Sony Announce Super Thin OLED Screen

Start saving because Sony aims to be the first to introduce an OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) TV, in time for Christmas. Don’t get too excited, though, the XEL-1 is only 11-inches across, and initially only available in Japan, oh yes, and it’s going to cost the thick end of £600, but here’s the good bits. It’s only 3 millimetres thick, it is reputed to have a contrast ratio of 1,000,000 to 1 (many times better than most current LCD and plasmas), uses significantly less power than comparable LCDs, there’s no backlight to fail and none of the image ‘lag’ associated with low-end LCDs. There are some minus points too; scaling up the technology to a decent size is proving difficult, it is going to be expensive for quite some time, and the displays have a finite life. Sony reckon they’ll last around 30,000 hours, which isn’t as bad as it sounds around 10 years with normal use – but this is something else that needs to be worked on before it hits the high street in a serious way. Nevertheless, OLED ticks al the right boxes and it may not be long before its giving LCD and plasma a good run for its money.