Samsung Announces Largest-Ever OLED Display

kaos.geo writes "Samsung announces a 17" OLED display. The article specifies that they are using a laser to 'print' the display instead of the previous 'spraying' methods." 400 lumens isn't shabby. Update: 05/18 23:49 GMT by T : jhealy writes "Seiko Epson, on the heels and light years ahead of Samsungs announcement earlier today, have announced a 40" OLED monitor. Eat that Samsung!"

Comments

Prices?

[Kid Zero]

Man... we're just getting prices on LCD's down. Now this? Egads.

Also: Can you game with it? :)

Re:Prices?

[OrthodonticJake]

I would argue that they're supposed to be cheaper, but if the public doesn't know that then I'm sure Samsung could get away with changing "cheaper" to "more expensive than ever".

Re:Prices?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, but will it run Linux?

Re:Prices?

[dchamp]

You can game on an LCD, as long as you have a decent one. I've been gaming on an LCD for a couple of years now.

Re:Prices?

[Crazy Eight]

Can you game with it?

It's emissive, so there should be no ghosting problems.

A 17" display, huh? Intriguing.

[Tuxedo Jack]

400 lumens isn't half bad at all.

What I'd like to know is how good the contrast is? The monitor's not worth crap if the color isn't decent.

Re:A 17" display, huh? Intriguing.

[pbox]

According to OLED rumors, it is excellent (ie. better than anything we have currently) out-of-the-box. However after a year you will notice fading, and in two years it will be worse than LCD.

Re:A 17" display, huh? Intriguing.

[OrthodonticJake]

Tech support will have a field day with that fading thing, I bet.
Consumer: "Why can't I see it?"
Tech Support: "Do we have your money?"
Consumer: "Yes."
Tech Support: "Run awaaaaayyyyyy!"

Re:A 17" display, huh? Intriguing.

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I'd like to see a comparison in brightness to a decent CRT to get a feel for what "400 lumens" means. It does seem pretty good though, but this is in comparison with projectors that need to be used in the dark to get a decent sized picture.

All devices have a limited lifetime, LCDs are limited by the flourescent sidelight bulb, CRTs and plasmas do fade over time, but the difference is that all the colors fade at a similar rate, which I think is more noticible than an overall brightness fade. I'd call it pretty acceptable if nobody really notices a color shift for a decade of heavy use.

Re:A 17" display, huh? Intriguing.

[FireFury03]

The resolution is quite impressive too - one of the things that's been stopping me buying a TFT panel is the low resolution - I won't buy a flat panel display unless it can do at least 1600x1200 in 19". And this can do 1600x1200 in 17" so imagine the resolution of the 19" displays when they come out.

Hopefully before long we'll see 16:9 ratio (or wider) high resolution flat displays - I use 2 displays running under Xinerama, with the primary monitor being a 21" CRT. I don't want a display any taller than the 21" (I hate looking upwards to see things at the top of the screen), but if I could replace the 2 monitors with a single extra-wide screen then that'd be great.

As it is, I keep stuff I'm actively working on towards the bottom of the primary screen, stuff I'm just occasionally referring to at the top and my web browser sits on the secondary, which all works quite well.

Re:A 17" display, huh? Intriguing.

[thogard]

Put 400 candles in one spot. Put something exactly one foot away. That thing will be reflecting 400 lumens.

Re:A 17" display, huh? Intriguing.

[kabocox]

However after a year you will notice fading, and in two years it will be worse than LCD.

That is perfect from the manufactors viewpoint. They just have to give a 1 year warranty and sell them alittle less then LCDs. As long as they could sell them for 5%-10% less then LCDs, they'll sell. Heck I'd bet managment types would by this just because it's new.

I'd wait and see myself.

Re:A 17" display, huh? Intriguing.

[pbox]

Yes. And it's has organic in the name, so no one will have to feel bad about adding to the trashpile. Even though it probably takes an insane amount of natural resources to make a panel. I hope it will have some recyclable properties.

And as far as price goes, if it would cost less than 50% of LCDs than it would be comparable. The backlighting on the LCDs fades away in 5 years too. And the MTBF on them is not much longer than a decade, so you thrash your LCD every ten years anyway. Heck, even CRTs don't often last 10 years, altough in that case it is more like tech-rot gets to them, the resolution, the bandwidth of a 10 year old CRT is just not capable for more than 800x600 at 60Hz interlace at max 16 bit color.

Expected delivery at a resonable price.

[LPrime]

I am still waiting for the prices of LCD monitors to drop to make it worth the switch from my trusted CRT. Based on what I have seen with the progression of LCDs into the mainstream it will take at least 5 years for something like this to become affordable. By then we will have 3D displays slowly hitting the market.

Re:Expected delivery at a resonable price.

[maxbang]

By then you'll be saying, "I am still waiting for 3D displays to drop to make it work the switch from my trusted CRT." ;) The space savings alone were worth the $1100 for three 17" LCDs to replace three 19" CRTs, not to mention the drop in the power bill. It's also a lot more comfortable in the summer. The switch to OLED, however, will be a harder sell. Right now these guys hold up nicely for editing video and for the occasional gaming marathon (although only one is used when I'm getting pummeled at CS). Instead of reading manufacturer specs and reviews, I'll have to see for myself exactly how much brighter and more responsive OLEDs are than LCDs before I'll consider shelling out bucks for them.

Re:Expected delivery at a resonable price.

[LPrime]

You don't know how right you are. But then again you probibly do. I am waiting for the price of Fedora Core to drop so I can finaly upgrade to that new fangled kernel I've been hearing about.

Re:Expected delivery at a resonable price.

[Lord_Dweomer]

I'm in the market for a new computer now, and what I've seen is a lot of places trying to phase out CRTs in favor of LCDs. I really wish they wouldn't. I don't mind the space issues with CRTs, the image quality is FAR superior, and they cost a lot less.

Decay problems..

[VMaN]

But are the problems of decaying OLEDs fixed now? the first ones only lasted a couple of years if I remember correctly.

Re:Decay problems..

[MoonBuggy]

Samsung already use them in their phones (E700, E710, E715 and maybe others) so I would hope that they've fixed it - my brother isn't going to be happy if the outer screen on his phone fades away in a year or two.

Re:Decay problems..

[Mr. Roadkill]

But are the problems of decaying OLEDs fixed now? the first ones only lasted a couple of years if I remember correctly.

If they get cheap enough, and there's a reasonable recycling program, who cares? Why not consider the optical component a consumable? So long as the initial purchase price plus the cost of a few replacement optical units is less than the purchase price of competing technologies, the consumer wins.

The only problem with this is that it potentially opens up a whole new product to the "razor handle" marketing model. If we go down this path, I think the best option would be for standards to be set early, so people can make purchasing decisions based on openness of standards and product quality - if you don't care, buy that < insert developing country that undercuts China in price and quality > replacement insert, but if you want the best, buy the Big Brand or Quality OEM one. If it goes the razor or printer way, I guess I could live with it - but I'd much prefer it if it went the same way as the lightbulb.

Re:Decay problems..

[localman]

I care, because I'd rather pay a little more for something that lasts longer. Maybe I'm a fool. Or maybe I just find a small amount of pleasure in stability.

Yes, I buy flourescent bulbs instead of incandescents where possible :)

And I'm considering LCD over DLP (replaceable bulb) or Plasma (trash in five years or after accidentally leaving the nintendo on).

Cheers.

Re:Decay problems..

[Mr. Roadkill]

I care, because I'd rather pay a little more for something that lasts longer. Maybe I'm a fool. Or maybe I just find a small amount of pleasure in stability.

Stability is wonderful, and in some applications highly desirable.

Yes, I buy flourescent bulbs instead of incandescents where possible :)

As do I. They're more expensive than incandescents, but they last much longer. Sure, you have reduced maintenance requirements with fluorescents (and perhaps reduced costs associated with that, even though they cost more initially) but their killer benefit is their power consumption. What if they consumed near enough to the same power as incandescents, and what if they lasted four times as long as incandescents, but also cost eight times as much? What if this was because your fluorescent light was integrated with its fixture and you needed to replace the whole fixture every 5 years, but you just put a new incandescent bulb in the incandescent fixture every two years until the fixture finally broke (maybe 10 years, if you're lucky). That's probably a fair comparison to an LCD display vs. OLED with Replaceable Panel

With current display devices, once the parts that actually produce the image die it is generally not economical to repair the device. If the optical part was replaceable, and the costs worked out to be less over time than the cost of competing technologies with non-replaceable parts, it's a winner. And that's the kicker - the production costs for OLED panels are likely to fall much further than the production costs for LCD panels, so unless there are environmental costs that make recycling OLED panels uneconomical a replaceable-panel OLED display device could be a very compelling option in many applications and for many users.

And I'm considering LCD over DLP (replaceable bulb) or Plasma (trash in five years or after accidentally leaving the nintendo on).

I have no idea what the current state-of-play is in the LCD or DLP product ranges, but even though one has consumables involved (DLP) what are the overall expected lifespans of the devices? If DLP cost significantly less than LCD, then DLP would be the winner in applications where occasional globe replacement and the physical differences between the two technologies aren't an issue - I imagine this would be most loungerooms. Like I imagine the occasional replacement of an OLED insert once you can no longer adjust out the loss of green performance would not be an issue for most laptop or even desktop users if the technology cost significantly less than LCD panels .

But then, who am I fooling about costs over a product lifetime - the initial cost would have to be lower too, because we're probably talking about the same people who buy low-end inkjet printers. Lets just hope that if replaceable-panel displays appear they don't follow that consumables pricing strategy.

