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Kodak Releases Digital Camera With OLED Display
arth33 writes "Kodak has announced the LS633 Digital camera with OLED display. The camera and imaging specs are pretty standard (3.1 MegaPixels, 3x Optical Zoom, etc) but the viewfinder screen is a 2.2" OLED screen with a resolution of 512 x 218 pixels. According to the press release at DPreview, 'This large, full color, full motion, flat panel display is sharp, bright and features 165 viewing angles for on-camera viewing and sharing. Packaged in a stylish, metal body, the LS633 is perfect for users who want to show off their pictures on a cutting-edge OLED display.' All this and it's pretty cheap at US$399, and is expected on shelves in April in Australia, Europe and Asia.
More pics and information is also available at LetsGoDigital."
It's really the OLED display thats innovative. (As you might hae gathered from the slashdot article title.)
On typical cameras and monitors, any color LCD display will require a big bright power-hungry light source running behind the LCD to make it glow.
But not in this camera, the Organic LED (read light EMITTING diode) actually glow ! There is no need for a big power hungry light source, since the individual pixels generate light.
This may be the first Kodak product that uses their own OLED technology, but does anyone remember the article (I think it was from CNET) which contained a quote by a Kodak executive saying they were already shipping 8-inch OLED displays in quantities to a "manufacturer" who they couldn't disclose? A very high resolution screen that would be used in a product that they didn't know much about but that would be a revolutionary one and be released in the first half of 2003?
Somehow, the article has vanished. Even from Google.
The truth is out there and yes, I want to believe.
Yeah, cept Kodak is the leading developer of OLEDs and owns almost all the patents on them. :)
Why have digital camera displays been so small traditionally? Most models I've seen have had 1.5 or 1.8 inch displays. This 2.2 inch display is a nice boost, but there seems to be a lot of unused room (especially to the right of the screen, and below it, in the space occupied by a largish Kodak logo) on the back of this camera. I'd like a bigger screen to preview and review shots better. Is battery life the main concern that's keeping screens small?
Will this eliminate the problem of bright sunlight washing out the display? I can hardly see anything on my Kodak LCD when the sun is shining brightly. That really takes away from the experience since I _need_ the LCD to use my addon lenses (it's not an SLR camera).
It's supposed to, yes.
Jeeze I remember when I was reading about this almost over three years ago! I'm glad to see that they are finally coming into the retail market. I'll be really excited when the flexible OLED screens become a retail product.
The light source part is correct, but the "power-hungry" part isn't true. Current backlighting is performed with either White LED's, electrolum, or flourescent tubes, with the flourescent tubes actually being a bit less power-hungry, but, obviously, a little more fragile. The only efficiency is gained by directly viewing the light source (the Light-Emitting-Diode (LED) part of OLED) instead of indirect light via reflection by the current backlighting methods. The big gain is in the Organic (O of OLED) part of the process, which in this case refers to organic plastics (ie, cheap plastics). Great technology, and I'm glad their finally shipping mainstream products, but the parent article and one of the linked articles imply great power savings, which isn't so. Slight efficiency gains, but not leap forward technology in power savings.
Religion and science are both 90% crap..but that doesn't negate the other 10%.
I dont know if you meant this to be funny or not, but it is VERY true. Damn that GBA is dark. Non-backlit lcd screen. With the low power consumption of OLED, you will have all the goodness of the battry life, tons more brightness, better viewing angle if that matters, etc. Might even make the unit a tad cheaper.
It's easier to fight for one's principles than to live up to them.
Don't worry!
There is an INCREDIBLE push in the laptop/tablet market (from engineering depts.) to get lighter, thinner, brighter, more energy efficient, and faster refreshing displays.
I'm a Lead EE guy for laptops/tablets here and we REALYL REALLY want to see these OLEDs get bigger.
We're working on those R&D companies.