Optical display engines with reduced size and/or increased efficiency for Augmented Reality (AR) and near-eye devices that incorporate LED, microLED, and/or OLED displays. Example optical systems provide different light paths for polarized (or split unpolarized) light, with recombining oppositely polarized light corresponding to different image portions/channels, in a compact system using polarized beam splitters, quarter wave plates, half wave plates, and reflective elements such as curved mirrors or reflective lenses, resulting in high optical power. Images and/or portions thereof are presented at multiple observation planes to project a more realistic synthetic image, and at different angular resolutions to enable creation of a large composite field of view with high apparent resolution from a single small and efficient display.