Re:Decay problems..

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in the US, nobody keeps phones longer than two years. Screens that degrade after that period of time are perfect for this application.

Re:Decay problems..

[Anonymous Coward]

My Motorola Timport P8767 has an OLED screen, and I haven't noticed any degredation -- and this phone is several years old. Most of the paint is gone, but the screen is fine...

Re:Decay problems..

[anakin876]

DLP is probably similar to other projector type bulbs in that they are insanely expensive to replace. We're talking 400 or 500 dollars here

Re:Decay problems..

[ndege]

MOD PARENT DOWN!

Dude, shut up and think before you speak. You don't know what you are talking about. I spent about 10 seconds looking up the bulb for my Infocus X1 (a DLP projector). The price is under $300 with a 4000 hour life! That comes to about 7.5 cents per hour for the cost to operate. A link: http://www.compuplus.com/insidepage.php3?id=100227 3

It is people like you that call into my help desk to tell me that I need to replace their computer because their "screen is black" and has been for 2 weeks. Their system came back to life when the surge protector was turned on.

You are a good example of natural selection gone wrong.

Re:Decay problems..

[vinit79]

The parent is not interesting, I think he is being funny. At least I was under the impression that OLED's dont decay anymore than plastic carry bags(which are organic too) from your supermarket do. The organic in OLEDs is not the same as organic in organic food. It refers to the CH covalent bonds. Correct me if I am talking rubbish (Its been a long time since high school organic chemistry)

Re:Decay problems..

[vinit79]

$300 for a bulb does seem insanely expensive to me !!

Re:Decay problems..

[Crazy Eight]

The parent wasn't being funny. OLEDs have lifetime problems. They lose luminance. IIRC, blue has been a big problem. I don't know if it is strictly related to current (so it only wears out when you use it), or if it has to do with exposure to oxygen and water (so it wears out no matter what). That last problem is apparently pretty tough to combat. Oxygen and water will try to creep through anything. In any event, it's a good question to ask as the article claims Samsung wants to put this panel on the market next year. Presumably they've done something to address that hangup in the technology.

Re:Decay problems..

[anakin876]

WTF? Bulbs on some of the Barco CRT projectors do run you 400 or 500 bucks. At my university surplus sale you can buy a projector with a burnt out bulb for 75 bucks because it isn't worth it to them to pay for a new bulb. I realize that DLP is different, and that 7.5 cents an hour is insanely cheap (who wouldn't pay say 30 cents a week to watch 4 hours of delightful video?) But many people can't see that, and can't justify the large expense. You are a good example of arrogance gone horribly wrong...let me guess you charged that poor bastard 200 bucks to tell them to turn the damn surge protector back on

Re:Decay problems..

[FireFury03]

Except phone screens are off most of the time and only light up for brief periods when you're using them.

Re:Decay problems..

[takasuz]

According to a local newspaper (Nagano, Japan), the present estimated lifespan for the prototype is 1000-2000 hours, which needs to be boosted to 10000 hours before appearing in your living room.

Re:Decay problems..

[Anonymous Coward]

Here in the US, nobody keeps phones longer than two years. Screens that degrade after that period of time are perfect for this application.

And i suppose everyone buys a new car when it runs out of petrol.

That might be nice...

[LeBlanc_Joey]

for laptops, if there are power savings.

Re:That might be nice...

[rokzy]

>for laptops

being only 1/3 the thickness of LCDs is handy too

Re:That might be nice...

[Anonymous Coward]

Well Hell, there's no backlight. That helps a lot to lighten the thing and save power, not to mention simplifies production, lowers the cost, improves the quality of the display.

How good is this?

[coupland]

Can anyone shed some light on exactly how noteworthy this is? What is a rough figure for expected brightness (in lumens) from an LCD? How big a deal is 400 lumens for a first-generation consumer product? Are the advantages of OLED primarily brightness and power consumption, or are there image quality advantages as well?

Thanks in advance to any OLED gurus who feel like sharing their knowledge. This is an exciting field but a lot of us are still trying to get up to speed on it...

Re:How good is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

LCDs are now starting to get crazily, blindingly bright--in an attempt to jack contrast ratios up over 500:1. Contrast ratio is important, but since backlit LCDs can't display black, the darkest black isn't that dark and that's static. So the only thing left to do is crank up the bright end.

OLEDs on the other hand can actually display black, therefore they can have a higher contrast ratio without being so bright. The net effect is that they are nicer to look at.

Also, some would say that it's easier to make bigger OLED displays than LCD displays. I don't know about that. 1600x1200 isn't very common for desktop LCDs, but I've seen it available in laptops for years now.

Frankly for most people it's a minor change. It's definitely a _potential_ improvement though.

Re:How good is this?

[tunabomber]

One big advantage that I would expect OLED's to have over LCD's that no one has been talking about is refresh rate.
Unlike LCD's, OLED's don't rely on a structural transformation of the molecules in the display to shift a pixel from one state to the next.
This should mean that the pixels can switch from "on" to "off" much faster, hopefully fast enough for the screen to be used for gaming.

Re:How good is this?

[aggiefalcon01]

Here's another advantage of OLED's: flexibility. The displacy surface can easily be bent, flexed, and straightened. Or, it can be attached to a round surface.

Think of a device which you pull apart while the display surface unrolls out of the larger half as you're pulling it out (like older window shades). Hollywood showed us this device in the movie Red Planet. True, just the possibility of this is a long way off, but OLED's are a step in this direction.

GearBits has a cool animation of a pen using this technology.

Re:How good is this?

[anethema]

What do you mean no one talks about it? That's one of the main advantages of OLED over LCD that everyone mentions when the OLED topic comes up is its ability to change state from on to off MUCH faster.

Yes it will be useful for gaming. OLED delays are measured in microseconds, not milliseconds.

Also, the contrast ratio of OLED displays are MUCH better than LCD, which are still piss-poor at best.

LCD almost has the display angle problems licked, usually on the more expensive monitors. What's good about OLED is this isn't even an issue. Like CRT, you can turn it however you want.

While LCD power consumption IS low...OLED is even lower than backlit LCD.

And then there is cost. OLED screens are just printed on. With inkjet tech usually, although it's laser in this case. There is no high voltage circuitry necessary for fluorescent backlighting, no tubes, no expensive-to-produce LCD panel. Sure the initial costs of OLED might be high to justify the r&d, but the cost to produce an OLED screen is a fraction of that of LCD.

Re:How good is this?

[PatrickThomson]

I've been gaming on a 60Hz LCD for about a year now and never noticed it; the reason monitors flicker at that rate is because it's not displaying the whole screen at once; last I checked, LCDs do.

Re:How good is this?

[Crazy Eight]

Hollywood showed us this device in the movie Red Planet.

That was one of the coolest sci-fi visions of future technology I've seen. Not only was the display rollable, it had variable translucency so they could look through it while the computer diagrammed the landscape. Very slick.

Re:How good is this?

[FireFury03]

Yep, I can confirm that some LCDs are stupidly bright - we've used large (42") LCDs designed for outdoor use at work - they're visible in direct sunlight and are so bright that you really wouldn't want to use them indoors (they're far too bright too look at if your eyes aren't adjusted for outdoor light conditions).

Re:How good is this?

[FireFury03]

I wonder how they are affected by mechanical fatigue? constant, quite extreme flexing of the display (as you describe, rolling and unrolling it) is going to cause some damage and I wonder how many rolls/unrolls it's life is going to be.

BTW, the rolling/unrolling screen concept was also used in the PDA/phone things from Earth: Final Conflict.

But wait...

[bobhagopian]

The article says "To date, however, problems with device lifetime, chemistry and production have limited their use to mobile devices and backlights." But it does not say that these problems have been completely eliminated. I'd be wary of buying a $2000 display with a lifetime of seventeen minutes.

Re:But wait...

[falzer]

I told you a million times not to use hyperbole to get your point across!

Re:But wait...

[maxbang]

I'd be wary of buying a $2000 display with a lifetime of seventeen minutes.

Tell me about it. I spent $2000 for seventeen minutes of bliss. I wish I was wary before my purchase. Or was it a rental?

Re:But wait...

[xbytor]

It wasn't a rental. It was a "consulting fee".

Re:But wait...

[nhavar]

Sha! Your lucky it was a rental. I got talked into the purchase and didn't read the fine print about how I'd only get 17 minutes of bliss once a year and have to keep paying a "re-up" fee. If I chose not to pay the re-up fee and terminate the contract or look for an alternate bliss carrier I'd be charged an early termination fee which could legally be up to half of what I own PLUS continuing annual fees.

Re:But wait...

[Anonymous Coward]

You could just... take her back to her parents' house.

Re:But wait...

[martinX]

17 minutes? Stud.

400 Lumens?

[ackthpt]

I've got a Samsung Syncmaster 172t (250cd/m2) and it's more than bright enough on the lowest setting. Maybe if you like to watch video with the sun hitting the screen this would be fine.

For a computer monitor it's serious overkill. I can't seem to turn the brightness down enough so have to work with a light on to avoid headaches.

Re:400 Lumens?

[Anonymous Coward]

Get some sunglasses. Polarized if you really want to reduce the light reaching your eyes from the LCD monitor.

Re:400 Lumens?

[Anonymous Coward]

You can't directly compare lumens to candela unless you're a sphere of 1m radius around your monitor.

Re:400 Lumens?

[Silas is back]

I`d love just to know that whenever I want, there are 200 more lumen waiting for me.

It`s like being able to turn up the volume for another 50%, for those rare times you want your friends to listen carefully to that song.

