Samsung’s Galaxy Book 3 OLED will use on-cell tech for a thinner touchscreen

Samsung’s Galaxy Book 3 will feature an OLED panel that uses on-cell technology that embeds sensors directly into the display to create a thinner and lighter touchscreen. The company’s display-making arm announced that it has started to mass-produce the technology for notebooks and says it will come with “some models” of the “next-generation Galaxy Book series” (via ZDNET).

These panels use something called on-cell touch AMOLED (OCTA) technology. Instead of putting touch sensors on a “film” on the panel surface, it incorporates touch sensors directly into the panel, “reducing the thickness and weight” of the display. Companies including both Samsung and Apple already use this kind of technology in smartphones, and bringing it to laptops could help make them even more portable.

Samsung says the display will support 3K resolution with a 16:10 aspect ratio and 120Hz refresh rate, which tracks with leaked Galaxy Book 3 Ultra specs that indicate that the device will feature a 16-inch 3K Super AMOLED panel. Samsung Display is expected to sell this technology to other manufacturers as well — a good sign for Apple’s rumored MacBook Pro that’s supposed to come with a touchscreen OLED display in 2025. Outside of Macs, the iPhone has long used similar technology, as the launch of the iPhone 5 saw the addition of a touchscreen that uses in-cell technology that allows for a thinner display.

Samsung’s expected to announce the Galaxy Book 3 at its Unpacked event on February 1st. It’s unclear whether the entire rumored Galaxy Book 3 Pro lineup will come with touchscreen OLED displays or if it’ll be limited to the higher-end Book3 Pro 360 and Book 3 Ultra models. Luckily, Galaxy Unpacked is a little over a week away, where we’ll finally get a glimpse at all these new devices in addition to the heavily leaked Galaxy S23 phone.