Samsung's QD-OLED technology has gone head-to-head against LG's WOLED with one distinct advantage: better color volume. By using a blue emitter and quantum dots, the company turns an otherwise reductive filtering process into an additive outcome. As a side effect, they employ unconventional subpixel layouts, which make QD-OLEDs suffer from inferior text clarity. Fortunately, Samsung Display is finally addressing this at CES 2026.
The company has just announced mass production of the "world's first 360Hz V-Stripe QD-OLED," with a new 34-inch ultrawide panel. The V-Stripe refers to the subpixels being arranged vertically, like on a typical LCD, which Windows' font engine is most comfortable with. For years, QD-OLEDs have relied on triangular subpixel arrangements, leading to poor text clarity and fringing visible at the edges.
Samsung's "V-Stripe" naming convention is a bit confusing because it may imply a V-shaped layout. However, TFT Central confirmed that it refers to red, green, and blue subpixels arranged vertically next to each other, like upright pillars. Then, whole pixels are aligned horizontally next to each other. This should significantly reduce text fringing and improve clarity at even lower resolutions.
The Reddit post above sheds more light on this new panel, courtesy of a hands-on article from para.de that's since been deleted. The red subpixel is the largest here because it carries a disproportionate share of perceived brightness — especially important in QD-OLED — while the blue subpixel is kept smallest because it’s inefficient, ages fastest, and has to be almost babied to protect the panel's lifetime.
Samsung is not out to fundamentally change panel physics; rather, it's an attempt to make the subpixel spacing even again. Even before this, the issue had been greatly alleviated by brute-forcing pixel density. Higher resolutions on the same-sized panels have increased the PPI to the point where it masks inconsistencies in the subpixel layout.
Still, the problem was never truly eliminated from the root, and Samsung's 34-inch ultrawide panels, in particular, had been stuck on older tech that lacked these improvements. They're not 4K or 5K-class panels like some other QD-OLED displays, so the upgrade matters most here.
"By leveraging QD-OLED's top emission structure, which offers brightness advantages, along with improvements in organic material efficiency and design optimization, we were able to mass-produce a high-performance monitor display that integrates four key features: the 'V-Stripe' pixel structure, an ultra-wide aspect ratio, a high refresh rate, and enhanced brightness." — Samsung Display spokesperson
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(Image credit: TFT Central)
Speaking of which, the other specs of this new panel are nothing to scoff at either. We're looking at a 34-inch ultrawide panel with a 1800R curvature and a fast 360 Hz refresh rate. Samsung Display has also achieved 1,300 nits of peak brightness for the first time on a QD-OLED panel, and monitors using it will be certified for HDR True Black 500, meaning 500 nits of peak brightness across 100% of the panel.
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