Phone makers go back to cheaper LTPS displays as memory prices bite

The price of the 512 GB or 1 TB model used to be the only thing to worry about as a top phone model launched. Those were the days, but, since memory prices have gone through the roof, someone has to pay for it, and that someone, according to UBI Research, is the display.

In early 2025, memory and display costs in a flagship were roughly on par, despite the ongoing at the time rise in memory prices and the display sophistication increase. Screens are now covering a widening range of color gamuts and at the same time getting brighter and more efficient. By the second half of 2026, however, memory is expected to eat around 40% of the bill of materials (BOM), or about six times what the phone screen costs. Since OLED panels are getting cheaper thanks to bountyful production capacity, they make an easy target when manufacturers need to claw back some money elsewhere.

That is why some Chinese brands have reportedly moved certain high-end models from LTPO display technology back to LTPS OLED panels, saving a few dollars per unit. LTPS (Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Silicon) is a silicon-based transistor backplane that drives each OLED pixel quickly but leaks current, so the screen must refresh too often (roughly 30 to 60 Hz minimum) and hence uses more power. LTPO (Low-Temperature Polycrystalline Oxide) adds low-leakage oxide transistors on top of LTPS ones, allowing refresh rates to drop as low as 1 Hz for better battery life, at the cost of a more complex and expensive panel.

While going back to LTPS could mean static refresh rates and shorter battery life, weaker chipsets and cameras in midrange phones are reportedly also areas that manufacturers have reportedly identified for cost cutting, so the buck may not stop with the display downgrades.

A few dollars may sound trivial, but when phones sell in the millions of units, the savings can be significant and allow manufacturers to absorb some of the outrageous chip costs. Unfortunately, the older, cheaper LTPS technology may not allow for a dynamic refresh rate, while LTPO can scale smoothly, often down to 1 Hz. LTPS panels are stuck with fixed rates instead of a couple of step changes in the refresh speed.

Without dropping to 1 Hz for static content like reading or the always-on display, the panel sips more power constantly. A 120 Hz LTPS screen can't throttle dynamically depending on the content shown and needs more energy to run in the first place. Since adaptive LTPO displays arrived in phones en masse in the beginning of the decade, going to LTPS technology to compensate for the price of a memory chip would be reversing about five years of steady phone display progress. The panels may still look great on a spec sheet, but there may be a difference in battery life and fluidity, and "OLED" on the box may be telling very little.

For Samsung, an LTPS panel would be going back to the days of the Galaxy S20 series, for instance, while even the base Galaxy S26 that is now discounted to $720 on Amazon comes with an LTPO screen.