RGB OLED finally coming (back) to smartphones

After more than a decade of PenTile OLED panels in smartphones and other handheld devices, Xiaomi is reintroducing RGB OLED with its new 17 Pro Max.

Xiaomi hinted at the move during the launch of the Xiaomi 17 range, and display maker TCL CSOT has now confirmed it.

For the first time, according to TCL CSOT, the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max uses a 'Real RGB OLED' panel. The smartphone features a 6.9-inch display with 2608x1200 resolution and up to 3500 nits peak brightness.


RGB vs. PenTile
If you have been following display technology for a while, you may recall that some early smartphones over 15 years ago used RGB OLED panels. Back then, Samsung Display openly criticized PenTile for sharing red and blue subpixels, which degrades picture and text clarity compared to independent red, green and blue (RGB) subpixels.

At the time, FlatpanelsHD ran a series of articles on PenTile. Our article on Galaxy Nexus was widely quoted and shared.

Eventually, Samsung Display went all-in on PenTile to keep up in the resolution race, leading to PenTile OLED becoming standard in Samsung Galaxy, Apple iPhone, and many other handheld devices. While higher resolutions and software compensation have made PenTile's shortcomings harder to spot, RGB pixels deliver superior picture quality.



A return to RGB?
It now seems possible that handheld devices could be returning to RGB OLED. According to TCL CSOT, these panels offer higher effective resolution, better text and picture clarity as well as 26% lower power consumption.

While Xiaomi's 17 Pro Max is the first confirmed smartphone with this panel, TCL CSOT has been touting 'Real RGB OLED' for some time as part of its major push into printed OLED production. The display maker reportedly began sampling the RGB OLED panels to smartphone makers in early 2025. TCL CSOT's first RGB OLED panel is not inkjet-printed, however, instead using traditional production (fine metal mask), according to UBI Research.



Still, the Xiaomi 17 Pro Max could be the first of many handheld devices to move away from PenTile. TCL CSOT's large 8.6G printed OLED factory is expected to be ready in about two years.

TCL CSOT also plans to bring RGB OLED to larger panels for tablets, laptops, PC monitors and eventually TVs, which today rely on WRGB (with an extra white subpixel) in WOLED or triangular pixel structures in QD-OLED.

One caveat: TCL CSOT's 'Real RGB OLED' does not appear to use traditional RGB stripe, meaning the red, green and blue subpixels are not aligned in straight rows. FlatpanelsHD needs to evaluate it before we can comment on its performance.

- Source: TCL CSOT, UBI Research