Samsung officially announces an OLED panel upgrade to combat LG, and you might already be using it

Samsung Display has announced the launch of an advanced new version of its OLED panel technology, combining two brightness-boosting methods that can currently be found on many of the best OLED TVs on the market today.

While the company has decided to launch it officially only now, there’s a chance you are already experiencing the benefits of this upgraded OLED panel.

It’s called QD-Penta Tandem, and it features a five-layer OLED stack, which, keen screen enthusiasts will know, is one layer more than offered in LG Display’s Primary RGB Tandem OLED.

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Samsung Display has added an additional blue layer to the existing four-layer blue stack, which it claims will enhance “luminous efficiency by 1.3 times and extend lifespan by two times compared with last year’s four-layer QD-OLED”.

Samsung increased the number of blue light-emitting OLED layers from four to five last year, with Quantum Dots (the “QD” part of QD-OLED) handling the production of colours.

Stacking additional OLED layers is a method that rival company, LG Display, has used in the past, namely with its aforementioned Primary RGB Tandem OLED technology. That differs by including different colour OLED layers (red, green and two blue layers to be specific) rather than relying on Quantum Dots to produce colours.

In a surprising twist, Samsung Display confirms that QD-Penta Tandem has already been featured in several TVs since 2025; the two biggest QD-OLED TVs that come to mind are the five-star Samsung S95F and the Award-winning Sony Bravia 8 II, both of which feature exceptional brightness and colours.

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With Samsung Display launching this new QD Penta-Tandem branding, it seems to us that it could retroactively apply the new panel name to the existing 2025 QD-OLED TVs. It looks as though upcoming 2026 models, including the Samsung S95H, may also sport the panel branding.

The company affirms that it “plans to expand QD-OLED Penta Tandem across its full range of panel sizes this year, supplying the technology for flagship products from major customers” across the TV and monitor markets.

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Read our Samsung S95H hands-on review

As well as our LG G6 hands-on review

And check out our picks for the best OLED TVs