The endurance of a laptop battery is often determined more by its screen than by the internal processor, given the extended time users spend viewing it. This makes LG Display's innovative 'Oxide 1Hz' screen innovation particularly noteworthy.
As a supplier of components, LG Display plans to deliver these screens to laptop producers, external monitor creators, and other clients. The key feature is the variable refresh rate, ranging from 1Hz to 120Hz, which LG says can conserve up to 48% more energy per battery charge.
Screens on laptops update their images at different frequencies. Conventional televisions and early laptops operated at 60Hz, meaning 60 updates per second. With the rise of gaming on these devices, higher rates became standard to deliver fluid motion aligning with advanced graphics in gaming systems and high-performance laptops. Even non-gaming devices benefited from elevated rates for improved navigation and cursor movement.
Yet, increasing the refresh speed comes at a cost to power consumption. Faster updates demand more energy from the display. Solutions have involved adaptive rates, maintaining 60Hz during routine tasks and ramping up only when necessary. Lately, devices have begun lowering rates to extend battery duration, with 30Hz representing the lowest observed in personal experience.
LG's Oxide 1Hz solution addresses a broad spectrum, allowing minimal 1Hz operation for power efficiency while scaling dynamically to 120Hz as required.
Details in LG's announcement remain sparse, such as the origin of the 'Oxide' designation. One aspect clarified is adoption: LG confirms delivery of the 1Hz Oxide panel to Dell for its XPS series, unveiled earlier this year. A review unit of the Dell XPS 14 received featured an OLED screen instead. LG Display anticipates starting large-scale output of a 1Hz OLED variant with this tech by 2027.
Operating at 1Hz brings the panel close to e-ink displays in power savings, though without the latter's subdued visuals. The technology employs LED backlighting, the dominant choice currently challenged by OLED's superior contrast in premium segments. The transition speed to elevated rates and potential display glitches are still untested. As shown in the accompanying image, affordability appears unproblematic, with the 1Hz option as standard.
Options for prolonging laptop battery are expanding, encompassing Intel's forthcoming Panther Lake chips and Qualcomm's anticipated Snapdragon X2 Elite. Integrating LG's screen could enable seamless shifts from document editing to video streaming late into the night.
Mark has contributed to PCWorld over the past ten years, drawing on three decades in technology journalism. He has produced more than 3,500 pieces for PCWorld, focusing on processors, accessories, and Windows, among others. His work has appeared in PC Magazine, Byte, eWEEK, Popular Science, and Electronic Buyers' News, earning a Jesse H. Neal Award for news coverage. Recently, he relinquished a assortment of Thunderbolt docks and USB-C hubs due to space constraints in his workspace.