The latest variety of laptops is already boasting some of the best battery life we’ve had on lightweight machines, thanks to more efficient chip design and improved thermals. Display king LG thinks it can take that battery life a step further. The company’s latest screen technology promises 48% power savings by limiting refresh rates when you’re not doing much but reading tech blogs.
LG calls its latest LCD screen technology “Oxide 1Hz.” Just like the name implies, these screens can reduce their refresh rate down from 120Hz to just 1Hz—equivalent to one refresh per second—when the content on-screen is static. That wide-ranging variable refresh rate (VRR) has been common on smartphones and smartwatches for years now. Various iPhones and Android phones support a similar feature with OLED and AMOLED displays.
The actual specifics on how LG created these 1Hz panels are vague. In a press release, LG said it developed custom circuit algorithms and display materials. It used “the oxide with the lowest power leakage during low refresh rate mode to the display’s thin-film transistor.” We don’t know what oxide LG is using, but it is supposedly able to hold an electric charge longer than a typical LCD panel. That sustained power allows the panel to keep from refreshing when it’s staring at static content, like an online article. It can then boost the refresh rate up to 120Hz for content displaying at 120 frames per second (fps), like your average video game.
Dell XPS 14 already has the screen
There are two versions of the Dell XPS 14’s screen. One has a 2K LCD non-touch display. The more-expensive version has a 2.8K OLED touch screen. © Kyle Barr / GizmodoOxide 1Hz is currently limited to LCD panels. LG promised we’ll see more 1Hz OLED screens in 2027. However, we’ve already seen this LCD technology in action with Dell’s latest XPS 14 laptops. Gizmodo tested the battery life on both the XPS 14 with the LCD panel and the OLED screen and found the less pretty device was much better in battery life. That extra longevity equaled several more hours doing browsing and typing work.
However, we should note that the LCD test unit Dell provided us was using a lower-end Intel Panther Lake chip compared to the OLED model. The more-expensive Dell XPS 14 had an Intel Core Ultra X7 358H CPU. That chip included the 12 Xe3 GPU cores, allowing it to actually be very strong for gaming at 1080p resolution. While the LCD model may be good for regular daily browsing tasks, the only XPS 14 laptop that could actually maximize that 120Hz refresh rate costs at least $1,800 and comes with the LG-made LCD display.
The real jewel in LG’s mobile computing crown may be a year off, when we finally see more 1Hz OLED laptop displays. LCD panels can sport a quality picture, and they normally cost less than other screen alternatives. Hell, just look at the $600 MacBook Neo if you need evidence that low-cost LCD still has something to offer. But once you have an OLED laptop in hand, it’s hard to go back. The organic light-emitting diode displays have much better contrast and offer far deeper blacks than any typical backlit liquid crystal display.
We expect there will be more Dell and HP laptops launching with Oxide 1HZ screens come 2027. Based on multiple leaks and rumors, Apple may promote a new OLED MacBook Pro this year. Past leaks hinted it may offer 1Hz ProMotion refresh rates. Current MacBook Pros with mini LED screens bottom out at just under 48Hz. Current iPad Pro models with tandem OLED displays feature ProMotion that can go from 10Hz to 120Hz.
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