Re:400 Lumens?

[Gramie2]

Maybe they should have a dial that goes up to 11?

Re:400 Lumens?

[servognome]

sphere of 1m radius around a computer monitor... I think that describes most /.'ers

Re:400 Lumens?

[Anonymous Coward]

Does your 172T make this annoying whistling sound, too?

Re:400 Lumens?

[ackthpt]

Does your 172T make this annoying whistling sound, too?

Nope, quite as a churchmouse. It developed three stuck pixels within the first couple months, but none since. Since they are so tiny it's pretty easy to overlook them. I run full 1280x1024 resolution.

Mark your territory!

[beatleadam]

The article specifies that they are using a laser to 'print' the display instead of the previous 'spraying' methods.

Be careful that the monitor is not Plugged In when you go to make it your own! :-)

Enviromental Impact

[Frigid Monkey]

Organic LEDs are luminescent plastic semiconductors with the theoretical potential to replace LCDs, CRTs and other display technologies through greater efficiency, easier production, more physical flexibility and lower cost.

Are there any environmental changes with these monitors, personally I always make an effort to shop greener and if I could avoid purchasing a CRT in favor of something that would biodegrade nicely well WOO HOOO! I'd be making planters out of my old monitors.

On the other hand: MONITOR MOLD

Re:Enviromental Impact

[bobhagopian]

Mmm...I'm envisioning a computer case made entirely out of mud, grass, and ants. I suspect it will appeal to the high-tech, environmentally-conscious, case-modding, /. reading market.

Re:Enviromental Impact

[pyrote]

they already beat ya to it...
here

Re:Enviromental Impact

[Anonymous Coward]

Kidding asside, imagine harnessing the processing power of thousands of ants...

Re:Enviromental Impact

[name773]

kinda like a beoant cluster

Inconsistent Color Lifetimes

[MBoffin]

Nice as it would be to have one of these, it will be a few years before they are worth buying. One major drawback is that the green component of these screens have a shorter lifetime than the red and blue, not to mention an overall shorter lifetime than LCD's. The early LCD's were not so bad, even with a shorter lifetime, because all three colors decayed at relatively the same rate. With OLED's having a shorter lifetime for green, the color drift will be much more dramatic.

Re:Inconsistent Color Lifetimes

[MrBlue VT]

Can't this simply be corrected via software? Just decay the other colors as well to keep the color calibration the same.

Re:Inconsistent Color Lifetimes

[MBoffin]

Can't this simply be corrected via software? Just decay the other colors as well to keep the color calibration the same.

True, you could constantly re-calibrate with software, but that's a big pain to have to do repeatedly. And regardless, the fact would remain that the overall lifetime of the monitor is still relatively short compared to LCD's.

Don't get the idea that I'm knocking this technology, though. It's still pretty amazing stuff.

Re:Inconsistent Color Lifetimes

[stryck9]

Actually, it is the blue that decays the fastest. Red and green are about the same.

Re:Inconsistent Color Lifetimes

[anethema]

Maybe mod parent up a couple points, hes right. It is the blue that degrades the fastest.

Re:Inconsistent Color Lifetimes

[falzer]

You could, perhaps... automate the recalibration process! Nah, such ideas are in the realm of fantasy. ;)

Re:Inconsistent Color Lifetimes

[Anonymous Coward]

Kodak can get 16,000 hours on blue, compared to 20,000 on green...they're almost there.

pffft

[fresh27]

400 lumens is nothing. i have a raid array of lightbulbs thatll beat this amateur in any benchmark.

Re:pffft

[LaBlueCow]

Not to nitpick, but wouldn't an array of lightbulbs be a RAIL, not a RAID?
On a completely off topic topic... RAIRRA... - redundant array of infinitely recursive redundant arrays of ...

Re:pffft

[Anonymous Coward]

i have a raid array of lightbulbs

I think that would be a RAIL. :-P

But, seriously, you bring up a good point, although inadvertently.

Organic LED displays essentially have a little lightbulb (LED, actually) for each subpixel, so it is an "AIL" (Array of Inexpensive LEDs). But there is no redundancy. If one dies, you lose that pixel forever. LEDs have a limited lifetime, but it's far longer than the regular lightbulb that you joke about. A normal LED has a lifetime of around 100,000 hours for monochromatic chips (a bit over ten years of continuous use), but there is a Gaussian distribution around that. When you are talking about a 1600x1200 display, with 5,760,000 individiual subpixels, you're going to see some failures within a few years, guaranteed. And once they flake out, there's no realistic way to repair them.

LCDs, by contrast, are illuminated by one or two cold-cathode tubes with a shiny surface behind the display to distribute the light evenly, which goes through the LCD panel and out to your eyes. The LCD subpixels do not die over time, but sometimes are defective originally in the LCD matrix (thus giving you dead or stuck pixels). The best cold cathode tubes used LCDs have lifetimes of around 30,000 hours of continuous use (about 3.5 years), although they can theoretically be replaced when they fail. However, this is not typically done (except under warranty) because they are not of standard designs. (You can't just go to CompUSA and pick up a replacement cold cathode tube for your LCD.)

The real upshot of all of this is that no matter which fancy flat-panel display you get, turn it off when you aren't using it. :-)

Re:pffft

[Anonymous Coward]

s/used LCDs/used in LCDs/

Re:pffft

[Anonymous Coward]

RAIR...(redundant array of RAIDS)

Re:pffft

[Anonymous Coward]

400 lumens is nothing. i have a raid array of lightbulbs thatll beat this amateur in any benchmark.

Wouldn't that be a "Beowulf Cluster of lightbulbs"? :p

Re:pffft

[fresh27]

stop making fun of me, i'm am amateur level geek right now. gotta beef up a little bit.

Re:pffft

[capricious23]

Actually when OLEDs die, they don't simply stop working. The voltage at which they turn on begins to shift higher over time. With the right active matrix circuitry, you can compensate for this and extend the lifetime of the device.

Re:pffft

[Anonymous Coward]

Exactly. They're like regular LEDs, they won't just stop working sometime around their rated lifespan, they'll just get dimmer. The pixel won't die, it'll just get dim, and usually they'll go dim roughly together if they get the same use.

Unfortunately, the phrase "if they get the same use" can cause problems. I.e. if you watch a lot of widescreen format movies on a letterbox monitor there will be bars on the top and bottom that never turn on and will wear out at a much slower rate. Then when you do go back to using your full screen those areas will be noticeably brighter than the center area.

Also, the blue OLEDs tend to wear out much faster than the other colors, to there will be signifigant color shift as the device wears out.

You can do driver tweaks to minimize both problems, basicly by reserving excess capacity on your OLEDs and then gradually cranking up the voltage to use it as they wear out. This will work for a while, but isn't perfect.

Re:pffft

[Crazy Eight]

That's a good point. A manufacturer could make a display twice as bright as the market desires and limit it to operating at half capacity.

Re:pffft

[FireFury03]

When you are talking about a 1600x1200 display, with 5,760,000 individiual subpixels

Since OLED displays are printed, we will hopefully be able to get *much* higher resolution displays. I long for the days when we'll be able to buy 300dpi displays so you nolonger have to worry about resolution, you'll just care about font sizes, etc. Of course if you have an 18"x32" 300dpi screen, you're talking about 155.5 million sub pixels, and that's a lot of video bandwidth. And at a super high resolution like 300dpi, dead pixels are less of an issue because individual pixels will be small enough not to notice.

3M

[Anonymous Coward]

The displays are made using a transfer technology developed by Samsung and 3M,...

Is it me or 3M is everywhere?

Someone care to explain about their R&D process?

Re:3M

[ackthpt]

Is it me or 3M is everywhere?

Someone care to explain about their R&D process?

Ya, dey yoos de finest viking immigrents of Meenesota, yoo know? 3M = Meenesota Mining & Manufacturing.

BTW, even notice ITT is into hotels and everything but doesn't seem too much involved in telecommunications anymore? It's called diversification.

Re:3M

[Anonymous Coward]

It's called: research departments are given 15% of their budget and time to spend AS THEY PLEASE. So the researchers play around with all kinds of stuff. The 3M mantra is also (something like) 60% of sales will be from products launched in the last 4 years... it leads to a lot of new ideas and a lot of product launches.

Also, 3M is involved because LCD screens are FLAT. And 3M executives love products that are flat. (I challenge you to name a major 3M product that isn't flat or sprays on as a (flat) coating)

Re:3M

[Anonymous Coward]

Videotapes.

Re:3M

[Anonymous Coward]

ERm. Dental fillings?

Re:3M

[Klanglor]

the magnetic "tape" inside is flat :p

Missing poins?

[Zinic]

I think that people are missing the relevance of new OLED advancements. Although maybe not suited to desktop and laptop environments OLED remains an extremely elegant solution to a whole slew of other devices. MP3...PDA...etc... Think of having a pen that could double as a PDA with a nice hi res, low power, display that doesn't strain the eyes.

Re:Missing poins?

[jnik]

I'm not sure how a 17" display would be relevant to MP3 or PDA devices. Nor, on the other end, how a display small enough to fit on a pen would be of much use.

The whole point of this announcement is BIG. BIG means CRT and LCD replacement. I can see more use for a 17" OLED in, say, one of the much-reviled net-enabled refrigerators or similar devices where a large screen and low duty cycle is required.

Re:Missing poins?

[bravehamster]

Think of having a pen that could double as a PDA with a nice hi res, low power, display that doesn't strain the eyes.

Then think of losing that PDA, because it's the size of a PEN.

Re:Missing poins?

