Nearly all OLED smartphones are six-inchers

A recent survey performed by UBI Research has revealed that nearly all smartphones launched so far in 2021 which boast an OLED display are sized at 6 inches or more. A total of 122 OLED-screen handsets have been launched between January and June of this year, and of those, 97.5% (or 119 to be exact) are in the 6-inch size range. 

Back in 2018, only 78% of phones equipped with the new Organic Light-Emitting Diode display had the decent size of 6+ inches, again as per the UBI Research statistics report. Between the years 2018 and 2021, then, there has been a solid twenty-point increase in OLED six-inch mobile devices on the market. 

While OLED displays are costlier to produce than their LCD counterparts, they provide better quality on every level and tend to be used in nearly all premium phones today. Rather than having a backlit display, the individual pixels in OLED screens produce their own light, pixel-by-pixel—this is what makes Always On displays possible. 

OLEDs also use less power than LCD, can have higher response times, and feature much better contrast and deeper blacks, due to the ability to choose which pixels light up and which remain unlit. 

From this year's releases so far, the ZenFone 8 by Asus takes the cake for the smallest OLED phone, it being the only one in the 5-inch screen range. On the other side of the spectrum, Xiaomi's Mi Mix Fold, as well as Huawei's Mate X2, were the only 2021 OLED-screen phones that had a colossal screen size larger than 8 inches—thinning the line between modern phones and tablets even more, one could say.

There hasn't been any OLED phones in the seven-inch range produced in 2021 so far, although there's still time for that to change.

For those interested in stats on front design trends this year, out of the total of 122 OLED models released, 6 smartphones sported designs with narrow bezels, 13 smartphones sported notch-style designs, and the vast majority (103) had the punch-hole camera look. Not one of these OLED devices featured a home button in the screen design. 

Resolution-wise, 64 of these particular phones (or 52.5%) had a pixel density of 400–500 ppi, 28 featured less than 400 pixels per inch, and only 10 of the devices came with a screen resolution of more than 500ppi.

As for the display area of all OLED Phones released in 2021, according to the UBI report, 84.4% of them were composed of between 80% and 90% pure display in the front, while a smaller 13.9% percent featured screen real estate greater than 90% of the front. UBI claims this is owed to the home button being done away with as brands are competing with each other to provide the greatest pure screen space possible. 

Suffice to say, there is no doubt that modern smartphone screens are only getting bigger, brighter and better with each passing year. With the iPhone 13 mini likely being the last of Apple's iconic diminutive handsets, we could well expect next year to see 100% (or nearly 100%) of the next-gen OLED phones boasting a screen six inches or larger, and even more impressive display area-to-bezel ratios.