Sony CEO Shows off a 0.3mm Thick OLED TV
The Wall Street Journal's sixth All Things Digital conference (D6) continues to make news--this time with Sony Corp.'s CEO, Sir Howard Stringer, showing off an OLED TV prototype that he claims is a mere "0.3mm" thick, has a contrast ratio of "a million to one," and is "a hundred times brighter than an LCD screen." Sony plans to introduce a 27-inch version within the next 12 months. The TV can be made of either glass or plastic and can be used to produce displays on curved surfaces.
The D6 conference released a seven-minute video with clips from the Stringer interview. From 1:53 in to 3:22, Stringer talks about and shows off the display:
Stringer showed this next-gen OLED TV technology, sitting next to Sony's own 11-inch, 3mm-thick, XEL-1 OLED Digital TV, which came out earlier this year and presently sells for $2,499.99. OLED displays have a number of potential advantages over current display technologies, such as a faster response times, higher contrast ratios, wider viewing angles, higher brightness, and lower power consumption. An obvious disadvantage is that the technology is still very expensive.
The lower power consumption of OLED displays is a huge deal for portable devices, as displays are often the biggest power-consuming component. OLEDs require much less power than LCDs because OLEDs do not require backlighting. Getting OLED displays onto portable devices will open the door for significantly longer battery life of the devices compared to current LCD technology.
Curiously, it was only a few weeks ago that display manufacturer, AUO, demonstrated what it claims is "the world's thinnest Ultra Thin 1.9-inch TFT-LCD" at 0.63mm. Thin is in and it looks like if AUO wants to run in the thin-display race, it might need to start looking at OLED technology.
