Goodbye Micro Lens Array OLED TV, we hardly knew you

With a swish of its wand, LG has made Micro Lens Array technology for its OLEDs disappear, replaced by LG Display’s brand new 4-stack panel technology.

Premium TVs in recent years have had an obsession with getting brighter and brighter, and for good reason to be honest. Brightness aids colour volume, which increases the range of colours a display can produce. It’ll also combat against any ambient light, an aspect of the living room viewing experience that OLEDs have struggled with compared to Mini LED.

But with this new 4-stack panel technology, it could – at least for more expensive models – push the need towards OLED. Samsung Display’s QD-OLED technology was thought up as a rival to OLED because it could hit higher levels of brightness, but with the 4-stack OLED panel, LG’s premium OLED could match the upcoming S95F or even reach a higher level of brightness. In terms of bragging rights, that would give the upper hand to LG and LG Display.

And as a group of journalists met for an event (which I’m not allowed to talk about just yet), there was some scuttlebutt that perhaps this push I brightness might tempt Sony to move away from QD-OLED to the 4-stack panel. That’s just a wild rumour but I’ll leave it here in case there’s any substance to it. After all, I was half expecting a TV announcement from Sony at CES but it’s been quiet on that front.

This new 4-stack panel isn’t the same as the Tandem OLED Apple uses in its iPad (a panel that was also created by LG Display). How it works, LG Electronics aren’t too keen on revealing just yet. It was explained to me by another journalist, but I must admit, I’ve forgotten most of the technical details. Even during the briefing I attended at CES 2025, LG weren’t keen to talk about specific nit count but LG were confident enough to say that the G5 was three times as bright as the B5 model.

In what sense is it brighter? Peak brightness? Average brightness? Again, LG didn’t specify but having seen the new M5 and G5 during the presentation, the level of brightness was impressive, so much so that it seemed almost too bright in the room I was watching in. The complaints about OLED not being bright enough will likely be dispelled once the G5 hits the market.

But the G5 is an OLED TV for the few and not the many given its expected price. The C5 is the model that’s most popular with buyers but it won’t have the new brightness boosting technology. It’ll be brighter than the C4 was but there will remain a disparity between the C5 and the G5. I would have thought it’d be interesting to see if LG would apply MLA to the C-series but alas, that’s not going to happen.

That’s a shame to me. The C5 looked very good in the demo I saw but I think everyone is craving more brightness from the model, and adding MLA to that model might have given buyers a bigger incentive to purchase a C5 over other mid-range OLEDs.

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