Silly headline: serious topic. Organic Light Emitting Diodes — tiny, glowing plastic-based gizmos — can make far prettier pictures than any of today’s big players: LCD, DLP, and plasma.
They may also be several orders of magnitude thinner, lighter, cheaper and more energy efficient than the competition.
There’s only one problem. OLED’s are almost all promise and almost no delivery. Only one OLED TV has reached store shelves — an 11-inch model from Sony that provides an incredible picture in a thin and light package.
It’s not cheap, though. It’s incredibly expensive. And although OLED is a theoretically efficient technology, Sony’s model needs more power than an LCD that’s twice as large.
But several big manufacturers apparently think OLED is about ready for prime time.
Samsung said Tuesday that it would begin selling OLED HDTVs — along with OLED computer monitors — by next year. Cooler still, Samsung may be selling flexible OLED screens (yes, OLED can bend) by 2010.
Two days later, the folks at LG said they’d begin selling OLED monitors by 2011.
As these two giants work to get into the OLED market, Sony is refining its technology. The Japanese giant recently showed off a monitor that’s only one fifth of a millimeter thick.
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