OLED Screen TVs Enter the Market

Sony, which has in the past been the market leader in portable music with the ubiquitous Walkman in the 80's and video games with the Playstations in the 90's and beyond, hopes to establish dominance in the flat screen TV market with the first OLED displays.

The Japanese company is currently placed behind Samsung at the top of LCD display sales.

"I want the world's first OLED TV to be the symbol of the revival of Sony's technological prowess. I want this to be the flag under which we charge forwards to turn the fortunes [of this company] around," said Sony President Ryoji Chubachi.

The diminutive 5 millimeter-thick OLED displays that Sony showcased at CES this year will be made available in Japan on December 1, the company announced.

While it showed off a 27-inch version with full 1080p and an 11-inch model with 1024x600 resolution at CES, the production model will actually feature an even lower resolution. The "XEL-1," as it is called, will be produced with an 11-inch screen registering 960x540 pixels and an even smaller 3 mm profile.

Because the organic LED market is still in its infancy, these tiny screens come with a king-sized retail price that Sony suggests is still money-losing. ¥200,000 ($1,740 USD) will get the consumer a screen that approximately shares the dimensions of a sheet of copy paper. The same amount of money will buy a 40-inch LCD screen.

The lifespan of these OLED screens is considerably less than LCD TVs as well, registering at just around 30,000 hours. The real attraction, of course, is the tiny profile and efficient energy consumption. Hopefully as the market and copyright guidelines for this technology mature, we will see leaps in its progress, as well as drops in price.