Nokia: OLED company spotlight - Page 7

A few weeks ago it was reported that Nokia are using two OLED panel suppliers - Samsung and TPO. Now we hear that TPO has some technical issues, and are not yet supplying panels to Nokia.

TPO plans to launch their first product later this year - a 3" (or a bit larger) WVGA panel for mobile phones. This panel is already in development. In 1H 2010 TPO will release a 3" VGA panel aimed for digital cameras, and in 2H 2010 a 4" WVGA panel for mobile phones.

LG Display's CEO, Kwon Young-soo, says that they will focus on OLED TV panels rather then smaller ones for mobile phones. Interestingly there are reports that LG are in talks with Nokia to supply smaller panels, so it's not clear which way LG are really headed.

LG 15-inch OLED TV prototype

LG Display plans to launch 30" OLED TVs in 2012. That's actually a delay - previously those TVs were planned for 2010. In a recent interview, LG claimed that they will launch 15" OLED TVs in Korea in December 2009.

Kwon Young-soo further said that LG plans to hire 1,700 employees for their R&D department, many of these will probably work on OLEDs.

LG Displays are talking with Nokia to supply them with AMOLED displays. Currently Nokia has two main OLED suppliers - TPO and SMD. Nokia are using OLEDs in their N85 and N86 phones, and are looking to introduce OLEDs into more new phones.

Nokia N86

LG has invested 79M$ in AMOLED production lines, which will begin volume-production in 2H 2010. They have recently doubled their OLED research staff. Currently they have the capacity of 2.4M panels a year, which is not enough for Nokia.

Nokia are now shipping the N86, globally, for around 525$ in europe (375EUR). TheN86 has a 2.6" AM OLED QVGA (240 x 320 pixels) with up to 16 million colors. It also has a 8Mp camera, 8Gb of storage, TV-out and other goodies.

Nokia N86

The N86 is expected to cost 375 EUR (US$525) after taxes and subsidies.

Digitimes reports that Nokia are optimistic about OLEDs, and plan to release more handsets with OLED displays in 2009. Currently Nokia ships the N85, that has a 2.6 AMOLED. We know of at least one more OLED phone that's coming soon, the N86.

Nokia N86

Digitimes also say that the two OLED suppliers to Nokia are Samsung (SMD) and TPO, who started making OLEDs at the end of 2008.

Nokia has officially launched the N86, with the 2.6" OLED. It also includes a 8Mp camera, dual-LED flash, 8GB of storage, TV-out, microSD slot, Nokia Maps and Ovi integration. The phone will be released in Q2 2009 in Europe for 375euro (before subsidies).

Nokia N86

Engadget says that the Screen is considerably brighter than the iPhone's... They claim "another win for OLED!". They also posted a hands-on video.

It is rumored that Nokia will soon (perhaps today) announce a new 8 megapixel phone, the N86. Beside the cool camera it will have dual-LED flash, Symbian S60 OS, 8GB of memory and a 2.7" OLED display.

We'll keep you updated of course...

Matthew Miller from ZDNet reviews the Nokia N85, and just loves the OLED display. He actually got it because of the OLED display, which he saw on the Samsung i770 (I then saw the OLED display on the Samsung I7710 S60 device and fell in love with the brightness and true colors).

Here's what Matthew said about the N85's OLED: As I said above and cannot keep saying, the OLED display looks
fantastic. The colors are bright and evenly lit with no side or
backlighting. The display is viewable for virtually any angle and looks
great in the dark and in direct sunlight.

So the 2008 holiday season is almost here - and obviously you'd like a new gadget with an OLED display. So what are your options?

OLED TV, photo frame and keyboard

The top choice will have to be Sony's XEL-1, the world's first OLED-TV. The 11" XEL-1 (960x540) is only 3mm thin. The contrast and colors are great. The only problem? it costs around 2,500$...

Our second choice is an OLED keyboard. Here you can customize the keys to your liking, this is very useful. Art.Lebedev's Optimus keyboard (where all the keys are OLEDs) costs 1,500$. There are cheaper options - like the 3-keyed Optimus-Mini, or UnitedKeys' new 260$ board (only has 9 OLED keys, though).

During 2008 the first OLED photo frames arrived. The top of the bunch is Kodak's 999$ wireless frame, which has a beautiful 7.6" panel. Digital Foci also sells smaller frames (up to 2.8") - which are much more reasonable priced.

OLED MP3 players, mobile phones or digital cameras?

Audio/Video players have sported OLED displays for years now. There are a few new players that have large AMOLED displays. We like Cowon's S9 Curve - with its 3.3" touchscreen AMOLED. The iRiver SPINN was recently released as well - this one has a 3.2" display (also touchscreen, by the way). If you want smaller players, there are literally dozens of models with OLEDs.

Mobile phones are the second largest OLED market. If you live in the US, the best option is Nokia's N85 with a 2.6" display. In korea and Japan there are many more phones from LG, KDDI, Samsung and others that has beautiful large OLEDs, most of them announced in the past few months.

Interestingly, if you want a digital camera with an OLED, you don't have many choices - even though It has been years since Kodak introduced the world's first camera with an OLED. There's Samsung NV24HD pocket camera, and some very high-end cameras with OLEDs, and that's that. Perhaps the fact that OLED displays currently are not too great in sunlight makes camera makers a bit hasitant to use them.

An OLED Lamp?

Finally, if you really want to impress your friends, you can get one of Ingo Maurer's OLED lamps. They will only make 25 of them, and we heard the price is 25,000euro...

Which OLED gadget would you like?

So, what will it be? We'd love to get your comments - tell us what is your favorite OLED gadget, and which one you'll be most happy to have these holidays.

After receiving investments totaling billions of dollars over the past decade, the OLED industry is finally poised to take off. According to NanoMarkets, an industry analyst firm based here, the markets for OLED materials will reach $2.7 billion by 2015.