Demo unit on display this week at CEATEC Japan
Commercial unit to be sold in December
Finally, an OLED panel that's reliable enough to sell. Unlike backlit LCD, which uses the same amount of power all the time, OLED only uses power for the individual pixels that are lit, saving energy. It's not a technology that has to "shutter" light, so contrast is incredible. As well, viewing angle is 180 degrees, both horizontal and vertical. There's no angle that you would see any funny coloration, so it becomes a perfect image from any angle. It's similar to how the huge "Jumbotron" LED displays work, but on a *much* smaller scale.
This one averages 45 watts continuous for a bright 11 inch panel. And the panel, not needing any complex backlight configuration, is only 3mm thick, and has no breakable glass. What a welcome change from LCD.
This goes on sale in December, available only in Japan for now. Price is high as well. (If the dollar keeps slipping then who knows, by the time it's released on December 1st it might be around $2000 US for one of these!) Even at that high price, Sony is losing money with every set that is sold. It will take awhile to recoup the engineering costs involved. But within two years things should be turning around, with panels making their way into laptops, and stand-alone sets available for half of the current cost.
Resolution is just 960x540, which is only a touch better than the best standard definition sets available today. You certainly wouldn't want to use this for a studio HD monitor anyway. I'm sure future screens coming from Sony will better qualify as being high definition. But what the heck, it's a start!
Lifespan is rated at 30,000 hours, which is about half of what you can expect from today's LCD panels.
The technology may be marketed as "Organic Panel". At least in Japan that's what Sony is calling it. More info is available from Sony's website in Japan.