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Normally, when we cover head-to-head display competitions, it’s between smartphones or tablets, with the occasional dip into laptop comparisons. Today, we’ve got something different in store — a 65-inch LG OLED 4K panel going up against a 65-inch Samsung LCD with quantum dot technology. Miraculously, the two panels aren’t ridiculously far apart in price — while the OLED 65-inch panel is still a hefty $1000 more expensive than its Samsung rival, we’re comparing a $5000 Samsung UN65JS9500 model against a $6000 LG 65EG9600. That’s progress, even if it’s been more than a decade since OLED televisions were first forecast to be right around the corner.

Over at DisplayMate, Dr. Soneira has put the two televisions through a rigorous set of tests that examines each from every possible angle. Color gamuts, backlight bleed, viewing angles, power consumption — if you can measure it off a television, DisplayMate covers it. And when you put the two displays against each other in an all-out war, the LG OLED panel tends to leave Samsung in the dust.

The viewing angles on the OLED displays are far better

Viewing angles are better. Reflected light levels are lower. OLED panels can hit true black (meaning turn-off completely), whereas LCDs are intrinsically limited by the fact that their backlights remain lit. Samsung included a new technology on this TV, called Local Dimming, which helps address this issue, but while it can allow for deeper blacks in certain areas, it can’t prevent that dimness from also impacting any other color but black displayed on the same area of the screen. Samsung also opted to use a PVA-style panel rather than IPS, and while PVA displays are generally good, they create the washed-out color balance seen above. The OLED looks virtually identical from either dead-center or 45 degrees, while the Samsung changes a great deal.

The quantum dot color technology on the Samsung does give it a gamut advantage, with 104% of the DCI-P3 gamut compared to 93% for the LG, but this isn’t particularly useful yet. Virtually all content, whether streamed, Blu-ray’d, or watched via broadcast networks, conforms to the older sRGB / Rec.709 standard — and both displays tie there, at 106%. But on the whole, the LG 65-inch OLED technology destroys Samsung’s panel in every particular. Dr. Soneira writes that “The LG OLED TV is far better than the best Plasma TVs in every display performance category, and even better than the $50,000 Sony Professional CRT Studio Monitors that up until recently were the golden standard for picture quality.

The LG OLED TV outperformed the Samsung LCD TV in every category except Brightness (Luminance) for image content with Average Picture Levels (APL) greater than 25 percent. The under 25 percent APL range covers all standard TV content, including digital photos, videos and movies, but does not include Smart TV or PC applications, which can have higher APLs from text screens on white backgrounds.”

All of which suggests that OLED, at long last, has delivered what it promised. Now the question is, can we get that performance in a 1080p panel at, say, 45 inches for under a grand?

Our sources say it shouldn’t take more than 2-3 years. ;)