Samsung Electronics has announced that its sub-division, Samsung Display, is planning to invest $3.1 billion until 2026 in Asan, South Korea to manufacture advanced organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display panels. The country's ministry stated that Samsung's next generation of OLED display panels will be integrated into tablets and laptops. There are already rumors swirling that Apple has contracted with Samsung Display to produce parts for a refresh of the MacBook Pro range that is set to debut at some point before 2026.

Industry insiders are claiming that the substantial investment into the company's Asan, South Chungcheong factory will help fulfil orders placed by Apple for iPad and MacBook OLED displays - the North American company has not officially confirmed an adoption of that type of screen technology for these product ranges. Samsung is likely trying to secure a long term relationship with the Silicon Valley behemoth, and at the same time outmaneuver its competitors in South Korea as well as those in neighboring nations. It has been reported that domestic rival LG is currently unable to take on new orders, as its display factories are functioning at maximum production capacities.

MSI, the world's leading manufacturer of true gaming hardware, is proudly expanding the hardware possibilities for all gamers. Since the MEG 342C QD-OLED's first leak in 2022, MSI continuously fine-tuned every aspect of it for a better gaming experience. Now, we're proudly announcing our MEG 342C QD-OLED is finally ready.

The 34-inch QD-OLED panel is an incredible combination of Quantum Dot technology and OLED panel that exhibits the best picture quality with a perfect pixel lighting control that presents a true black scene. The HDR peak brightness is leveled up to 1000 nits, passing the VESA DisplayHDR True Black 400 certificate and providing the ultimate immersive gaming experience with a super-fast 0.1 ms response time and 175 Hz refresh rate.

Based on news out of Korea, Samsung is said to be launching a 49-inch QD-OLED based monitor at some point later this quarter, although sadly, nothing was mentioned about what kind of resolution the display would sport. At the same time, Samsung is also said to be launching a 77-inch TV model, as the Elec suggests the two will be made from the same Gen 8.5 substrate.

This is because Samsung Display can cut two 77-inch and two 49-inch QD-OLED display panels from each Gen 8.5 substrate. Initially Samsung had apparently requested a 48-inch monitor, but based on the Elec's sources, Samsung Display declined, as it didn't make economical sense to waste the extra panel substrate. With a bit of luck, the new 49-inch display panel will feature a 4K resolution, as all of Samsung's QD-OLED TVs to date, are 4K. The only exception is Samsung's 34-inch QD-OLED monitor panel, which is 3440x1440, as we know. The monitor is said to be sold as Samsung OLED, suggesting that Samsung might dual source panels from LG Display as well.

Samsung Electronics today reported financial results for the fourth quarter and the fiscal year 2022. The Company posted KRW 70.46 trillion in consolidated revenue and KRW 4.31 trillion in operating profit in the quarter ended December 31, 2022. For the full year, it reported 302.23 trillion in annual revenue, a record high and KRW 43.38 trillion in operating profit.

The business environment deteriorated significantly in the fourth quarter due to weak demand amid a global economic slowdown. Earnings at the Memory Business decreased sharply as prices fell and customers continued to adjust inventory. The System LSI Business also saw a decline in earnings as sales of key products were weighed down by inventory adjustments in the industry. The Foundry Business posted a new record for quarterly revenue while profit increased year-on-year on the back of advanced node capacity expansion as well as customer base and application area diversification.

Back at Computex 2022, MSI first announced the MEG 342C QD-OLED display, which finally appears to be ready to hit retail, as the company was showing off it, alongside its upcoming MEG 491C QD-OLED display, which was teased back in November. MSI revealed some additional details of the 34-inch MEG 342C QD-OLED, beyond the fact that it's using a curved 1800R, 3440 x 1440 resolution panel with a 175 Hz refresh rate. As such, we now know the monitor has an unspecified DisplayPort input, a pair of HDMI 2.1 inputs, a USB Type-C input with DP Alt mode support and 65 W USB Power Delivery support, as well as a USB-B upstreams port and four USB-A downstreams ports. MSI has also kitted out the monitor with OLED Care, which the company claims reduces image sticking and burn-in. Other features include a built in KVM, PBP and PIP support as well as a VESA DisplayHDR True Black 400 certification, although the monitor has a peak brightness of 1000 nits. The MEG 342C QD-OLED is said to have an MSRP of around US$800.

