With the increasing popularity of AI PCs, laptop battery life and screen quality have become two key concerns for users. Samsung Display announced an important collaboration with Intel to jointly develop a display technology called "SmartPower HDR". This technology can significantly reduce the power consumption of OLED panels in HDR mode, attempting to break the stereotype that "high image quality equals high power consumption" and allow users to enjoy a vibrant HDR visual experience on their laptops for extended periods.
Say goodbye to fixed high drive voltage, intelligent dynamic adjustment
In the past, many laptop users, despite having OLED screens that support HDR, often chose to keep the feature off and only use SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) mode because enabling HDR would cause a significant increase in power consumption and a collapse in battery life.
One reason for this is that traditional HDR display modes, in order to ensure brightness performance, are usually locked at a fixed high driving voltage. Even in scenarios where high brightness is not required, such as browsing the web or editing documents, they still maintain high power consumption, resulting in unnecessary power waste.
Samsung's SmartPower HDR, developed in collaboration with Intel, changes this logic by employing a dynamic voltage control mechanism that adjusts the voltage in real time based on the characteristics of the content displayed on the screen. For example, it automatically reduces the voltage during word processing, while increasing the voltage and brightness only during scenes requiring high dynamic range, such as playing movies or playing games.
Significant energy savings, typically reducing electricity consumption by 22%.
According to official data, SmartPower HDR technology can reduce the emissive power consumption of OLED panels by up to 22% under normal usage conditions, and even save 17% of power when playing HDR content.
More importantly, this technology makes the power consumption of laptops under normal use almost the same as the traditional SDR mode, meaning that users no longer need to sacrifice image quality to save power and can confidently keep the HDR function always on.
Technological breakthroughs in hardware and software integration
This technology is the result of close research and development between Samsung and Intel since they signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in February 2025. Its operating principle involves the laptop's System-on-a-Chip (SoC) analyzing the peak brightness of each frame in real time and transmitting the data to the panel's timing controller (TCON). The SoC then combines this data with the On Pixel Ratio (OPR) of the screen to calculate the optimal driving voltage.
Todd Lewellen, Intel's Vice President of PC Ecosystem and AI Solutions, pointed out that the screen accounts for more than half of a laptop's total power consumption, making it a key target for improving efficiency. This collaboration not only drives visual innovation but also represents an important step in optimizing laptop performance and power consumption.