[tunabomber]

Think of having a pen that could double as a PDA with a nice hi res, low power, display that doesn't strain the eyes.

I really hope you're talking about making flexible "roll up" screens using OLED technology (which could be done, theoretically). How would a display the size of a pen, no matter what the resolution, NOT strain your eyes?

Re:Missing poins?

[Zinic]

We're looking at a world becoming unplugged, so to speak. Wireless phones, PDAs and the such are incredibly popular. The use for small 3 to 6 inch screens are everywhere today and their display capabilities pale in comparison to OLED. Even in static environments like a small fridge display or security station in a large corporation's building.

The new laser printing that Samsung is using to design their OLED screens is something that can help capitalize the trend that the desk is no longer the ball and chain that is used to be. OLED isn't just about getting bigger but about getting more efficient and refined.

Re:Missing poins?

[DeltaSigma]

You're thinking of FOLEDs and SOLEDs.
Flexible Organic LEDs, and Stacked Organic LEDs.

FOLEDs use the nature of Organic LEDs to make a more versatile viewing surface. One that can be rolled and contorted as much as, say, a thin sheet of plastic. I do not, however, reccomend trying to bend it.

SOLEDs use the transparency of Organic LEDs to stack red green and blue on top of each other. This gives every single pixel the entire range of color, thereby tripling the resolution for any given display surface. When this hits the market a 15" SOLED display will be more desirable than a 21" LCD display.

Re:Missing poins?

[aggiefalcon01]

/. had a neat recent article about an MP3 player using OLED as a display or as a small mirror.

Pictures of both are included. That's a use I'd never thought of.

Re:Missing poins?

[Crazy Eight]

In what way could OLEDs be unsuited for desktop and laptop environments? Everything I've read about this technology qualifies it to replace every display technology we have today excepting movie screens. Even that last could go by the wayside eventually given the zeal for inkjet litho.

Re:Missing poins?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, since LED and CRT both depend on large pieces of glass, and OLED doesn't, there are large-screen possibilities out there that would make it simply awesome. Think of having a large home theater projection screen without the projector. And since you could have a flexible screen (FOLEDs) you could roll it up into the ceiling when you're done. Or with transparent OLEDs (TOLEDs) you could have a screen layered onto glass... an awesome Heads-Up Display for a car windshield or a motorcycle helmet. Right now, lifetime is bad, especially for the blue elements, which is bad for computer screens that are on a lot. But this is improving, and I think someday, we'll have a very inexpensive, light, thin alternative for almost any display application. Of course, a lot of that is theoretical, but the possibilities are out there, it's just a matter of time.

1600x1200 !! nice..

[robvangelder]

At 17" I find 1600 x 1200 acceptable.

I want to be a beta tester ;)

Re:1600x1200 !! nice..

[SoSueMe]

I want to be a beta tester ;)

Use any Microsoft product.

Couldn't resist.

Re:1600x1200 !! nice..

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could use Linux to be in a free beta test programme...

Re:1600x1200 !! nice..

[Anonymous Coward]

It'll cost ya $369. See Above somewhere.

Re:1600x1200 !! nice..

[SoSueMe]

That would be better than paying to beta test.

Competition

[manitoulinnerd]

I realize that existing LCD technology is expensive to produce but if im lucky the impending obsolescence of the LCD will drive prices down to where I can afford them. The OLED is amazing though. When you think of all of the possibilities, not just for displays. Think glowing wallpaper, hell it could even display images. Of course this is all dependent on an extreme price drop but the term "computer desk" could have quite a different meaning.

Re:Competition

[FireFury03]

Think glowing wallpaper, hell it could even display images.

Even more useful would be wallpaper running as a computer display and the computer being able to track you around your home. Want to keep an eye on the TV while doing stuff around the home? fine, the computer can display it on the wall and when you move around the home the TV picture can follow you.
Want to do some cooking? bring up a web browser pointing at a recipes site on your kitchen wall. ;)
Want to look at porn?.. ok, I'll stop now :)

Epson 40"

[mattlamb]

Epson wins again... here is the cutline from a photo on the wire service.

JAPAN EPSON TOPIX
A model displays a prototype of Epson's new OLED (organic light-emitting diode) display in Tokyo Tuesday, May 18, 2004. The maker claims it's the world's largest (40-inch) full-color organic display. Using the printer maker's inkjet technology, the self-luminescent OLED offers high contrast, wide viewing angle, and fast response. The company is thus gearing up towards commercialization in 2007. (AP Photo/Katsumi Kasahara)

Re:Epson 40"

[mattlamb]

Heres a link to the EEtimes who also have the story.

http://www.eetimes.com/sys/news/showArticle.jhtm l? articleID=20600073

Re:Epson 40"

[Anonymous Coward]

http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2004/0518/epson _1.jpg

Re:Epson 40"

[RedWizzard]

Epson wins again...

Seiko Epson's 40" is a prototype, with commercialization (ie production) expected in 2007. Seiko have not said what the actual production size or resolution will be. Samsung's 17" is also a prototype, but is much closer to production. Size, resolution, and other specifications are already determined and you will be able to buy it next year. the Seiko product is much more vapourous so I give this round to Samsung.

contrast is almost moot

[SuperBanana]

What I'd like to know is how good the contrast is?

Contrast isn't an issue, because unlike LCD panels which backlight the whole panel and rely on "hiding" the backlight for "black"(but plenty escapes anyway if the backlight is too bright). On an OLED panel, if a pixel is off, it generates absolutely no light. Theoretical contrast is then essentially infinite; zero:something is infinite. The only remaining issue is how bright "on" is, and that's been specified as 400 lumens.

What is even better is the resolution. The specified 1600x1200; in a 17" panel, that's quite nice, as previously it was 1280x1024 tops.

Re:contrast is almost moot

[avalys]

The specified 1600x1200; in a 17" panel, that's quite nice, as previously it was 1280x1024 tops.

That's funny, because there's a 1600x1200 15" panel perched on my lap right now.

Re:contrast is almost moot

[magefile]

1600x1200 15" panel perched on my lap right now.

Is it an OLED? Didn't think so. And if it is, WTF are you doing reading /.? Shouldn't you be off doing something only rich people do?

Re:contrast is almost moot

[mabinogi]

Yes, laptops have higher resolution screens than stand alone LCD monitors.

I don't know if anyone has ever properly explained why this is......

The implication with this press release though, is that we'll finally start seeing decent resolutions on the standalone ones too.

Re:contrast is almost moot

[NMerriam]

Yeah, and I've been trying to buy a dozen standalone 1600x1200 15" LCD monitors for almost two years now.

Maybe if I cryogenically sleep for a few more years, computer companies will realize some people want that resolution on a DESKTOP.

Re:contrast is almost moot

[Anonymous Coward]

A while back, a Samsung representative explained this in an interview (Anandtech, maybe). Essentially, it all came down to the fact that most consumers were happy with the provided resolutions and it was easier and cheaper to focus on reducing costs and and improving image quality and refresh rates. So that's why we're stuck with such crappy resolutions on desktop LCD monitors.

Re:contrast is almost moot

[njh]

The contrast can't be infinite unless the off LEDs reflect no light either. Otherwise the contrast of printed paper would be 0 (no light emitted for either black or white).

Re:contrast is almost moot

[Walt Dismal]

I'm almost never worried about contrast with prOn anyway. Er, I mean, I have other primary applications that achieve maximal adequacy under less than optimal display conditions.

Re:contrast is almost moot

[Anonymous Coward]

Would you settle for 17" LCDs that can display UXGA (1600x1200), at $369?
http://store.yahoo.com/saveateaglestore/del 1717in1 7f.html

Re:contrast is almost moot

[thedji]

WTF are you doing reading /.?

By the sounds of it, squinting.

Re:contrast is almost moot

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know if anyone has ever properly explained why this is......

Well, I don't know if this counts as a "proper explanation", but the quality on the 1600x1200 laptop LCDs is generally not (by far) as good as it is on a stationary LCD.

Re:contrast is almost moot

[stephenisu]

well, turn off the lights, and have the room painted flat black :)

Re:contrast is almost moot

[jovlinger]

hrm.

that says max res is 1280x1024, but max addressable is 1600x1200. I guess that means that the monitor will downsample 1600x1200 signals to the native res.

Re:contrast is almost moot

[godefroi]

I have a 1920x1200 15" in a bag next to me. Damn nice.

Not quite the largest...

[Samah]

Don't know if anyone noticed the "feedback" bit at the bottom, but there's a link to another review on the Seiko Epson 40" OLED display.

http://www.forbes.com/business/businesstech/newswi re/2004/05/18/rtr1374939.html

Re:Not quite the largest...

[Samah]

Doh!
You beat me to it while I was typing :)

Re:Not quite the largest...

[narsiman]

Seiko Epson press room How about some pictures. See this link for details.

no surprise

[moviepig.com]

[The organic units] problems with device lifetime, chemistry and production have limited their use...

Indeed, those are long-standing problems with us organic units, too.

(Well, production hasn't been such a problem, I guess...)

Re:no surprise

[Anonymous Coward]

(Well, production hasn't been such a problem, I guess...)

It is on Slashdot!

Re:no surprise

[DeionXxX]

I'd say production is a problem. It takes 9 months to produce one unit no matter how advanced technology gets or how many resources you throw at the problem.

Ladies and Gentlemen...

[Vthornheart]

we have a new winner! Perhaps this news post should be changed and/or appended to reflect this?

Finally a decent resolution...

[httpamphibio.us]

1600x1200 on a 17" is more like it.

