Pixel 3 features LG Display OLED panel: iFixit

After taking apart the Pixel 3 XL on Monday, iFixit turned its attention to the Pixel 3 and made an interesting discovery.

On Wednesday, the company tweeted out that a teardown of its Pixel 3 revealed that LG Display had manufactured the unit’s OLED panel. This is in contrast to iFixit’s Pixel 3 XL unit, which was furnished with a panel from Samsung Display.

Teardown Update: After finding a Samsung-made OLED display in the larger #Pixel3XL, we dissected the display in our vanilla #Pixel3. Surprise—it's from LG Display! https://t.co/E832d27nsk pic.twitter.com/kbi341ryKc

— iFixit (@iFixit) October 17, 2018

iFixit’s discovery interesting for two reasons.

Last year, Google turned to Samsung for the Pixel 2’s display panel and LG for the Pixel 2 XL’s screen. By contrast, it appears the company has flipped that arrangement around for the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL.

It’s possible the two devices feature a mix of display panels from both Samsung and LG. Unfortunately, without iFixit or another teardown specialist taking apart multiple Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL units apart, it’s impossible to know definitively.

However, the more interesting revelation here is that, in just one year’s time, LG has significantly improved the quality of its smartphone-sized OLED panels. In the time I’ve had the Pixel 3, I’ve yet to notice the issues, like premature burn-in and blue shift, that plagued the Pixel 2 XL’s OLED screen.

Moreover, according to the spec sheet Google provided to media outlets, notch, physical size and display resolution aside, the two panels are nearly identical, providing the same 100,000:1 contrast ratio and full 24-bits colour depth.

Source: iFixit