’s rumored Quest Pro 2 could use the micro-OLED display it just announced. Alternatively, LG could simply supply it to other companies that build Horizon OS headsets like Lenovo. We’ll be keeping a close eye on all of these companies for any next-gen teases or announcements throughout the year.