LTPO screen achieves 18 hours of battery life + permanent screen on, is Apple Watch 5 impressive?

On September 11, Apple held a press conference and brought many new products, including the brand new 5th generation Apple Watch.

According to reports, Apple Watch 5 has four major features: 1. It uses LTPO screen (low temperature polycrystalline oxide), which can reduce screen power consumption and enhance battery life. (18 hours)

2. New Always-On Retina display, all-weather retina display. (Always-on screen)

3. Built-in compass and SOS function, can directly navigate and locate.

4. Focus on health functions, including: heart rate notification, noise detection, menstrual cycle tracking, etc.

Let's focus on the screen function of this watch. Regarding the LTPO screen, it was actually first used in the Apple Watch Series 4 released in 2018.

LTPO, also known as low-temperature polycrystalline oxide, combines LTPS TFT and oxide TFT (IGZO, indium gallium zinc oxide). Compared with the currently used LTPS backplane, LTPO can improve efficiency by about 5-15%, but is more complex to produce and may have lower pixel density.

Currently, the two main backplane technologies for small-size OLEDs are LTPS and IGZO, while LTPO is a new backplane technology that combines the advantages of these two technologies to achieve higher charge mobility, stability and scalability at a low production cost.

The reason why LTPO was introduced is because LTPS technology is difficult to apply to large-size substrates, but oxide is easy to manufacture large-size panels. It is possible to manufacture sufficiently small OLED panels not only in the 6th generation but also in the 8th generation or larger. The fact that LTPS materials have not been optimized due to high performance in small and medium-sized OLED panels is also considered to be the background for the development of LTPO. Despite the high investment cost, LTPS is considered to be the most suitable backplane technology for mobile OLEDs, but the electron mobility is too high and the power consumption is also high. For this reason, LTPO is expected to become a technology that optimizes OLEDs for mobile applications by combining the advantages of LTPS with oxide IGZO, which is suitable for low power consumption.

This year's Apple Watch 5's low-temperature polycrystalline silicon oxide (LTPO) display uses a redesigned pixel architecture that reduces the display refresh rate from 60Hz to an extremely energy-efficient 1Hz when the watch is idle. New low-power drivers, ultra-efficient power management, and a new ambient light sensor allow the watch to have 18 hours of power from morning to night while the display remains on.

In addition, the biggest selling point of Apple Watch Series 5 is the permanent screen-on feature. According to the latest updated details on Apple's official website, the new all-weather retina display can remain on standby all the time. When your wrist is drooping, the watch's display will dim as a whole, but the main functions such as the needle reading will always remain clearly visible. When you tap the dial or raise your wrist, everything on the screen will return to full brightness.

With 18 hours of battery life and always-on screen, I wonder if Apple Watch Series 5 can impress consumers?