OLED devices - Page 38

Engadget just posted a review of Cowon's S9 Curve player. They love the AMOLED display - 

"The 480 x 272 resolution
screen is positively gorgeous to look at, displaying rich, vivid colors
on everything lucky enough to tickle its pixels. Video looked superb,
images were almost unbelievably sharp and bright, and the overall user
interface was quite a joy to gaze at.

Other PMP makers should definitely
give AMOLED a look"

The S9 curve
has a touchscreen 3.3" (480x272) AMOLED display. It also has a 500Mhz
dual-core CPU, bluetooth, FM radio, TV out and a USB2 connector. You can buy it from Amazon!

The Consumer Electronics Show (CES) will begin in a week or so (9th of January). In previous years we have seen many new OLED product annoncements in this conference, and I guess this year will be exciting as well.

So what can we expect this year?

OLED TVs

Sony is said to be launching their 27" OLED TV (the XEL-2?) by May 2009, so we'll definitly see an advance prototype or even a product announcement at CES.

Sony 27" OLED prototype at CES 2008

Samsung has said that they are "delaying" their OLED TVs, but we're still likely to see their 40" HD OLED TV, and also their 31" panels on show, maybe with some updates on release plans (currently slated for 2009 or 2010).

Samsung 40" HD-AMOLED TV Prototype

Other companies that might show new OLED TVs include LG (lately they have been showing their 19" OLED TV), CMEL (with their new MEM technology), Panasonic and perhaps TMDisplay as well.

25" OLED prototype by CMEL (FPD 2008)

Medium and Small OLED panels

Samsung has been showing their 14.1" AMOLED panels for a long time now. They have previously claimed these will be available by 2009 or 2010. They might officially announce them at CES. This will be most interesting, as these panels might be superb for laptops!

Samsung Electronics 14" OLED prototype

Small AMOLEDs are now common place, but we always welcome more new panels. Currently CMEL is making the largest available panel - 7.6". We might hear of larger ones from CMEL and perhaps from Samsung too.

Gadgets

We except to see a lot of new devices using the new AMOLED panels, in sizes 3" and 4". Mobile phones, PMPs, digital photo frames and other gadgets. 

There are rumors that Sony will release a new walkman with a large touchscreen 3" AMOLED display, we'll have to wait and see on that one.

Sony touchscreen AMOLED player

CMEL's 7.6" panels are available for quite some time now, with only one device using them (Kodak's digital photo frame). It's about time we'll hear of new gadgets using these beautiful, larger displays. 

Kodak wireless OLED picture frame

Prototypes

We have seen some great flexible and transparent displays, mostly from Samsung. I'm not sure if CES is the right place to announce new prototypes, but it'll be nice to catch a glimpse of those beautiful new technologies. 

Samsung 0.05mm 'flapping' 4" AMOLED prototype

Samsung has been showing flexible and transparent display lately, so hopefully we'll see some new prototypes. 

The nice guys at UnitedKeys sent me one of their OLED keyboards for a review. So first of all, Let's start with a quick video showing the keyboard and seeing how keys can be customized:

Sony will release a new VAIO Laptop at CES 2009. They have a countdown timer and a teaser line at Sony's NZ page - "On the 9th of January you will change the way you look at laptops. Forever. In the inner page they promise "new VAIO Technology".

Are they preparing an OLED laptop? Soon we'll found out. There are already rumors about a Sony OLED touchscreen walkman.

Cowon's S9 Curve, the long-awaited AMOLED A/V player is now available to buy from Amazon.com. The 16GB version is listed for 240$.

Cowon s9 PMP, available from Amazon

The S9 curve
has a touchscreen 3.3" (480x272) AMOLED display. It also has a 500Mhz
dual-core CPU, bluetooth, FM radio, TV out and a USB2 connector.

In october we reported about two new AMOLED phones - KDDI W63H (Hitachi) and W63CA (Casio), both in the KDDI au range. Those phones use a 3.1" WVGA AMOLED (480x800) made by Samsung SDI.

The phones are now selling.

Here's a nice video review of Cowon's S9 Curve - with its 3.3" (480x272) touch AMOLED display:

The S9 curve has a touchscreen 3.3" (480x272) AMOLED display. It also has a 500Mhz dual-core CPU, Bluetooth, FM radio, TV out and a USB2 connector. The player will be released in the US in December 19th.

Amazon is now listing (and shipping!) the Kodak OLED wireless digital photo frame. Just in time for the holiday shopping... The frame costs 999.95$

As a reminder, the display is a 7.6" AMOLED panel, made by CMEL. It has a 16:9 aspect ratio, 800x480 resolution, a white-to-black contrast of 30,000:1.

A week ago CNet reviewed the frame, and said the colors are brilliant and the image is sharp.

The Kodak OLED frame at amazon

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.

According to SonyInsider, Sony will launch a new touchscreen Walkman player at CES 2009.The player will have 16/32GB memory and Wi-Fi. The display will be a 3" Touchscreen AMOLED (WQVGA).

This is interesting news as Sony stated they will only develop OLEDs for TVs, not smaller panels (perhaps they will buy the panels from Samsung or CMEL?).