Ultra-thin OLED TV

[engine]

An ultra-thin television brighter and crisper than current generation screens will go on sale from Sony in December.
The TV uses organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) to produce the image, resulting in a screen only 3mm thick.

OLED screens are more energy efficient than LCD panels as they do not need a backlight to boost brightness.

[news.bbc.co.uk...]

I thought that was interesting technology, but at £850 for a 11" display, I shan't be an early adopter.

There is a wow factor with it.

[bcolflesh]

That's great news - that means OLED consumer light bulbs are right around the corner.

[digitalghost]

Sony has definitely been an innovator in that technology. I bought one of their Sony Readers awhile back, it works quite well, controls could be better but I can read in almost direct sunlight and the text is clear, almost like black text on white paper.

Good to seem them work out the color technology.

[lawman]

Can't wait for the technology to mature. :)

[Rugles]

This is exciting stuff.

from Wiki:

"A great benefit of OLED displays over traditional liquid crystal displays (LCDs) is that OLEDs do not require a backlight to function. Thus they draw far less power and, when powered from a battery, can operate longer on the same charge. "

Can't wait for the price to come down.

[engine]

Yes, that price has got to drop to similar pricing of competing technologies - LCD & Plasma - before it gets mainstream.

How long ago was it that LCD/Plasma was similar high pricing. Not that far back.

I'll give them about 5 years to get this to sensible levels.

[steve]

The main drawback of OLED at the moment is limited lifespan - typically 30,000 hours, which is half that of LCD.

[edit] Doh, just read the last paragraph of the cited article![/edit]

[vincevincevince]

Ultra-thin is all very well but (a) I have no problem with a traditional CRT style screen - my desk is easily big enough to take it and (b) when used in a laptop you will still need to thicken it with protection in the lid anyway...