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.

LG has announced a new LED LCD TV, that's only 2.6mm thick. That's even thinner than Sony's XEL-1 OLED TV! The new TV is 42", weights only 4Kg (!) and has a 120Hz refresh rate. A few years ago, one of the advantages of OLEDs were being thin and light, but LCD has advanced very quickly in that respect - although OLEDs can be made much thinner, it doesn't seem to really matter any more, at least for TVs. Unless of course they'll start making rollable, flexible OLED TVs...

LG 2.6mm thick LED LCD

Elan has announced its new g! home automation system. There ain't a lot of details, but they say it will use OLED displays. The system has a consistent interface across several devices, and also includes TV, PC and iPhone versions. It's not clear whether all hardware units will have OLED displays...

Elan g! series

Back in 2007, Elan has released their first OLED product, the Ole touchpad in-wall A/V controller. It had a 1" 65K PMOLED display.

UPDATE: This video has been removed from YouTube

Yesterday we posted a video comparing the Samsung Omnia II's OLED vs the Nokia N900's LCD (and the OLED is much better, of course). Now the same user has uploaded another video, showing how the displays behave in direct sunlight - and the OLED is much better. This is interesting, as usually people say that OLED are very bad in such conditions. A couple of months ago we posted a story on this - showing examples of OLEDs in sunlight that are completely non-readable. Barry Young from the OLED association told us that newer OLED displays will be much brighter - perhaps he was right.

Update: The rumors were true, on March 16 Cowon announced the J3 with a 3.3" touch AMOLED

There are rumors that Cowon are set to release a new player, the J3. It will come with 2/4/8GB, a DMB tuner and Wi-Fi. There aren't any more details yet, beside the AMOLED display.

UPDATE: This video has been removed from YouTube

Here's a nice video comparing Samsung's Omnia II AMOLED display (3.7", 480x800) to the Nokia N900's 3.5" LCD. The AMOLED is on the left, and you can see that it's brighter, and has much better colors and contrast.

Samsung has produced a nice short commercial for the Omnia II phone, in which they mention the AMOLED display (which is 3.7" 480x800):

Showa Denko announced that it has signed a license agreement for OLED Lighting technology with Universal Display. Showa Denko will be able to integrate Universal Display’s proprietary UniversalPHOLED phosphorescent and other OLED technologies into Showa Denko’s white OLED lighting
products fabricated by solution-processing methods. Under the agreement, UDC will get license fees and running royalties.

Showa Denko has been developing polymer-based white OLEDs for use with
coating-type manufacturing equipment that may enable the cost-effective
production of large-area lighting panels. Through their development of a
new device structure and the use of phosphorescent OLED technology and
materials, the company recently demonstrated a white OLED lighting device with 30 lumens per Watt.

OCZ has reduced the price of their OLED Keyboard, from $135 to $89.99. The keyboard (which is the same as the United Keys one we reviewed while back) has 9 monochrome and customizable OLED keys. You can buy it now from Amazon.com.

Update: the new company was indeed established, but the name is Global OLED Technology

LG Group has decided to create a new company that will handle all OLED patents and technology. It will be financed by LG Electronics, LG Display and LG Chem. The company will be created soon (hopefully before the end of 2009), and will probably be called LG OLED.

LG 15-inch OLED TVs

The new company will acquire all of Kodak's OLED patents, and will manage license contracts owned by Kodak.

LG Display is producing OLED panels (currently small/medium ones, up to 15", and has plans to start making large-sized OLED TV soon). LG Electronics is already selling OLED phones, and also the 15" OLED TV in Korea. LG Chem are working towards OLED Lighting, with plans to start producing panels in 2010.