Samsung & Intel have announced the new SmartPower HDR tech, which slashes OLED panel power by up to 22% while delivering similar HDR quality.
Next-Gen Laptops With OLEDs Will Offer More Battery Life Thanks To Intel's & Samsung's SmartPower HDR Technology
At CES 2026, Samsung & Intel demonstrated their new SmartPower HDR technology, which has been co-developed to help laptops with OLED panels deliver more battery life without sacrificing the brightness & vivid colors of HDR.
With SmartPower HDR, laptops with OLED panels will be able to dynamically adjust voltages based on real-time content characteristics that are being displayed on the screen, improving upon the conventional fixed-voltage HDR algorithm. This results in emissive power consumption reduction on OLED panels by up to 22% in standard SDR mode and up to 17% reduction while viewing HDR content.
At the same time, the SmartPower HDR technology will maintain HDR performance similar to standard OLED HDR configurations, so you won't see a loss in the vivid HDR experience.
SmartPower HDR allows users to enjoy HDR content on laptops while minimizing power usage. Display power consumption is largely affected by driving voltage. Unlike conventional HDR modes that apply a fixed high voltage regardless of the content type causing unnecessary power loss, SmartPower HDR™ dynamically adjusts voltage based on the characteristics of the displayed content.
For example, general laptop use cases such as web browsing or document editing can operate at lower voltage levels. In contrast, high-definition content such as games or video playback requires higher brightness and voltage. Traditional HDR modes remain locked at maximum brightness, resulting in excessive power usage even in standard scenarios. As a result, many laptops default to SDR (Standard Dynamic Range) mode despite the color and brightness advantages of HDR.
In comparison, SmartPower HDR™ reduces the power consumption associated with OLED pixel emission by up to 22% in general usage and by up to 17% during HDR content. Notably, in general usage scenarios, power consumption is comparable to that of SDR mode.
via Samsung
In a previous demo, Intel showcased the ability of its Panther Lake "Core Ultra Series 3" laptops to drop power down significantly with SmartPower HDR, giving HDR capabilities without using standard HDR power levels. This mode enables around 20% panel luminance power savings (around 30-40 minutes battery life savings) in HDR mode for SDR content. The panels are the main reason why battery life drains faster when viewing SDR content in HDR, so what Intel does is to run an algorithm in the SoC and communicate it to the panel so that the panel can adjust voltage dynamically based on the content.
Expect to see the first use of SmartPower HDR technology in many Core Ultra Series 3 laptops shipping this quarter.
About the author: A Software Engineer by training and a PC enthusiast by passion, Hassan Mujtaba serves as Wccftech's Senior Editor for hardware section. With years of experience in the industry, he specializes in deep-dive technical analysis of next-generation CPU and GPU architectures, motherboards, and cooling solutions. His work involves not only breaking news on upcoming technologies but also extensive hands-on reviews and benchmarking.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
