MicroLED vs OLED

In September 2025 Garmin launched its Fenix 8 Pro MicroLED smartwatch, the world's first with a microLED display. The panel is a 1.4" 454x454 round display that offers a brightness of 4,500 nits, produced by AUO. 

Yesterday Samsung launched its flagship smartwatch for 2026, the Galaxy Watch Ultra2 - with a circular 1.52" 498x498 OLED that reaches 5,000 nits of peak brightness. This is the world's brightest wearable display, surpassing AUO's 4,500 microLED. This shows how OLEDs have room to improve and will make it very challenging for microLED to introduce improved performance.

Value Electronics, an independent Audio/Video retailer in New York, hosted its well-respected annual TV Shootout Evaluation event a couple of days ago, bringing together several OLED and the new MicroLED RGB flagship TVs side-by-side to compare picture quality attributes. The TVs, which were professionally calibrated to their best potential, were reviewed by a panel of judges using test patterns.

The judges looked at six flagship displays. Three OLED models and three Micro-RGB LCD models (Samsung's R95H, Sony's XR90M2, and LG's MRGB95B).  Judges evaluated picture quality attributes in SDR and HDR categories. Every display delivered outstanding performance, with exceptionally close results overall and across many of the individual picture quality attributes. 

Today we published a new edition of our MicroLED and OLED Microdisplays Market Report, with all the latest information. The new edition offers over 30 new updates, including new companies, new developments, and new devices. The AR industry is moving at a very fast pace, and both OLED and MicroLED technologies are leading the race to power AR headset displays.

Reading this report, you'll learn all about:

• The advantages of OLED and MicroLED microdisplays
• The microdisplays that are available on the market today
• Information on all companies involved in this market
• Future technologies and roadmaps

The report package also provides:

• A list of all OLED microdisplays on the market
• A list of all OLED and MicroLED microdisplays makers
• Microdisplays spreadsheet
• Over 25 datasheets, presentations
• Free updates for a year

This microdisplays market report provides a great introduction to MicroLED and OLED microdisplays, and covers everything you need to know about the current status of the market and industry. This is a great guide if you're considering to adopt OLED microdisplays in your product, if you're looking to learn more about next-generation micro-LEDs and if you want to understand this industry better.

For the past couple of years, India's government is considering a direct support to help establish a display industry in India, as part of the India Semiconductor Mission.

According to reports from India, the Ministry of Electronics and IT (MeitY) is now considering supporting the construction of a microLED production line in India, or to support the establishment of a supply chain for microLED development and production.

Today we published a new edition of our Transparent MicroLED and OLED Market Report, with all the latest information and updates from this interesting upcoming industry and market, including the new prototypes and displays recently unveiled by microLED and OLED developers.

Reading this report, you'll learn all about:

• Transparent OLED and MicroLED properties and advantages
• The transparent OLED and MicroLED industry
• What kind of transparent OLEDs are currently on the market
• The transparent OLED lighting market

The report package also provides:

• Transparent OLED display product listing
• A guide into buying transparent OLEDs
• The main challenges towards transparent displays
• Free updates for a year

This transparent displays market report provides a great introduction to transparent OLED and MicroLED technologies and covers everything you need to know about the market and industry now and in the future. This is a great guide for anyone who's thinking about adopting transparent displays in their products or that wants to understand this industry and market throughout.

The Fraunhofer IPMS institute announced that it has developed a custom microLED microdisplay backplane, based on its high-performance OLED backplane technology.

Developers at the Fraunhofer IPMS, funded by third-party Vuzix customers with targeted applications in mind, adapted its existing OLED microdisplay backplane to the requirements of a high-current microLED frontplane. The samples, supporting 1080P+ resolutions in both monochrome and full-color displays, were tested first with an OLED frontplane and then with microLED arrays.

Today we published a new edition of our Transparent MicroLED and OLED Market Report, with all the latest information and updates from this interesting upcoming industry and market, including the many new prototypes and displays recently unveiled by microLED developers.

Reading this report, you'll learn all about:

• Transparent OLED and MicroLED properties and advantages
• The transparent OLED and MicroLED industry
• What kind of transparent OLEDs are currently on the market
• The transparent OLED lighting market

The report package also provides:

• Transparent OLED display product listing
• A guide into buying transparent OLEDs
• The main challenges towards transparent displays
• Free updates for a year

This transparent displays market report provides a great introduction to transparent OLED and MicroLED technologies and covers everything you need to know about the market and industry now and in the future. This is a great guide for anyone who's thinking about adopting transparent displays in their products or that wants to understand this industry and market throughout.

This is a guest article by Dr. Reza Chaji, founder and CEO, VueReal

Imagine a future where your smartwatch evolves from a timepiece to a powerful digital hub, seamlessly integrating all aspects of your life. The potential for smartwatches to become central to daily routines is immense, especially with AI and cutting-edge technologies.

These advanced technologies enable smartwatches to support seamless communication, health and fitness tracking, environmental awareness, biometric security, and more. As a result, smartwatches are becoming indispensable tools that enrich our lives and enhance our health and security in an interconnected world.

Justin Brown is X Display's Executive Vice President for Operations & Equipment. Justin leads the company’s supply chain development, manufacturing partner relationships and also its Equipment division, which provides mass-transfer equipment for XDC’s partners and licensees. Justin was kind enough to answer a few questions we had for XDC.

Q: Hello Justin, thanks for your time. XDC has been a bit quiet in the last few years. Can you bring us up to date on your microLED technologies, processes and products?

Thank you for the opportunity to share the progress at XDC. We have been busier in the near past than ever before. As you know, we first announced our MicroIC technology, our mass transfer process, our manufacturing equipment and the uniqueness of our approach, the IP strength we possess and the experience of the team. This led to broad customer visibility and we narrowed down our efforts to a select set of partners that we are currently working with. We have deep engagements with customers that we anticipate will result in end product announcements in the future.