LG insider points to Apple OLED notebook
Release imminent. Allegedly
An LG staffer has made the very bold claim that 15in Apple notebooks equipped with OLED displays will appear within months.
Last year, LG signed a $500m deal with Apple to supply the Mac maker with unspecified types of displays through to 2013. This week, an unnamed LG insider told website SmartHouse that the deal includes 15in OLED panels which, it's claimed, Apple has chosen to built into new notebooks supposedly set to appear in June.
It’s worth taking the claim with a big pinch of salt. Firstly, putting a 15in OLED screen into an Apple notebook would surely push the machine’s price well beyond the £2000 mark and make it the reserve of those with only the most well-lined of pockets.
Would even Apple launch an ultra-premium product during the downturn?
Secondly, Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference takes place in June and the show’s become the launch pad for all things iPhone.
Nonetheless, the mole added that once Apple’s unveiled its 15in OLED notebook, LG will then launch its own standalone 15in OLED panels later in the year.
This timeline tallies with recent comments made by LG executive Amitabh Tiwari that LG-branded OLED displays “should be here by the end of 2009”. Although it’s worth noting that Tiwari never said which size OLED screens punters should expect.
But the mole didn’t stop at leaking news of an Apple OLED notebook. The insider also claimed to know that LG will launch a 32in OLED TV in June 2010, priced at roughly A$4000 (£1933/$2814/€2177).
We're not convinced LG has priced up a product that won't be released for another 14 months, so we'd urge caution here too. It’s almost impossible to predict how much a 32in OLED will cost more than one year from now – particularly since the OLED TV market’s still in its infancy.
LG’s previously promised to punch out 32in OLED TVs in volume by 2011, and Tiwari also warned that they will “cost 2.1 times the price of an LCD”. ®
COMMENTS
Expensive OLED?? WTF???
"...Tiwari also warned that they will “cost 2.1 times the price of an LCD”"
And what happened to the talk that OLED was going to be cheaper to produce than LCD? At 2.1 times the cost of LCD the LCD manufacturers are hardly going to be pooing their pants at the prospect of Sony/LG wiping the floor with this new technology. It'll be selling like Unicorn horns.
Paris - 'cos she's a rare bit of expensive stuff also
Cost savings?
Isn't OLED _way_ cheaper than LCD? I mean why else is it used so frequently in cheap devices?
Really?
If the fact that it'll look good but be hideously expensive is a reason to doubt the existance of an Apple product then that Apple Store down the road here must be a figment of my imagination.....
Must be true
I've just order a MacBook Pro - me spending money on any product inevitable results in either the company going spectacularly broke or upgrading the whole range.
If anyone would like Aston Martin to release a new range of cars, please get in contact with me and bring £100,000 in used non-sequential notes.
definitely
"Would even Apple launch an ultra-premium product during the downturn?"
yes, plenty of Apple buyers still got the green to blow on flashy stuff
don't think it's the law that Apple can only launch iphone stuff at ADC either
something to be said for a premium brand to lead the market with something like OLED
Dell and others then have to catch up with their Air-a-likes ...