The MEG 491C QD-OLED appears to be based on the same QD-OLED panel as Samsung's OLED G9. The model on display at CES was apparently non functional, which suggests that we might have to wait another six months before it becomes available, if the MEG 342C QD-OLED is anything to go by. The monitor sports the same 1800R curvature as the Samsung OLED G9 and obviously has the same 5120 x 1440 resolution and 240 Hz refresh rate. MSI didn't share much else in terms of specifications, so we're going to have to wait for the actual launch to find out more, including what will probably be a prohibitively high price tag.

If LG's 45-inch OLED monitor isn't quite big enough for you, MSI might have what you've been waiting for, as the company has teased its upcoming Project 491C 49-inch QD-OLED monitor on Twitter. This is yet another massive OLED display that supports 240 Hz refresh rate, but beyond that, the company didn't share any real details of the display. The company has apparently already won a CES 2023 innovation award for the monitor, although we couldn't find any details about it on the CES website. MSI will apparently reveal the full details of the display at CES in January, so we're going to have to wait until then for the full details. We should note that this is the second QD-OLED display from MSI, which announced the 34-inch MEG 342C earlier this year.

It appears that the competition is heating up, well, at least when it comes to who is going to be first to launch a 27-inch OLED-type panel, as Samsung is now considering doing its own 27-inch OLED-type panels, following rumours about LG considering its own 27-inch OLED-type panels. The details are from UBI Research via the Elec and based on what's being reported, Samsung was initially going to release an RGB OLED based 27-inch panel, but the company wasn't quite there research wise. However, Samsung allegedly went for QD-OLED instead and the article claims it's more profitable for Samsung.

That said, it seems like Samsung will try to win over Apple as its first customer for the panels, rather than launching them under its own brand. The panels are said to be manufactured in a brand new plant using Gen 8 OLED substrates, which means that these panels will be produced in a cutting edge facility. 27-inches also appears to be the smallest size QD-OLED panels we can expect, at least for now, as smaller size panels will use what is referred to as two stack tandem RGB OLED panels. These will be used in notebooks and other smaller devices. Samsung is currently producing single stack RGB OLED panels that are used in phones.

According to the latest TrendForce research, shipments of gaming monitors are in decline for the first time since the product category was launched to market, with 2022 estimates lowered to 20.5 million units, a 10% drop YoY. The primary reasons for this downgrade are intensifying inflation in Europe and spiking interest rates in North America which have upset and displaced demand for consumer electronics products. In addition, delays in launching high-end graphics cards has also led some e-sports consumers to consider postponing purchases.

According to TrendForce, judging from the market share of flat and curved gaming monitors, curved gaming surfaces accounted for approximately 41% of the market in 2021. In 2022, this share will increase to 44% and is expected to have a chance to reach 46% in 2023. In addition to an increased supply of curved monitor panels and their high price-performance ratio, growth in the market share of Ultra-Wide products is also one of the reasons for the rise of curved products.

Today, Alienware continues its mission to create premier gaming experiences with a triple-threat of new devices, including: a revamped Aurora R15 Gaming Desktop, a compact and feature-rich Tenkeyless Gaming Keyboard, and our second QD-OLED Gaming Monitor positioned at a lower price point. The new Alienware Aurora R15 desktop sees a significant performance boost, thanks to the latest 13th Gen Intel Core processors, NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series GPUs and an armada of system refinements.

The Aurora R15 now also includes up to a 1350 W power supply (up from 1000 W in the previous generation), designed to support NVIDIA's flagship GeForce RTX 4090 graphics card. Speaking of the graphics card, we repositioned the graphics slot to enable larger card designs (up to triple wide cards). In addition to offering NVIDIA GeForce RTX 40 Series and 30 Series GPUs, Aurora R15 will also be configurable with AMD Radeon RX 6000 Series graphics which pair nicely with our first QD-OLED AMD FreeSync monitor… more on that below.

Rather unexpectedly, MSI has become the third company to reveal a QD-OLED based display, after Alienware and Samsung. The MEG 342C QD-OLED as the monitor is called, uses—just like the Alienware—a curved 34-inch QD-OLED panel. However, MSI has gone for FreeSync Premium Pro over G-Sync Ultimate, which should hopefully result in a lower retail price. The resolution is also the same as on the Alienware, 3440x1440 and the two also share the same 175 Hz refresh rate, 1800R curvature, 1000 nits peak HDR brightness and DisplayHDR True Black 400 certification. MSI claims the same DCI-P3 colour gamut of 99.3 percent, but the MEG 342C has a lower sRGB colour gamut of 139.1 percent versus 149 percent for the Alienware.