I've always wondered why I could buy an entire laptop for less than what it would cost to buy a standalone LCD. For example, my laptop has a 1920x1200 15.4" widescreen display and I paid $950 for it. If you could find a standalone display with those specs (which you can't... or at least not the last time I checked) it would cost a couple grand.

Let's hope this is the beginning of high quality displays with high resolutions, and keep our fingers crossed about the price. :)

Re:Finally a decent resolution...

[Coneasfast]

1600x1200 on a 17" is more like it.

that's overkill, everything is too small, 1024 is a "good" resolution for 17", 1152 is okay too but i wouldn't use it

if you want 1600x1200, you are looking at at least a 21" monitor

Re:Finally a decent resolution...

[scottj]

1600x1200 has been looking VERY nice on my 15" Thinkpad that I purchased 2.5yrs ago. Perhaps that size is just too small for your vision, but for me, it's perfect. At 17", I think I would start seeing pixels again (something which I'd rather not happen).

Re:Finally a decent resolution...

[Slack3r78]

Good god man, you must consider a 15" 640x480 to be "good"? 1280x1024 is *lowest* I can stand using on a 17" monitor, and really prefer having 1600x1200. Some of us really need the screen real estate and have eyes that are good enough that it's not a problem. Just because you need a low res to be able to see doesn't mean it'll work for everyone. :)

Re:Finally a decent resolution...

[Onan]

If things get smaller when your display's dpi increases, that's a failing of your software. Resolution and physical size of displayed objects should vary completely independently.

Re:Finally a decent resolution...

[tepples]

If things get smaller when your display's dpi increases, that's a failing of your software.

Not everybody can control what "your software" he or she runs for work. Employers dictate the choice of software, and in this economy, HR departments along with family members that need to be cared for dictate the choice of employer.

Re:Finally a decent resolution...

[orulz]

And how can anyone stand 1280x1024 at all? Whoever invented this resolution should be made a pariah to modern society. In a world of 4;3 resolutions, it stands alone as the only one that's 5:4, which just makes my teeth burn every time I think about it.

In the case of an LCD, the pixels are still 1:1, but if you want to run something, i.e. a game or a movie that wants to run at 4:3 either you get distortion (unacceptable) or black bars (in which case, why did you get a 17 inch monitor when you're not using all 17 of those inches?).

And in the case of a CRT monitor, at 1280x1024 you get nonsquare pixels. It irks me a lot more than it probably should when I see a 32x32 icon displayed wider than it is tall. It's the same sort of feeling as when I'm using someone else's computer with an improperly adjusted CRT monitor, or perhaps a computer with a 1024x768 LCD monitor set to run scaled at 800x600.

But back to my point, All you people with CRTs at 1280x1024, use a real resolution... 1280x960, 1440x1080, 1600x1200, 4:3 for all!!

LCD vs CRT

[astellar]

Is 17" LCD equals 19" CRT ?

Re:LCD vs CRT

[Anonymous Coward]

Is 17" LCD equals 19" CRT ?

Now, I agree that conversions using imperial measurements can be confusing; however, I believe 17" equals 17", not 19" :)

Re:LCD vs CRT

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes but a 17" LCD is like a 19" CRT..because you have a full 17" screen and the screen goes right to the edge.. 15" lcd is like 17" crt.. etc

Re:LCD vs CRT

[getnate]

You have to measure the glass, my 19" CRT 18" viewable. My 17" LCD at work is 17" viewable. That means my 19" CRT > 17" LCD.

Re:LCD vs CRT

[Anonymous Coward]

yes but your screen doesnt fill that 18inch viewable glass.. and the default resolution for a 19" crt is the same default for a 17" lcd

just like most people would run 640x480 on a 15" crt.. you run 800x600 on a 15" LCD.. because 800x600 is the physical resolution of a 15" lcd

Re:LCD vs CRT

[Anonymous Coward]

Not the other poster, but the difference between viewable glass and lit-up pixels is not that much. I measured my CRT which says 19 inches on the box it was shipped in. 18.75 inches of the glass are lit up by pixels. I don't know where you are getting this two inch difference between LCD and CRT screens idea, but I think it's hogwash.

Re:LCD vs CRT

[dbIII]

Is 17" LCD equals 19" CRT ?

LCD's are a newer technology, made exclusively in countries with the metric system so are based on an inch of 25.4mm, while the CRT is based on the older inch which is shrinking over time and is being exploited by the penis enlargement pill scams (the inch being a derived unit of the rod and all). I'm sitting in front of a 17 inch CRT from 1992 (it works well and a have a lot of desk space) which is almost as big as the 19 inch screens about the place and has a viewing area the same size as the 17 inch LCDs.

To sum up, and be perfectly serious, the marketing people shifted the definition of a 17 inch CRT once big monitors started to be a commodity, so the 17 and 19 inch screens have been getting smaller.

Luminant Green

[Digitus1337]

Active matrix organic light emitting diode displays... ARE MADE OF PEOPLE!

Re:Luminant Green

[kaos.geo]

You reminded me of the Phil Hartman Skit at SNL.... If I had half a mod point y would give it to you... FUNNY! p.s.:I guess I should be content enough as this was my first accepted submission to slahdot, heyyy! :)

Re:Luminant Green

[m1chael]

It's better than buring them in the ground. They should have an OLED donor stamp on your drivers' license. And no, I don't know if that comma was correctly placed.

Different targets?

[SuperKendall]

While the Epson is physically larger, the resolution (around 1280x1024 I think) is not as high as the Samsung (1600x1200), and Epson says they want to make a TV of it.

The largeness of the Epson is impressive, but I'd say the resolution of the Samsung is equally so...

Not being familar with OLED stuff, I'm not sure if they would both support similar refresh rates or not (or if that matters in the same way).

Re:Different targets?

[Anonymous Coward]

1280x768, according to their website; at least for the prototype. I should hope they'll have something higher by the time it goes out to production; 38ppi? Ouch.

Lower res though

[SuperKendall]

Pixels the size of your fist at that size!!

Well, not quite, but it's not 1600x1200. And it's meant to be a TV.

Solution to "lifetime" problem

[blair1q]

Now that these things can be printed, make the screen area itself modular, and sell the modules for cheap, way less than $100. Sell the rest of the monitor (body, power supply, connectors, DVI electronics, etc) for a normal monitor price.

Then, every 2-3 years, when most people upgrade anyway, they can pop out the now-funky-colored screen module, pop in a replacement, and get back to fragging little OLED-sharpened nazis.

Re:Solution to "lifetime" problem

[Palidine]

even better, DON'T do this and then every 2-3 years people will have to spend another $2000-3000 on an entire new monitor...

1) build a monitor that decays in 2 years
2) wait 2 years
3) PROFIT!
4) goto 1

-me

Re:Solution to "lifetime" problem

[blair1q]

You think I'm kidding?

Why do you think Hewlett Packard now spends most of its time and effort and legal budget beating up people who sell replacement ink?

Organic PORN!

[niko9]

Oh wait, most of the geeks here already have organic material sprayd on their monitors. Never mind, false alarm!

which laptop is this?

[Anonymous Coward]

with that spec display, for 950?

Re:which laptop is this?

[httpamphibio.us]

HP Pavilion zt3000. 1.4ghz Pentium-M, 30gb, 384MB, CD-RW. I bought it just before Christmas when they were having some pretty hefty rebate and coupon deals. I think there was a $150 mail-in rebate, $50 instant online rebate, and I had a 10% off coupon, plus 3% of from fatwallet.com, and free two day shipping (from Shanghai!)

Wish I had mod points

[JerryKnight]

I'd give both the above comments +1 Informative. Oh well, I'm sure it'll be picked up soon.

Thanks

nice document on OLED displays

[Doppler00]

Doing a quick search on google I found this

Shows a lot of useful information regarding OLED screens.

Best personal solution.

[niko9]

Got tired of waiting for the perfect monitor, if there will ever be such a thing, and resorted to having a CRT and and LCD on the desk. The CRT is my gaming monitor, the LCD for everything else.

DONT MOD PARENT INSGHTFUL, MAYBE FUNNY

[orasio]

LCD monitors emit polarized light, if you use polarized glasses, it will be black, not dark, at least most of the times.

Re:DONT MOD PARENT INSGHTFUL, MAYBE FUNNY

[Anonymous Coward]

it will be black, not dark

Something is very wrong with that assertion... black is not dark??

Re:DONT MOD PARENT INSGHTFUL, MAYBE FUNNY

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you have not worn polarized glasses while using an LCD.

Yes, it was a joke and funny was the moderation I was attempting to solicit but that doesn't mean it isn't feasible either. But, the LCD will only appear completely black if the polarization of the sunglasses is exactly 90 degrees out of phase with the polarization of the LCD. Any other phase alignment will produce a varying degree of transmissivity. The closer to 0 or 180, the more transmissive. It is pretty hard to keep everything lined up exactly at 90 degrees because the LCD is much larger than your eye, so while one part of the screen may be exactly 90 degrees out of phase, another part may only be 88 or 89 degrees. The further your distance from the display, the easier it will be to do 90 degrees for the entire surface.

Epson OLED 40" TV Picture

[biginjapan]

You can see a picture of the Epson product on their website.

Re:Epson OLED 40" TV Picture

[kfaroo]

Dood, What is up with that model in the picture? I don't want to be mean, but did she not get enough sleep or something? Or maybe she's been staring at that monitor for too long.

Re:Epson OLED 40" TV Picture

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at the specs: 1280x768 and 6-bits (64 brightness levels) per color. That sucks!

Eat what Samsung?

