In December 2009, HTC's roadmap leaked, and there were two OLED phones in there, the Bravo and the Legend. Now we hear that the Bravo will be released in March in Sweden. The Bravo has a 3.7" WVGA touch AMOLED (854x480) display, it's running the Android-OS on a 1Ghz Snapdragon CPU, and is capable of 720p HD video recording. It has Wi-Fi, GPS, and a 5mp camera.

HTC Bravo

The Vodaphone 360 H1 has a 3.5" AMOLED display. Here's a hands-on video:

The old OLED-in-sunlight saga continues. After hearing that the Omnia II is better than the Nokia N900, we get an interesting comparison between Google's Nexus One (3.7" AMOLED) and Motorola's Droid (3.7" TFT LCD). It's a long (and shaky) video, but here's the summary:

• The AMOLED is brighter than the Droid, and behaves better at Sunlight


• In normal conditions, the Nexus one has much more vivid colors. When viewing photos or videos, the AMOLED has much better colors.


• The reviewer complains that he 'sees individual pixels' on the AMOLED - and this does not happen on the LCD (I'm not sure what he means). He says that sometimes the LCD's image is more 'crisp'.


• Overall the AMOLED is much better than the LCD.

China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) will establish a pilot OLED industrial base in Foshan City, Guangdong province. The province has established a new OLED industry alliance with 20 local companies, including Irico Group Electronics, China Display Technology, Anwell Technologies, Truly International Holdings, TCL, and Sun Yat-Sen University.

The MIIT has agreed to support the Guangdong OLED industry's exemplary application, innovation, industry chain construction, and human resource development.

Just a week after telling us that the 3.7" AMOLED as used in Google's Nexus One costs $23.5, iSupply now says that the 3.7" TFT-LCD used in Motorola's Droid costs $17.75. That means that the AMOLED costs 32% more. The touchscreen overlay costs $17.75
in both the Nexus One and the Droid. This means that totally, the
AMOLED touch display is only 16% more expensive than the touch TFT-LCD.

Interestingly, the iPhone 3GS' LCD is smaller than the Droid's (at 3.5") but costs more - $19.25. That means that Google's 3.7" AMOLED costs only 22% more than the smaller iPhone display.

Obviously these are just iSupply's estimates, but it's interesting anyway. 

A US company called Prysm is unveiling a new display technology called Laser Phosphor Display, or LPD. LPD is based on Phosphorescent materials, and a laser that scan on the display's surface and 'turn the pixels on'. This display does not require a backlight, and black pixels will not require any power (as it is with OLED displays).

Concept Prysm huge TV

Prysm says that this technology is very efficient - a 55" panel will consume less power than a single light bulb, and it is also cheap to build. Prysm wants to target commercial vendors first and not consumer TVs, and in any case haven't shown even a demo yet. But we'll keep watching... 

SonyInsider has interviewed Stan Glasgow, Sony Electronics' USA president and COO. He said that while Sony are working on all sorts of OLED TV prototypes (for example the 24.5" 3D OLED TV shown at CES), he doesn't think there's gonna be a new product in 2010. Because the prices will be too high. Here's the relevant interview bit:

Can we expect any new OLED televisions from Sony in 2010?

We’re working on all sorts of prototypes, but I don’t see production of product in 2010. There’s a wonderful 3D OLED prototype here at CES; that’s the real way to do 3D and TV because you’ve got direct transmission, rather than back lighting and all the other reflective ways of doing it. But getting it to be commercially reasonable in price, we’ve got a long way to go. That’s the whole problem in OLED, great technology, great feature set, but it’s really hard to get the costs down. Smaller form-factors are easy to do.

Cadillac has unveiled their latest concept car, the XTS Platinum concept, a replacement for the STS/DTC. The hybrid car uses an AWD powertrain, backup up by a 3.6L V-6 engine and an electric motor. The car can move under the electric power only.

The Cadillac XTS uses OLEDs in place of both the gauges and the center stack controls and infotainment system. Rear seat passengers also get a pair of slim LED screens that rise out of the front seat backs.

LG Group will spend around 3.7 trillion won ($3.3 billion) on R&D in 2010 (up 23% from 2009) to advance its technologies in consumer electronics, wireless communications and next-generation displays, which means OLEDs, 3D panels and e-paper displays.

The Apple-OLED rumor mill never stops working. Korea Times reports that KT plans to introduce a new, upgrade 4G iPhone to the local market in April. The iPhone 4G will have an OLED display, live-video chat capabilities and a removable battery. It'll have dual-core processors and a faster graphic chip. 

There are also claims that Apple ordered lot's of 10" OLED and LCD panels for their upcoming tablet. Everybody's hoping that Apple will unveil the tablet at January 27th, so we'll finally know what's going on with that...