LG OLED TV to have 15-inch screen
LG’s foray into OLED television beats Sony’s screen by four inches.
LG’s super-thin 15-inch OLED TV is ready for launch. The company plans to launch the new OLED TV in November in South Korea, to be be followed by other countries. The name of the LG OLED TV has not been decided so far. This will be largest OLED TV model in the world.
Sony was the first ever to introduce an OLED TV in Japan in 2007, followed by the US in 2008. The Sony XEL-1 OLED TV came to Europe in 2009. Sony itself does not have any other OLED TV models. LG’s intention to enter the OLED TV market has been known for a while, but it was only on Sunday that an LG official told Reuters that the launch will be in November.
No details are available regarding the price or detailed specifications of the LG OLED TV. However, it is expected that the LG OLED TV will have the same million:1 contrast ratio of the Sony XEL-1 OLED TV. LG had announced its plan for an OLED TV sometime earlier this year at a CES show.
What is OLED? OLED stands for organic light emitting diode. In usual LCD TVs, the screen is backlit, which consumes power and takes up space, making it bulky (though its thinner than CRT TVs). In advanced OLED screens, the materials on the screen-are self-lit, which dont need backlighting. This means the display screen on an OLED screen can be thinner than that on an LCD screen. This also means less power consumption for the OLED TV, which makes it a greener television. The OLED TVs also have much better picture quality than flat-screen LCD TVs. The basic component of the OLED screen is carbon, the building block of organic matter.
OLED technology has been around for a while, but its commercial application has been small. Already, many mobiles phones and handheld gadgets use OLED technology for display screens, but using the same technology on a large TV screen has been a challenge. One just needs to look at the fact that Sony has been unable to launch another model of the XEL-1, its OLED TV model, even two years after its Japanese launch.
LG said that it will be using an advanced version of OLED technology called AM-OLED, which stands for active-matrix organic light emitting diode. The LG official who spoke to Reuters also said that his company plans to launch a bigger version of the AM-OLED TV later, perhaps with a screen size of 40 inches. The display panel of the 15-inch LG OLED TV is likely to be as thin as 3 mm. LG will launch its 15-inch OLED TV at the IFA 2009 consumer electronics show in Berlin in September.
Several large consumer electronics giants are expected to showcase their technology prowess at the show.
High prices have been one reason why OLED has been unable to make inroads into the consumer products market. The Sony Xel-1 OLED TV costs $2500 in the US, and almost twice as much in Europe. The model is not available in India so far.
Details about the LG OLED TV are not available so far. Sony OLED XEL-1, the only comparable OLED television in the market has virtual surround sound, built-in HDMI and memory stuck slots, display resolution of 960 x 540 (which Sony says yields as much as quality as 1080 pixels on a 40-inch TV) and exceptional contrast ratio greater than a million:one.
Sony says that the OLED TV consumes 40% less power than identical LCD TVs. According to Sony, its XEL-1 OLED technology can completely turn
off pixels when reproducing black, resulting in more outstanding dark scene detail and a contrast ratio of 1,000,000:1. The company says that the XEL-1 display can last for as long as 30,000 hours. Since OLED TV technology is still in the initial stages, the price of the LG OLED TV will remain high. The prices are expected to come down only later, when more buyers bring economies of scale and mass production brings down cost. Till then, LG’s OLED TV will be only for the aficionados and the super-rich.
Though it pioneered the technology, OLED has been a stone around Sony’s neck for a while. Sony’s TV division has been posting losses for the last six quarters. Howard Stringer, Sony’s US-born CEO has been trying to stem losses at the company’s TV division as a matter of priority. Stringer said in May 2008 that bigger size OLED TVs will be available “within 12 months” but since then had to swallow his words as the worldwide recession sapped sales at electronics giants. Sony delayed its next OLED TV, and according to a Wall Street Journal report on August 17, Sony may not launch its bigger-screen OLED TV until next year. For Stringer, the priority is to revive the company’s balance-sheet, and not roll out more products which make losses.