[Traa]

The Samsung OLED is a working prototype of a 17" computer display running at 1600x1200. Product launch will be next year.

The Seiko Epson is only an anouncment about a 40" TV display that will be productized for 2007 (marketing speak for..."our engineers just laughed at us so we made up some numbers").

But this stuff is already organic

[dabisa]

Why would they even try to make a monitor out of that fake fat stuff. It was bad enoug that they put in the potato chips. If this thing over heats it will just be a big puddle on you desk.

Re:But this stuff is already organic

[Retired Replicant]

Not to mention that watching one of these displays "May Cause Anal Leakage." :-)

Who needs a monitor?

[NIK282000]

Direct brain interfaces are beign developed, Once they are made functional enough all you're gonna need is a Wi-Fi in your head and a tower.

Re:Who needs a monitor?

[chaos421]

people can hack your home wi-fi network... and i don't want anyone hacking my brain.

Why not use a printing press?

[Ungrounded Lightning]

So Samsung is using a laser to print them one-by-one, and Seiko Epson is using ink jet printers ditto.

An OLED screen is just a sheet of substrate with various inks on it.

Why don't they just use a rotary printing press?

Think "newspaper".

Print screens as much as, say, 40 feet tall, by as long as you like, with the connectors for the modular electronics occurring periodically.

At, say, 50 MPH. Until that enormous roll of substrate is exhausted - then thread in another.

On their way out of the press just slit them into strips (i.e. five 8-foot strips for wallpaper), chop them into convenient lengths, and stack them up into bales.

Print the LEDs right up to the cut lines so you can tile a large surface if you want. Or leave a margin for making connections to a one-sided screen print job. (You might even be able to fold the edge over to get the connector onto the back and thus get even one-sided screens to butt together for tiling.)

(Of course you'd have to use different masters for some screen sizes, so the cut lines would occur at convenient places.)

Drop a sheet into a "monitor" picture-frame, with the electronics connecting via contact fingers. Or mount driver chips on the back (to the printed power and signal wiring) if you want to paste 'em up on a wall - and apply power and signal under the baseboard.

You should be able to manufacture replacable sheets for a monitor for a couple bucks. The drive electronics is nothing special. Maybe $25 manufacturing cost for a wall-mount high-res HDTV monitor.

Sell it for a hundred or two, and replacement screens for twenty, and I'd buy several (and a stack of spare screens) even if I'd have to replace the screen a couple times a year. B-)

Re:Why not use a printing press?

[Ateryx]

Why don't they just use a rotary printing press?

Unfortunately I believe its a touch more complicated. PC Mag notes because of the sensitivity of the materials in the process "this calls for a more complex fabrication process. Also, any exposure to air or moisture destroys OLEDs, so the materials must be perfectly sealed."

Applied Films I think explains the problem best:

The deposition of the organic layers itself is critical too, because of the sensitivity of the material (e.g., high temperature, incorporation of dust and dirt). The high price of the coating material also makes high material utilization a priority.

Not that it matters but IAMICE (majoring in chemical engineering)

Re:Why not use a printing press?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, what stops them being printed in a vacuum? I'm sure any high temperatures in a press can be avoided by running slower, using friction-reduced materials etc. What are the other problems?

Re:Why not use a printing press?

[chrwei]

being the IT guy for a shop that makes tooling for printing presses, I can attest that the biggest problems will indeed be dirt. In order to hold the kinds of tolerences needed there has to be pressure on the gears between the support roll and the print cylinder to keep them aligned. pressure generates heat, which can be counteracted with "cold guns", and most importantly wear. liberal amounts of grease are usualy used reduce wear, and grease is messy. Servo drives can probably be used instead, but now cost goes up. Belt drives are another option, but belts stretch and blow your tolerances.

But tolerance capabilities alone, rotory is more than capable. With 1600 pixels at 17" wide (aproximate from a 19" CRT) is .01 inches per pixel. We target .005 for our manufacturing and tolerate .015 for most orders but our higher end machines are easily capable of .00005 with expensive enough cutting bits. The no-so-expensive bits we use can actully grow by up to .0002 from heat and rotational distortion from spinning 10,000 rpm, measured with lasers of course :)

Who has the best model?

[Anonymous Coward]

Samsung 17' OLED 1600x1200
or
Seiko Epson 40' OLED res? (must be a TV)

Power Consumption?

[LionMage]

The Samsung press release states:

It will consume no more power than a 15" display and be a third of the thickness of existing LCD models, the company said.

But what kind of a 15" display are they comparing against? A 15" LCD display? Hopefully they're not comparing against a 15" CRT display!

Ideally, OLED displays should be significantly less power-hungry than LCD displays by virtue of not requiring a backlight.

Personally, I'm looking forward to bypassing the LCD and plasma "revolution," and going straight from CRT to OLED technology for the displays in my home. Considering the heat put out by plasma televisions, and the fact that I live in the middle of Phoenix, Arizona, my air conditioning system will thank me for the transition. And it'll be nice to have a display with a small desktop footprint for my G5 which is also adequate for gaming (and if the color gamut is good, it'll be adequate for Photoshop work too).

Re:Power Consumption?

[Anonymous Coward]

It will consume no more power than a 15" display and be a third of the thickness of existing LCD models, the company said.

But what kind of a 15" display are they comparing against? A 15" LCD display? Hopefully they're not comparing against a 15" CRT display!

what part of "existing LCD models" didn't you understand ?

Re:Power Consumption?

[oshy]

This is where it is possible to trick someone into thinking a particular claim is made but hasnt been.
They compare the thickness to that of a LCD, but dont implicitly say that they are compairing the power consumption to that of an LCD. The 'and' seperates it into two statments about the new display.

Re:Power Consumption?

[LionMage]

what part of "existing LCD models" didn't you understand ?

This is why reading comprehension is such an important skill, and why you apparently need to brush up on yours.

To make sure we're all on the same page, let me re-quote the sentence in question from the Samsung press release:

It will consume no more power than a 15" display and be a third of the thickness of existing LCD models, the company said.

The "and" links two separate thoughts in the aforementioned sentence. It is not explicitly stated what kind of 15" display is being talked about. You could claim that they are implying a 15" LCD display, but that's an unwarranted assumption, from a strict grammatical viewpoint. (And just to be clear, the "they" in the previous sentence refers to Samsung's PR/marketing people who put this press release together.)

The reason I brought attention to this is that such weasel tactics have been used in product marketing in the past to hide facts about the product being marketed. Maybe the prototype 17" OLED display had worse power dissipation than a comparable LCD display, so the marketroids compared it to a 15" CRT display. While I doubt this is actually the case, I want people to start reading these press releases with a more critical eye. You might not appreciate the fine hair splitting, but a lawyer sure does.

Man, you're really showing your age...

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, even notice ITT is into hotels and everything but doesn't seem too much involved in telecommunications anymore?

"Anymore?" What, are you, 70 years old?

ITT hasn't been involved in telecommunications since the 1940s! In the 1950s and 1960s the company was the canonical example of a conglomerate, owning food companies, hotel chains (notably Sheraton), DoD contractors, you name it. They merged in 1997 and are now mostly a hotel contractor.

17 inches should be enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

...for anyone...
Samsung CEO

Re:17 inches should be enough...

[Anonymous Coward]

Me to my girlfriend: "6 inches should be enough for anyone..."

Actually...

[Junta]

I have a 15" laptop at 1600x1200, and it is great. The key is that X is configured to know the DPI and the fonts are rendered with much more definition (crisper lines, smoother curves).

3D games are another area where high resolution can lead to a smoother experience, so long as the game has little raster-font content.

Combine this with a more and more vector based interface, and you get a lot more flexibility. High resolution small displays no longer have to mean unreadable, they can mean much higher quality text and graphics.

Additionally, I can work with large numbers of windows or large spreadsheets and such by scaling fonts back down and still be able to work with it, albeit it less comfortably. It just feels right.

I also have a 21.4" flatpanel on my desk at 1600x1200, and for the most part the fonts are no larger, just more content can fit because of the DPI awareness (though non-vector images are much more bearable on that screen, but I actually see fewer and fewer things that matter in that format that have so much detail that it matters).

Display with no edge trim?

[j1m 5n0w]

I'd be interested in panel displays with no trim on the side so they could be placed adjacent to each other for a larger screen. Does anyone know if that's possible with current technology, or if anyone makes that now? (Okay, okay, what I really want is something I can roll up like a poster, but I don't expect that to happen any time soon.)

-jim

Re:Sorry to nitpick...

[gosh_d]

Conventional LED's used as a screen (think Times Square) do not comprise an OLED monitor. The "O" is for "organic," whereby organic inks are made to produce their own light. An LED uses a completely different phenomenon.

laptop market yes, desktop market no

[SuperBanana]

That's funny, because there's a 1600x1200 15" panel perched on my lap right now.

And there's a 1440x960 17" on mine. Aside from the laptop market, it is extremely difficult to find anything other than the following size/resolution combos:

• 15 inch 1024x768
• 17 inch 1280x1024
• 19 inch 1600x1200

LCD panels have been out for years but this has remained a near constant, while the laptop industry has seen pixel densities skyrocket, with zero crossover to the desktop market.

Re:laptop market yes, desktop market no

[Anonymous Coward]

• 19 inch 1600x1200

No: the 19 inch desktop LCDs are pretty much all 1280x1024, so the only gain over the 17 inch monitors is size, not resolution.

