[Nehkara]

First OLED TV comes to Canada this month

Sony announced today it will launch the XEL-1, an 11-inch Organic Light-Emitting Diode (OLED) television, in Canada on February 29th for $2,499.99.

OLEDs possess several advantages that make them ideal for televisions of the future. They are brighter than any back-lit passive technology, such as LCD, and they react faster to changes in signal than does either plasma or LCD TVs. This fast reaction time makes OLED well suited for full-motion video. Because they do not require a backlight, they are much lighter and use considerably less power.

Other benefits of OLED include high contrast ratios, a measure of the difference between the brightest and the darkest colors the display can show, and panel thickness. At its thinnest point, Sony's new TV set is only 3 millimeters thick. On image sharpness, the new XEL-1 has a contrast ratio, of over one million to one, far better than the 2,200 to one achieved by Sony's Bravia LCD TV series.

The biggest problem with OLED's are their short lifespan. The red and green LEDs have long lifetimes of 10,000 to 40,000 hours; however, the blue component suffers high failure rates after about 3,000 – 5,000 hours meaning the lifespan of the panel is limited by the blue LEDs' life.

The future of television folks. Enjoy.

The main challenges for Sony will be making them bigger, lengthing lifespans, lowering production costs, and increasing production. All the problems that occur during a new generation of televisions.