Panasonic has announced that it is in the final stages of drafting plans for a new, cheap 37-inch, OLED-based HDTV that should have a price comparable to today’s plasma and LCD displays.
The company says the actual designs and development have still not begun, but the TV should be commercially available in 2011 and will cost about $1300 USD.
Panasonic also noted that it hopes to enter the OLED TV business soon but that decision would mean releasing a smaller TV at a higher price.
Currently OLED TVs are still in the growing stages, and the only commercially available TV is the 11-inch Sony XEL-1. OLED TVs could be more mainstream in the upcoming years however as prices drop and the technology matures, especially given its advantages over LCD and plasma technologies. OLED displays will have much stronger contrast ratios, usually 1,000,000:1 or higher and produce true blacks as well as a lag-free image.
Result for: oled tvs
Samsung SDI said today that it will be spending over $500 million USD to boost production of next-generation OLED displays to six times its current level by mid-2009.
This latest move comes as panel makers try to get bigger shares of the growing market for OLED displays, which offer better contrast ratio, slimmer designs and better energy efficiency than current LCD or plasma displays.
Currently, however, production costs are still high, too high to make OLED TVs available to the masses.
Samsung currently produces small-sized AM-OLED screens used in watches and other handheld devices and there was no word on whether this large new investment will be to increase production of small OLED screens or for all OLED production including TVs.
Using 2-inch screens as a basis, the new investment should raise capacity from 1.5 million units a month to over 9 million by mid-2009.