Re:laptop market yes, desktop market no

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I wish I knew what the problem was with the desktop LCD market. One can get a 14" laptop with a 1400x1050 display, but even then, that resolution is a bit hard to find. And the entire laptop that has this is as think as a 15" display panel. I'd love to have a desktop panel of any diagonal that was less than 1/4" thick and had less than 1/4" of a border on the edge. This CAN be done with an LCD panel, it almost never is for desktops.

I guess this is kind of moot for me as I am giving up on "desktop" type machines. My primary computer will be a laptop because it allows me to work in an untethered manner, even disconnected from power for four hours given the proper laptop. My current desktop will become a server in this arrancement. I don't play games much but I will start demanding that the games I buy will work on the laptop. I've never wanted to go to a LAN party because I never wanted to drag around a 50lb computer, but even a Shuttle is a drag, IMO.

Re:laptop market yes, desktop market no

[Rob Simpson]

AC is correct... it is the 20" and above desktop LCDs that are 1600x1200. Personally, I don't mind having a 19" 1280x1024... while it's possible in theory to change font sizes and stuff, this doesn't seem to work for all programs. I like the fact that the pixels on my screen are big enough to read.

Re:laptop market yes, desktop market no

[Alain Williams]

I realised this when I was looking for a 17" LCD for my dad. What I wanted was 1024x786, he doesn't need more pixels but bigger ones - his eyesight isn't that good any more.

The ability to change scan rate is the advantage of glass monitors; shame that they are so big, heavy & hot.

Re:laptop market yes, desktop market no

[thogard]

This stupdity is a result of a limited number of chips that decode a normal analog VGA signal and recreate a digital one. The laptops don't do that so they just use a pure digital signal all the way to the LCD pannel. Your desktop LCD has all sorts of nastyness in it so you can plug it into a 640x480 VGA connector and still have it work.

Re:laptop market yes, desktop market no

[Eccles]

Have you looked at the Syntax Olevias at tigerdirect.com? 27" and 30" LCDs under $2K. (May bust your budget, of course, but for failing vision, I can think of nothing better.)

Re:laptop market yes, desktop market no

[ivan256]

Doesn't that mean he needs bigger fonts and widgets, and not nescicarily bigger pixels? If you have to get 1600x1200 instead of 1024x768, just scale everything up 50%.

Re:laptop market yes, desktop market no

[smithmc]

And there's a 1440x960 17" on mine. Aside from the laptop market, it is extremely difficult to find anything other than the following size/resolution combos:

Actually, even in the laptop market, it's seemingly impossible to find 15" 1600x1200 panels anymore. The closest I've been able to find are 14" or 15" 1400x1050 displays. Which is a shame, 'cause I loooove the 15" 16x12 displays on my home and work laptops, to the point that I'm reluctant to upgrade. (I don't want one of those WUXGA panels - makes the machine just too damn big.)

Re:laptop market yes, desktop market no

[drinkypoo]

There are DVI-only flat panels. Why then do they tend to share these same cardinal native resolutions? (Answer: because the same models come in a VGA flavor.)

Re:laptop market yes, desktop market no

[WuphonsReach]

And there's a 1440x960 17" on mine. Aside from the laptop market, it is extremely difficult to find anything other than the following size/resolution combos:

Amen to that, I'd love a 17" LCD that did 1600x1200... I have a 1400x1050 15" on my laptop and the higher DPI is especially sweet when you switch to large fonts and ClearType. It results in a very crisp, easy to read display. The approximate DPI is around 124 or so (0.20mm dot pitch), compared to a measly 100dpi for a desktop LCD monitor (0.254mm dot pitch).

I'm especially jealous of those with the 1600x1200 15" displays, which I believe is around 142 DPI (0.175mm dot pitch?). That's approaching the 200dpi of the much-hyped IBM LCD display from a few years back (0.127mm dot pitch).

By comparison, a *good* CRT monitor has a dot pitch of around 0.22mm to 0.24mm.

Re:laptop market yes, desktop market no

[WuphonsReach]

I realised this when I was looking for a 17" LCD for my dad. What I wanted was 1024x786, he doesn't need more pixels but bigger ones - his eyesight isn't that good any more.

On the 1400x1050 15" laptop display, I find that the regular font size is just too small for me to comfortably read anymore. Of course, I'm overdue for another trip to the eye-doc, so...

However, bumping up to Large Fonts / ClearType really improved the readability of the monitor at a normal distance. Then he can have a hobby of berating programmers and website designers who use fixed font sizes or controls that don't account for large fonts.

Re:laptop market yes, desktop market no

[thogard]

More like they are DVI-only connectors and just use the VGA pins and not the pure digital ones.

It's the pixel alignment you have to watch out for

[lingqi]

Since I saw the announcement on TV last night, being in japan and all, i figure i can add some comments from the footage of the actual thing.

the 40" screen is damn thin. i mean, it must have been maybe 2cm. it was amazingly sexy in that regard.

however, upon closer inspection of the screen (the camera-crew took the pains to zoom in onto the screen), there are alignment issues between pixel blocks of the screen and there are dead pixels. What i am guessing is that to get the 40" they created blocks of pixels at a time, and at the edges there are visible chasms maybe 30% pixel width.

I am not sure about the dead pixel.

anyway it's impressive but the immaturity of the technology really shows.

Re:Sorry to nitpick...

[rco3]

Yeah.

*OLED. The 'O' is for "Organic". The LED screen you're babbling about isn't OLED, it's just LED. The difference is kinda crucial.

Perhaps the reason you didn't get a scholarship is the fact that you tend to spout off about things you don't understand?

if 17' isnt enough

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.epson.co.jp/osirase/2004/040518.htm

1280xRGBx768dots (W-XGA) 40'

Re:if 17' isnt enough

[Anonymous Coward]

wow, 40 feet! impressive!

Dead pixels

[Anonymous Coward]

I think OLED will bring a new meaning to "dead pixels"

Re:Dead pixels

[m1chael]

Not really, but I highly doubt there will be stuck whities. Anyone know if OLEDs can produce stuck whities or stuck colours or just black stuckies?

Thought this discussion was about OLED

[ya8282]

But now that you mention the price of LCD screens, the quality of your laptop screen is not nearly as good as a 17" wide-aspect ratio Samsung LCD monitor for $600 with a 700:1 contrast ratio, 0.264 dot pitch, and 178 degree viewing angle. I wouldn't use the laptop for even viewing/editing digital photos, but $900 is admittedly a decent price for a laptop with those specs.

Re:Sorry to nitpick...

[Jeremy Erwin]

It cost over $6 million that SHOULD have gone to scholarships.
Coach said he had enough scholarships for the third string squad.

Using OLED display now

[ctrif]

I'm using an OLED display now on my Kodak LS633 camera

The display is amazing. The camera turns heads as people ask about the large bright screen and the vibrant colours. I can hold it at virtually any angle or up high over a crowd and still see what I'm shooting.

I don't understand why Kodak doesn't release more cameras with the same display. I think the LS633 was only available in Australia?

Can't wait for TV size screens :)

Re:Using OLED display now

[bruthasj]

Can't wait for TV size screens

I sure's would hate to carry that camera around!

yes, you can game with it.

[Anonymous Coward]

Response time for a typical OLED pixel is... get this... 10 microseconds. That's right; microseconds. Compare that to 12 milliseconds for my (very expensive) TFT monitor.... yeah, you can play games with it ^_^

Re:It's the pixel alignment you have to watch out

[Anonymous Coward]

It's great that these new technologies are bringing working examples out for all to see and test.
After all, without a good monitor, one's pc suffers.
These new monitors (screens) will give us (hopefully) a new dimension to what we look at, and work with. Thanks to all who work so tirelessly on these items.

black < dark

[Anonymous Coward]

nothing wrong with it: 'black' is an absolute absence of brightness; 'dark' is a subjectivity -- a severe lack of brightness, I guess.

Price of Linux distributions

[tepples]

In fact, Linux distributions do have a price: the price of the hardware you'd have to buy to replace the scanners, printers, modems, video cards, etc. whose manufacturers publish Windows binary drivers but refuse to publish specifications to let members of the free software community make their own drivers.

Re:Price of Linux distributions

[1u3hr]

In fact, Linux distributions do have a price: the price of the hardware you'd have to buy to replace the scanners, printers, modems, video cards, etc. whose manufacturers publish Windows binary drivers but refuse to publish specifications to let members of the free software community make their own drivers.

On the other hand, I'm happy with a nice 17" CRT monitor for 1/10th the new price, an HP4M laser for $50 (new $1800), and other hardware that's a few months or a year old, all with no Linux issues, all dirt cheap because it's not bleeding edge.

Adoption rate

[tepples]

It takes 9 months to produce one unit

This can be solved with pipelining production and "adopting" a transfer scheme, but it seems that too many builders seem to want to keep the units they produce.

So use your laptop as a dedicated X11 server

[tepples]

my laptop has a 1920x1200 15.4" widescreen display and I paid $950 for it. If you could find a standalone display with those specs (which you can't... or at least not the last time I checked) it would cost a couple grand.

What's the letter after W?

Actually, no...

[Svartalf]

The lifetime is actually on a par with most of the average CCFL tube backlights (10-15k hours with some of the premium ones going for up to 30k hours...).

So... If you run your LCD monitor without blanking, etc., you can expect the thing to start fading somewhere after about 10 or so months and dead sometime in the first quarter of the next year- just like OLEDs.

Re:Actually, no...

[Crazy Eight]

The difference is that you can replace a dead backlight.

Re:Actually, no...

[drinkypoo]

Usually, you can't replace a dead backlight. Typically speaking the panel is put together such that it is not servicable. About the only thing you can reliably replace (assuming it's not integrated into something else) is the backlight inverter. I have done this a number of times. Some backlights can be replaced but in general they are integrated into the module and there are soldered (or maybe epoxied?) flexible circuits wrapping around the panel.