MSI has added a few features that the Alienware lack, such as a USB Type-C input with DisplayPort Alt Mode, KVM functionality and some MSI specific features such as a low blue-light mode and what the company calls "gaming intelligence". MSI also supports Picture-in-Picture and Picture-by-Picture, something that it's unclear if the Alienware supports or not. The MEG 342C is said to ship factory calibrated with a dE <2, which might not matter to most gamers, but should be important to anyone planning to use the display for video or photo editing work. MSI didn't disclose any pricing, nor any availability date.

Team Liquid and longtime partner Alienware are launching The Pro Lab, a groundbreaking global training program. This initiative aims to quantify and analyze core cognitive skills that define a successful esports athlete, transforming the professional training experience and establishing new industry-wide practices. Until now, professional esports training has been informed by disparate game-specific data and rudimentary KPIs. Team Liquid and Alienware saw this as an opportunity to develop an approach rooted in quantifiable game-agnostic data, focusing on cognitive skills synonymous with peak competitive performance such as anticipatory skills, divided attention, emotional regulation, automaticity and more. The Pro Lab is a first-of-its-kind training space backed by esports science, fundamentally changing not only the way these athletes train but how they grow and evolve along with the industry.

Team Liquid and Alienware intend to eventually release findings in an effort to democratize the data and insights, encouraging industry-wide adoption of new best practices. The partners also plan to make the Pro Lab available to select students and academic institutions for additional research to continue enhancing training protocols. "Team Liquid has always been committed to putting its players first," says Steve Arhancet, Co-CEO and Co-Owner of Team Liquid. "The Pro Lab, in partnership with Alienware, is the next stage in that evolution. Our main focus will be working smarter to provide our players with the resources to learn about themselves, their habits, their strengths, and areas of improvement so we can continue to grow and compete at the highest levels."

As an industry leader in the premium display market, Samsung Display today announced that its QD (Quantum Dot)-Display, a display suited for a variety of consumer needs, received two additional certifications for Pro Gaming Verified and Eye Care Display. Awarded by SGS, the world-leading certification company, QD-Display received high marks for its outstanding image quality and viewing experience for games and high-definition content, while simultaneously reducing eye stress and fatigue. Previously, the QD-Display received three certifications for its True Color Tones, Pure RGB Luminance and Ultrawide Viewing Angle.

Through the SGS evaluation, the QD-Display received the highest rating level, Platinum, in Pro Gaming Verified in reflectance, refresh rate, viewing angle, Halo (light leakage) and color. QD-Display offers a fast 0.1 ms response speed (Gray to Gray). Additionally, through the certification processes, the QD-Display was proven to achieve a 0.01 ms response speed (Black to White), and a refresh rate of 175 Hz for monitors and 144 Hz for TVs. Unlike conventional LCD displays, QD-Displays do not have a delay time due to the movement of liquid crystals, since each pixel can be individually adjusted to provide the sharpest image quality possible. Therefore, the QD-Display offers faster screen transitions and clearer picture quality, allowing users to fully immerse themselves in high-resolution games.

Remember that 34-inch QD-OLED monitor that Alienware announced at CES earlier this year? The company has finally worked out how much it's going to charge for it, although there is still no fixed availability date. At US$1,299 the AW3423DW is going to be a $100 pricier than the AW3821DW, which sports a 38-inch Nano IPS panel with a resolution of 3840x1600, rather than the 34-inch QD-OLED panel with a resolution of 3440x1440 of the AW3423DW.

Obviously the two display technologies aren't comparable, but it's at least an indication of how pricy QD-OLED will be initially, compared to more traditional display technologies. Both displays feature G-Sync Ultimate, so it's not as if Dell has tried to cut any corners here. The AW3423DW does offer a higher refresh rate of 175 Hz vs 144 Hz for the AW3821DW, which may be an advantage to some, but the official HDR certification is oddly enough only HDR 400 vs HDR 600, despite the fact that Dell claims it can deliver up to 1000 cd/m². That said, the black levels of the AW3423DW should be vastly superior, as should the colour gamut. The display is said to be available sometime early this spring, presumably in the US market first.