Late last year Samsung Electronics (005930.KS) announced and released its first OLED notebook, a 13.3” 4K Chomebook, running on an Intel i-5 processor, that sells for ~$800, down from a peak price of ~$1,030 on Amazon (AMZN). The company recently (see our note 01-04-21) that it would be releasing 10 new OLED notebook this year under the “Blade Bezel” name, starting with a 15.6” model to be released next month and has set a goal of selling 5x the number of OLED notebook units that it sold in 2020, albeit against what we expect was a small base.
As this is a relatively new category, and Samsung’s notebook OLED displays have already been used in a number of other branded laptops (HP’s (HPE) Spectre x360 (~$1,200), the ASUS (2357.TT) ZenBook Pro 581 (15.6” - ~$2,200 – Dual Screen), the Razer (1337.HK) Blade Stealth 13 (~$1,999), Dell (DELL) 2020 G7 ($1,900), and the Alienware m15 R3), we expect they will dominate the production of such targeted OLED displays, although competition from EverDisplay (182522.CH), who is in small quantity and BOE (200725.CH), who has promised offerings in the space this year after showing prototypes.
While Samsung’s move to OLED displays on notebooks is an obvious one, both from a supply perspective, where such devices will raise utilization at SDC’s rigid OLED fabs, and from a demand perspective where high quality displays are ideal for gamers and content developers, but there is something else that is expected in these OLED laptops that make them even more unique, and that is ‘hidden’ or under-screen cameras that Samsung is using for the first time. By incorporating the camera into the display panel, these notebooks will no longer need a notch, cut-out or ‘bang’ as it is called in China, that takes up valuable screen real estate, and is expected to increase the screen-to-body ratio of these laptops from ~85% (typical) to ~93%, while also reducing the screen thickness to 1mm (typical 1.6mm)and reducing the screen weight from 180g (typical), or 6.35 oz., to 130g, or 4.58 oz..
Samsung, if the under-screen camera technology proves popular, is expected to roll out the technology in its smartphone lines, but previous attempts by other brands (demos & prototypes) have proved to be less successful (see our notes 12/29/20, 11/19/20, 7/9/20, 6/8/20) or perhaps ‘more visible (see Fig. 3), so Samsung seems to be taking a more conservative approach by ‘testing the technology in its OLED notebook line before it goes ‘en masse’ in the smartphone market. That said, a number of questions remain, particularly whether the February 15.6” notebook will sport the new camera technology, or will it be pushed out to releases made later this year. We would expect earlier rather than later, as it has been rumored that Samsung wants to use UDC for the Galaxy Z Fold 3, likely out in 3Q, so an early run would give Samsung time to refine the system before incorporating it in a flagship, high profile smartphone.
Given Samsung’s expertise in both image sensors and OLED technology, we expect Samsung has already taken the technology to a point where it is commercially viable, but even under display fingerprint sensors have been criticized for their ‘slow’ response time, and the complexity of an under-display camera is far greater than that of a fingerprint sensor. There are many ways to accomplish getting the camera under the display however they all involve tradeoffs, such as a smaller pixel size or lower resolution directly above the camera to allow enough light to produce high quality images.
We have previously noted that Samsung showed a smartphone design (patent) that contains a transparent cut-out under which the camera resides. When the camera is not in use, a window that duplicates the screen is automatically pushed into the cutout, giving it the same characteristics as the full display, but when the camera is activated, a more optically clear window takes its place until the shutter is released. As a mechanical contrivance, such a solution, which is one of many, would have to respond at the same speed as a regular smartphone camera might, so questions arise immediately about timing and mechanical issues, but many other solutions have been presented in patents and papers by a wide variety of supply chain participants, so it will be interesting to see if Samsung is able to conquer the UDC space on its first try, although none of this would be possible if these new notebook displays were not OLED.
https://youtu.be/OqAmKysTIPs - (ctl+click for Blade Bezel Promo)
As this is a relatively new category, and Samsung’s notebook OLED displays have already been used in a number of other branded laptops (HP’s (HPE) Spectre x360 (~$1,200), the ASUS (2357.TT) ZenBook Pro 581 (15.6” - ~$2,200 – Dual Screen), the Razer (1337.HK) Blade Stealth 13 (~$1,999), Dell (DELL) 2020 G7 ($1,900), and the Alienware m15 R3), we expect they will dominate the production of such targeted OLED displays, although competition from EverDisplay (182522.CH), who is in small quantity and BOE (200725.CH), who has promised offerings in the space this year after showing prototypes.
While Samsung’s move to OLED displays on notebooks is an obvious one, both from a supply perspective, where such devices will raise utilization at SDC’s rigid OLED fabs, and from a demand perspective where high quality displays are ideal for gamers and content developers, but there is something else that is expected in these OLED laptops that make them even more unique, and that is ‘hidden’ or under-screen cameras that Samsung is using for the first time. By incorporating the camera into the display panel, these notebooks will no longer need a notch, cut-out or ‘bang’ as it is called in China, that takes up valuable screen real estate, and is expected to increase the screen-to-body ratio of these laptops from ~85% (typical) to ~93%, while also reducing the screen thickness to 1mm (typical 1.6mm)and reducing the screen weight from 180g (typical), or 6.35 oz., to 130g, or 4.58 oz..
Samsung, if the under-screen camera technology proves popular, is expected to roll out the technology in its smartphone lines, but previous attempts by other brands (demos & prototypes) have proved to be less successful (see our notes 12/29/20, 11/19/20, 7/9/20, 6/8/20) or perhaps ‘more visible (see Fig. 3), so Samsung seems to be taking a more conservative approach by ‘testing the technology in its OLED notebook line before it goes ‘en masse’ in the smartphone market. That said, a number of questions remain, particularly whether the February 15.6” notebook will sport the new camera technology, or will it be pushed out to releases made later this year. We would expect earlier rather than later, as it has been rumored that Samsung wants to use UDC for the Galaxy Z Fold 3, likely out in 3Q, so an early run would give Samsung time to refine the system before incorporating it in a flagship, high profile smartphone.
Given Samsung’s expertise in both image sensors and OLED technology, we expect Samsung has already taken the technology to a point where it is commercially viable, but even under display fingerprint sensors have been criticized for their ‘slow’ response time, and the complexity of an under-display camera is far greater than that of a fingerprint sensor. There are many ways to accomplish getting the camera under the display however they all involve tradeoffs, such as a smaller pixel size or lower resolution directly above the camera to allow enough light to produce high quality images.
We have previously noted that Samsung showed a smartphone design (patent) that contains a transparent cut-out under which the camera resides. When the camera is not in use, a window that duplicates the screen is automatically pushed into the cutout, giving it the same characteristics as the full display, but when the camera is activated, a more optically clear window takes its place until the shutter is released. As a mechanical contrivance, such a solution, which is one of many, would have to respond at the same speed as a regular smartphone camera might, so questions arise immediately about timing and mechanical issues, but many other solutions have been presented in patents and papers by a wide variety of supply chain participants, so it will be interesting to see if Samsung is able to conquer the UDC space on its first try, although none of this would be possible if these new notebook displays were not OLED.
https://youtu.be/OqAmKysTIPs - (ctl+click for Blade Bezel Promo)
Samsung Galaxy Chromebook- Source: Samsung
Xiaomi UDC Demo showing visible camera area - Source: ICE Universe
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