Say what you want about it (too expensive, too small etc.), but I’ve always liked the world’s first commercially available OLED TV, Sony’s XEL-1. It’s just an 11-inch screen and costs $2,200, but the picture quality is just gorgeous. Today, however, Sony announced they won’t produce and sell the device on the Japanese market anymore. → Read More
Last year in August, Sony promised Europeans will get the world’s first commercialized OLED TV, the XEL-1, “sometime next year”. Now the 11-inch screen is available in the UK, which is probably a good thing. But the problem is the price. → Read More
Today Japan’s New Energy and Industrial Technology Development Organization announced it wants to accelerate the commercialization of large-screen OLED-TVs with a $350 million investment to be spent over 5 years. The public organization plans to cooperate with the National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology and a total of 10 Japanese technology companies. These are: – Hitachi Zosen – Sony – Sharp – Shimadzu – Toshiba Matsushita Display Technology – Idemitsu Kosan – Choshu Industry [JP] – Sumitomo Chemical – JSR – Dainippon Screen According to Japanese media, the initiative’s goal is to commercialize 40-inch OLED-TVs by 2018. This seems to be surprisingly late, as Samsung showcased a prototype of such a TV as early as 2005. Sony plans to sell FED-TVs sized at 26 inches through an affiliate company starting next year. The company’s current OLED-TV, the XEL-1, comes with a screen size of 11 inches. → Read More
No one can deny OLED displays are superior in quality to LCD or Plasma screens. One problem which has been constraining the commercialization of large-size OLED TVs, however, is the high level of power consumption. On Monday however, Sony and Japanese chemical company Idemitsu announced they succeeded in increasing the internal quantum efficiency (IQE) in deep-blue fluorescent OLED devices to 28.5%. I know, right? Until today, 25% was believed to be the maximum level of luminous efficiency achievable. Among the RGB colors, blue OLED devices are the most energy-intensive. The two companies have been jointly working on the improvement of OLED display technology since 2005. Sony Japan plans to mass-produce big-screen OLED TVs (20 inches and larger) at the end of 2009. This is definitively good news since Sony’s current OLED TV XEL-1 is cool but simply too small (11 inches) and too expensive. → Read More
Sony’s XEL-1 is pretty impressive. It’s only 27 inches wide and costs $1,500, so it’s not that impressive but if you want to be an early adopter and feel like your TV can get blown off the table with a strong gust of wind, this is your device. OLEDs use less power and are more eco-friendly than plasma or LCD screens. Does this mean you’ll have an OLED in your home next year? Probably not. While it’s an amazing technology, they’ve been harping on this stuff for almost a decade and I can’t see them pumping these out any time soon. It’s nice to see Sony is experimenting and leading the OLED charge, but let’s not hold our collective breath. → Read More
