Why doesn’t apple release 4K laptops or OLED ones or both 4K and OLED?

[AppelGeenyus]

My 16" easily lasts 8+ hours doing non-trivial tasks (like programming). Sure, you won't get more then 2-3 hours doing stuff like editing photos. But there are more users out there than content editors.

A task where most of you time is spent typing text isn't exactly pushing your hardware. Please don't reply that much of that time is spent compiling, there's no way you'd get anywhere near 8 hours. I totally agree there are all different types of users, but that's a rock solid argument for apple offering an OLED option, not against

Because making a 6" panel and a 15" panel with required characteristics and acceptable yields is a vastly different thing. Which you of all people should know as you obviously have some knowledge on the matter. Don't forget that Apple was a latecomer to the OLED game and the first OLED panels they used were the best on the market — in fact, Samsung decided to sell them to Appel rather than using them in their own flagship phones because of the costs involved! OLED used in Apple's iPhones are excellent — and way better what you find in a laptop these days. A larger OLED displays with similar characteristics costs an arm and a leg.

You know Samsung already make 4K OLED panels for laptops right? And remember we're talking about Macs that have BTO options ranging anywhere from an additional several hundred to several thousand dollars. Let's not pretend anyone that needs or simply wants an OLED option would be phased by the additional cost, I'd guess it would be maybe +$600. Nobody said it has to exactly match the quality found in an iPhone. But that's also a good point, current MacBook LCD's don't even come close to the quality of an iPhones OLED, so Apple obviously wouldn't care if there is a quality gap between MacBook and iPhone OLEDs.

a) The concern is about the power consumption of the panel itself, not the GPU (the overhead for compositing a desktop UI is trivial and any iGPU can easily manage 8K+ these days). There are many laptops that give you an option between different type of screens and from battery tests it is obvious that a 4K display consumes *significantly* more power. OLED laptop panels also seem have troubles in that area.

Concerns have been made for both panel power usage and system usage, that's why I've addressed both. I already mentioned this but for higher brightness levels yes OLED would suck more power. But in the "typical" brightness ranges there's no significant difference afaik, and it's difficult to compare as the level of power consumption on OLEDs also varies depending how many "bright" elements are on screen. People that use dark mode or mostly work in dark pro apps would probably see better battery life.

Regarding 4K, which battery tests are you referring to? Most PC laptops have 1080p displays, so obviously ones with 4 times more pixels will show a larger gap. The pixel increase from a 1080p display to 4K is 400%, while the pixel increase from a current MBP display to 4K would only be 40%.

b) As I wrote above, making a small screen is "easier" than a large screen — you get less opportunity for defects. So if they can manufacture an exceptional quality panel at 6", it doesn't mean they can do so at 15".

All addressed in second paragraph.

 

[leman]

Regarding 4K, which battery tests are you referring to? Most PC laptops have 1080p displays, so obviously ones with 4 times more pixels will show a larger gap.

There are a lot of laptops that offer a display option. I remember looking up some Dell XPS tests some time ago. There were also laptops with LCD or OLED screen I looked at (the OLED didn't do very well battery wise), but I don't remember the brand...

The pixel increase from a 1080p display to 4K is 400%, while the pixel increase from a current MBP display to 4K would only be 40%.

We'd need to have the power consumption numbers to make a clear judgements. Right now we are just exchanging speculations. You might be right and current 4K OLED displays might be as power efficient as what Appel currently uses. Or maybe not. We can't figure that out by talking about it