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Samsung forges alliance with rivals to bolster QLED against LG's OLED

Brendan Hesse
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Samsung QLED.
Image used with permission by copyright holder
World-leading TV manufacturers Samsung, Hisense, and TCL banded together to form what they are calling the “QLED Alliance,” a cooperative push between the three companies to make QLED a serious competitor against OLED.

Until now, the term “QLED” was a Samsung-controlled trademark and appeared exclusively in the branding of Samsung LCD TVs that use quantum dots. With this new alliance, that exclusivity is no longer the case. Hisense and TCL, despite both being major competitors with Samsung, will now be able to use the QLED terminology on their displays using quantum dot tech. This opens the door for future partnerships between other TV manufacturers who may want to get in on the QLED push.

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This is an obvious move against LG, which has formed a similar coalition to promote and distribute OLED TVs — the major competition to QLED. While Samsung had been open about the possibility of letting competitors use the QLED terminology, the growing popularity of OLED likely put pressure on the company to finally make these deals.

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The announcement was made in Beijing during the first Chinese Electronics Chamber of Commerce- (CECC) hosted QLED International Forum. The event included a presentation by the nanotech company, Nanosys, detailing its roadmap for the future of quantum dot technology, including the eventual introduction of “true QLED” TVs into the consumer market sometime in the future (though the company made no predictions as to how soon that will be).

QLED TVs currently on the market on the are actually a type of LCD TV with a quantum dot filter in the display. This filters light from the LED for better color, thus enhancing the TV’s performance and picture quality. In the future, true QLED TVs will ditch the LCD technology and instead use a full array quantum dots for picture generation. These true QLED TVs will reportedly not only achieve the brightness and color only quantum dots are capable of, but also the true blacks that OLED is known for.

At the event, Samsung, Hisense, and TCL all showed off a number of upcoming QLED TVs, all of which use a quantum dot filter or screen and are not yet “true QLED.” However, Samsung assures that its current LCD-based QLED TVs can compete with the OLED TVs on the market. While we wait for the true QLED TVs to finally make an appearance, we are sure to see an increase in QLED LCDs in stores soon.

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Brendan Hesse
Brendan Hesse
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Brendan has written about a wide swath of topics, including music, fitness and nutrition, and pop culture, but tech was…
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