Evaluating the Viewing Angle Performance of Display

As display becomes an important part of our everyday life, the need to not only evaluate the quality and performance of the display, but also from every viewing angle is critical. An automotive dashboard navigation system must maintain legibility for the driver sitting slightly diagonal from it. Smartphone and wearables must be readable from multiple angles, whether the user is stationary or in motion.

All display technology, when viewed at an angle, behave differently in term of their performance. For example, liquid-crystal displays (LCDs) appear bright when viewed straight on but dimmer when viewed from the side. This is because light, coming from the backlight units (BLUs), is affected after going through multiple layers of the LCD assembly.

For organic light-emitting diode (OLEDs) displays, they have relatively few issues with brightness consistency across different viewing angles as they have an emissive light-producing layer. OLEDs however, faced color shifts with viewing angle because of the interaction of light reflecting between the front and back of the layers which cause distortion in emission color.