Re:It's the pixel alignment you have to watch out

[Anonymous Coward]

however, upon closer inspection of the screen (the camera-crew took the pains to zoom in onto the screen), there are alignment issues between pixel blocks of the screen and there are dead pixels.

This is the problem with viewing new tech with old tech. How do you know the problems are with their set, and not your TV? It's like those people who try to display the clarity and resolution of HDTV through regular cable ("image so clear, I can see Simon Cowell's nose hairs!").

Dead pixels / wearable applications / rant

[drenehtsral]

Dead pixels are a concern, but you know what? TFT LCD panels suffer from dead pixels too. As do most digital cameras, even nice ones. When it's an input device like a camera the DSP can detect that there is a dead pixel and interpolate but on an output device you're stuck with it (but I find my eyes eventually learn to ignore the dead pixel). That being said, I'm really looking forward to this technology being commonplace. Wearable computing could benefit, because right now the only low-power high-contrast (daylight readable) off-the-shelf display I've seen is a klunky monochrome AMEL (active matrix electroluminescent) solution, and from the data sheets it doesn't look worth its price. Of course there are the perpetually one-year-from-market laser retinal displays, but untill I can buy one retail, with a credit card (no NDA's, no qualified beta tester screening, no OEM only crap) it might as well not exist in terms of the computer-geek-in-the-basement market.

Color lifetimes not as big a problem...

[Svartalf]

...as you'd think.

As others have pointed out, it's BLUE that fades fastest. But, what everyone has missed in this discussion is that CCFL backlight lifespan, the lifetime for the backlighting used by LCD monitors isn't much better than the blue OLED material. Average lifespan for a CCFL tube is something on the order of 10-15k hours (uh, the average lifespan for the blue OLED material is 10k hours...) and the premium tubes tend to have about 30k hours of lifespan- and you're not likely to see the premium tubes in most applications.

To put this all in perspective:

(OLEDs)
24 hours in a day.
10k hours of average usable continuous runtime.
416 days of average usable continuous runtime.
1.14 years of average usable continuous runtime.

(CCFL backlit LCDs)
24 hours in a day.
10-15k hours of average usable continuous runtime.
416-625 days of average usable continuous runtime.
1.14-1.71 years of average usable continuous runtime.

The low-end is more likely than the high-end on LCDs based on my personal experience. Without cut-off, etc. your LCD panel will be effectively dying or dead within about 12-14 months, just like an OLED display panel. If the cost of an OLED display is dirt cheap, which one do you think will win out.

Epson isn't lightyears ahead

[Guspaz]

40" is great and all, but while Epson plans to have their OLED out in 2007 (according to the linked article), Samsung is claiming we'll see their OLED next YEAR. 2005. Two years ahead of Epson.

Now, if Samsung can have a 17" OLED on the market by 2005, I'm sure by 2007 they'll have refined the technology enough to make a 40" OLED, and a better one than epson at that. Samson has the head start here, not Epson. Epson is just trying to steal some of Samsung's thunder by announcing a far-off technology to compete with Samsung's not-so-far-off technology.

almost

[wotevah]

I have a dual-display setup with a 17" Dell LCD and a 19" Sony Trinitron CRT. The desktop spans the two displays nicely aligned at both top and bottom, so as far as I can tell the visible areas are about the same height. The CRT is a bit wider though. Looks like the CRT has a 4/3 form factor like a regular TV, while the LCD has 5/4 like nothing else.

True Multisync?

[Anonymous Coward]

Everyone here seems to be talking as though the more pixels, the better. As a graphic artist, I find the pixel densities in current LCDs to be too high, because objects appear much smaller than their printed size will be. (Although their relative sizes are accurate, for many purposes -- such as judging the suitability of typographic treatments, or, for that matter, reading type for people with tired or older eyes -- absolute size does matter.)

Unfortunately, LCDs aren't true multisyncs -- you can change the resolution, sort of, but if it isn't set to the true "native resolution" (or an even divisor of it) then the image tends to look awful. CRTs don't have this problem -- they have no "native resolution." (They also are far more color-accurate and have a wider color gamut than even the best LCDs, which is why graphic artists often still prefer CRTs.)

I'm guessing that OLEDs will be the same in this respect as LCDs -- with a "native resolution." Anyone know if that's the case?

Re:True Multisync?

[takev]

with X11 the display tells the application/library at how much dpi it is running. This way applications like photoshop can display the content at absolute size.

To bad most systems mswindows and even mac os x don't let you specify the actual size of your screen. On my linux system content is showed in absolute size for years on my 1600x1200 15" display. And it is really exact, using a pdf viewer to show an A4 at 100% is only off 1mm.

I would expect apple to change this in the future, as how they right now implemented the graphics in OpenGL, the dpi could change per window.

Resizing a window could have a whole new meaning, like it does in expose, where the windows keep the same width and height in pixels, but the dpi changes.

So the road is paved for apple to go to truly high resolution display, we may finally see 300 dpi displays in our lifetimes.

Think that's final...

[SuperKendall]

Since that is an HDTV resoltuon, I'll bet that's final - since the only aim is a TV. I would have thought Epson would be a little more forward thinking though - the Epson TV I saw at PMA had a built in reader/printer, and for viewing photos (especially with newer hi-res cameras) that extra resolution really helps!

Pictures!

[Gekke Eekhoorn]

Well, they're not pictures of the Samsung display, but:

Philips has a nice informative press release of their display, together with pictures and even video (slashdot mumbles the url, go check it out on the press release).

Philips made a 13" PolyLED TV prototype that they hope to expand to 30" eventually. They use a 4-head, 256-nozzle inkjet printer to "print" the display.

Cool :)

Re:It's the pixel alignment you have to watch out

[SoLoatWork]

How do we know you don't work for Samsung :)

Check out the Sony DSC-T1 screen

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not OLED, it is LCD but the display is actually better than the Kodak display (yes, I've seen both). It has a viewing angle of 170 degrees L/R and U/D. It's astounding.

And it is signficantly larger than the Kodak display. Before I saw this screen, I was sure OLED was going to put LCD out to pasture, but now I'm not so sure.

I can't wait for big OLEDs, but now I think they'll have plenty of competition from big LCDs too. Note that Sharp just announced a 45" LCD flat-panel TV with true 1920x1080 resolution. It's gonna be expensive though.

400 Lumens is a HUGE amount in this case.

[Cowclops]

400 lumens is more than "not half bad at all." 400 lumens over a 17" screen (a 17" 4:3 screen is about 1 square foot in area) gives 400 footlamberts.

That is a HUGE amount of light, which tells me that either A) somebody screwed up their math or B) OLED is going to be amazing.

Lumens are a measure of luminous flux, meaning it needs an area to have a relevant value. Its good for quoting projector brightnesses because the output in lumens is the same no matter what screen you're projecting on, and you can calculate it rather easily. However, it is footlamberts that is the relevant measure of reflected light, which is measured based on the lumens / screen area.

Movie theaters are 16 foot lamberts. Properly calibrated CRT directview displays should be about 50, though you can just as easily jack up the "contrast" control on the TV (which doesn't actually control contrast) and make it as high as 150 foot lamberts, at the expense of longevity and overall picture quality.

400 foot lamberts, if my estimation is correct, is probably around the brightness of a shiny silver car on a sunny day. In other words, BRIGHT.

And by the way, since you should be able to completely shut off the LEDs, you're looking at extremely high contrast ratios. The other thing is, with transparent OLEDs, you can stack the pixels so instead of having a triad of pixels for red, green, and blue, each pixel can actually be tuned to the correct color, which will make for very realistic images.

what's with that...

[mantera]

it's interesting that more and more japanese companies are merging; seiko epson, konica minolta... etc. I wonder what this says about the state of japanese and global economy.

Re:It's the pixel alignment you have to watch out

[gnu-generation-one]

"I am not sure about the dead pixel."

Maybe they turned a few pixels off so that people will pay more for screens with no dead pixels?

Re:It's the pixel alignment you have to watch out

[takasuz]

The thickness of the OLED panel is 2.1mm, and it does not need a backlight.

Where do you get 40"????

[Anonymous Coward]

I thought the article was about the largest OLED screen ever... at 17"? Besides, Active Matrix OLED is not a mature technology. Aside from one Kodak digital camera model (which has never been released in the US) there is not a single commericially available device out there that uses OLEDs. Of course it's an immature technology. But they say that it's one of the most rapidly maturing technologies out there.

In Jan 2003, I saw Sanyo's 15" prototype, and it sure had a pretty picture. Super thin and brilliant color. But everything that's out there now is a prototype. Especially considering that the 17" in the article is made using a new process, it's expected to have some quality issues. Because they're organic they have an inherently short lifespan, and different colored pixel elements have different lifespans. But once it is ready for large scale production, OLED will be one of the coolest things to come to electronics.

Refresh Rate

[Anonymous Coward]

The way I understood it, since OLEDs are organic (carbon-based) they don't switch anywhere near as fast as a silicon based LED would. I don't know how this compares with the time it takes an LCD to switch states, but I had thought that refresh wasn't going to be all that great with OLED, at least, not at first.

Light yeahs??

[DRUNK_BEAR]

Light years represent a distance.... not a time value :P I guess the poster wanted to say something like trillions of kilometers per light (distance/c = 1000m / (3*10^8 m/s) = 3.33 microseconds).. hehe I just found light years a funny idea as to comparing the technological advancements betw. the companies... :P