Sony talks up 'world's first' OLED TV
Small screen, very big price tag
Sony demo'd a series of OLED-based TVs at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this past January. Today, it said one of them go on sale on 1 December - the first ever commercial OLED TV, the company claimed.
Sony's XEL-1: million-to-one contrast ratio
Dubbed the XEL-1, the 11in screen contains a display panel that's just 3mm thick - though the XEL-1 itself is rather thicker than that. The resolution is a not-quite-HD 940 x 540, though the TV will happily take a 1080p signal and squeeze it down.
Sony claimed the XEL-1's panel provides great colour quality, and if it's anything like the CES demo models they will. The screens have a contrast ratio of a whopping 1,000,000:1 - considerably higher than most LCD and plasma TVs.
Sony didn't address the panel's longevity. OLED is traditionally held to have a lower lifespan than the other two flat-panel TV technologies.
Sony's XEL-1: skinny, yet packed with ports
The XEL-1 is based on what Sony calls its 'Super Top Emission' (STE) technology. STE uses a pitted organic film - the pits are called micro-cavities - to reflect out of the display light that has bounced back off the display's semi-transparent cathode, the negatively charged material used to send electrons through the OLED's organic film, generating light. The colours themselves are produced by through STE's colour filters, placed above the cathode.
Interestingly, the XEL-1 is networkable - it's got an 10/100Mbps Ethernet port on the back, alongside a USB connector and an HDMI port. The TV can connect to content soureces that meet the DLNA (Digital Living Network Alliance) specification. It also has a built in digital TV tuner for Japanese broadcasts.
Japanese consumers should expect to pay around ¥200,000 ($1744/£854/€1225) for the XEL-1 when it comes to market in two months' time. Over here, you could buy a half-decent 42in plasma for that.
COMMENTS
It should be at least 720p on a 30"
I can see the difference between 1080p and 720p on my 20" CRT monitor, and I can see the difference between 1280x720 (720p) and 1280x1024 (most LCD) on a 19" so for me the number of pixels is important. I also like colors and hate how over boosted primary colors are on my LCD along with the ever gray blacks. As such I like the OLED angle, but really wish for higher resolution before it's usable in a large TV.
For now though I like what they have done and hope they keep on pushing to build something usable in mainstream entertainment. The way it is right now I don't see anyone paying that much for an 11" screen.
Re: Cool
"When did we all get so pessimistic, anal and downright miserable that we stopped admiring Cool?"
When we realised that it was made by those DRM-loving, rootkit-touting, customer-hating gits at Sony.
cool
Of course it's cool. This, in a 42" screen size, in a few years, will be THE screen to drool over. That said, I can't see why anyone is talking about 1080p yet - It's still hotly debated whether you can see the difference with a 42" screen, so a tad overkill on this size!
You want 1080P on an 11 inch screen?!
The resolution is small but so is the screen. There'd be very little discernible difference between the screen current res and 1080P unless you put your face up to the glass!
Contrast is good
Who cares about 1080p if he can not differentiate the resolution because of ambient light? I just can not wait to see how it renders analog broadcast TV in Turkey.
