OLEDs for laptops - introduction and industry news. - Page 19

Samsung Mobile Display will show three new OLED displays today:

• 14" qFHD (960x540) 3D AMOLED prototype. This display has a contrast of 100,000:1, color gamut of over 100% NTSC and is only 1.6mm. OLEDs are great as 3D Displays - the image switching is very fast, and there's no optical crosstalk between the two 3D images, according to Samsung.
• 14" qFHD (960x540) transparent OLED prototype. The transparency is 40% when the display is off. Samsung say that this display will "soon be used to display actual transparent products" in Note PCs (although it's not clear why you'd want a transparent display for your laptop).
• 2" OLED operated by RF power (for ID cards and passports). It seems to be the same display shown in June.

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) will begin in 3 weeks or so (7th of January). Previous CES have brought us a lot of exciting OLED announcements. I'm sure that this year will not be any different.

OLED TVs / Laptops

The biggest question mark is Sony. Will they announce their 2nd generation OLED TV? And if so, will it be 21" or 27"? There are reports that Sony will call their new OLED TVs XDL-ZX, and it will actually be a series of TVs (maybe both 21" and 27"). The price will be high, that's for sure.

Sony 27-inch OLED prototype (2008)

We're sure that LG will show their 15" OLED TV, which is already on sale in Korea. We might hear when this TV will ship in other countries. And perhaps LG will also show larger TV prototypes.

Samsung will surely show OLED TV prototypes. We hope that they'll also finally announce a large OLED product - perhaps a 14.1" monitor or laptop display. They have promised us an OLED laptop in Q3 2010, and have shown prototypes of small netbooks (7.6") and larger laptops (14.1") with OLEDs. It's likely that Samsung will use CES to unveil their OLED laptop...

Samsung 7-inch OLED laptop prototype

Other companies that might show new OLED TVs include CMEL (with their new MEM technology), Panasonic and perhaps TMDisplay as well.

Samsung is showing a couple of new OLED laptop prototypes. The first is a 7" OLED WSVGA (1024x600) with a brightness of 300cd/m2 and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio.

Samsung 7-inch OLED laptop prototype

The second prototype is a hybrid laptop-desktop system, with a 14" WXGA (1366x768) OLED. It also features 300cd/m² and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. The monitor's width is 2.7 mm.

Samsung 14-inch OLED hybrid prototype

Here's a short video of the 7" laptop:

A few weeks ago Intel showed a laptop concept with 3 OLED displays (each about 3" in size). Now we found a video of this nice concept:

Intel is showing a nice new laptop concept, which actually includes 4 displays. Above the keyboard, there are 3 touch AMOLED displays. Each display is about 3" in size. This is a neat design:

The idea is to have seamless interaction between the main display and the smaller OLEDs - like the ability to move files between them, to zoom, scroll or pan content, etc.

Kyu Uhm, Head of Worldwide Sales and Marketing for Samsung's Computing Division, said that the company would look to release an OLED laptop towards the end of 2010 - probably in Q3.

Samsung SDI 12.1 inch laptop prototype

"Samsung is the largest OLED screen manufacturer. And as soon as it's available commercially for laptops we will adopt it" he said.

According to Samsung, Gartner believes that OLED notebook will become the norm over the next 5 years.

David Critchley, a marketing manager for Lenovo, says that Lenovo will consider releasing a slim model of its T500 with 15" OLED screen "if demand is there". Lenovo are also considering multi-touch screens.

It's not a huge commitment by Lenovo (I'm sure most laptop makers will be happy to have an OLED "if they see demand") - but it's good to see that Lenovo is aware of OLEDs. I'm also guessing that LG are starting to talk to laptop makers about their upcoming 15" OLED TV panels, that can also be used in laptops.

Samsung Mobile Displays announced 14.1" and 31" OLED TV panels, using what they call Fine Metal Mask (FMM) technology. Those panels are 'ready for production'.

The 14.1" WXGA is aimed for laptop computers. It's got a 1366x768 resolution, 200cd brightness, color gamut of 107% NTSC and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. The whole panel is just 2.7mm thick.

The 31" FHD (1920x1080) TV panel is using LTPS, and also has 200cd brightness,  color gamut of 107% NTSC and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. The panel is thicker at 8.9mm.

Samsung 31-inch HDTV

The last display is a 40" FHD OLED TV, with pretty much the same features as the 31" TV. This one is not 'ready for production', yet.

This guest article was written by Daniel Shain from LaptopLogic.com - the best place to read about new laptop hardware and check out the latest laptop news.

If you're a frequent visitor to oled-info.com, chances are you know something about OLEDs.  Just to name a few of their best traits, they’re thin, lightweight, environmentally friendly, potentially flexible, and they produce high quality color.  You can find out more about OLEDs in oled-info’s introduction.  Although it looks like OLEDs are the displays of the future, what about the displays of today?  LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) technology has taken great strides since its inception, and it’s worth taking a look back to see how far we’ve come.

When LCDs first hit the scene in the early 80s they were small, black and white, and heavy, not even achieving color until 1993.  Since then, the technology has been improving rapidly.  In the early nineties most notebooks used a slower passive matrix LCD that could not keep up with fast moving images, but standard LCDs today use a much faster active matrix TFT-LCD (active matrix TFT technology is also used in the new AMOLED displays).  LCDs have become thinner, lighter, and brighter as the years have gone by, and the technology has become so common that many people even have a secondary larger LCD screen for their LCD equipped laptops.

One of the major areas of modern LCD improvement has been in backlighting.  Traditional LCDs use CCFL (Cold Cathode Florescent Lamp) backlighting, but these are bulky and consume a lot of power.  LED technology has recently improved to the point where LED backlit LCDs are becoming more and more common.  LED backlit LCDs produce more light with less energy and can be very thin, making the laptop display simultaneously more useful for seeing color accurately and more mobile (not to mention saving battery life).  LEDs are also solid state components, making them less vulnerable to shock than florescent lighting, and they are more environmentally friendly since they lack toxic mercury.

Another recent LCD innovation is the transflective LCD.  Transflective (transmissive + reflective) displays can have an illuminance sensor which makes them aware of the ambient light around them.  When in low lighting, the transmissive backlight is enabled like a normal laptop screen.  When there is ample light, the backlight is disabled and the display acts mainly as a reflective display.  This allows the use of a laptop or other device outdoors without glare or battery-wasting backlighting.

Although OLED displays will outshine LCDs in time, LCDs are quite capable displays and currently much cheaper than their new organic cousins.  How much development and innovation continues in LCD technology will determine if it becomes a true competitor for OLED displays, or if it will go the way of other forgotten display giants like the CRT.

Well, the OLED Laptop poll was open for a week, and we got over 100 results. 57% of the people said they are willing to pay 100-250$ extra for an OLED laptop. Obviously our poll is problematic because OLED-Info visitors are likely to want an OLED display... but it still seems to be that adding something like 10%-20% cost to a laptop is something people are willing to pay in exchange for a better display, thinner laptop and better battery life.

The real question is of course whether this is practical... with Sony's 11" OLED TV costing 2500$, it doesn't seem probable that a 14" OLED will add only 250$ cost to a laptop. However the technology is always improving, and it's possible that LG or Samsung will be able to pull off a much cheaper OLED display than Sony's.

See the full results here