OLED laptop - Page 17

So we might as well get used to this - OLEDs have arrived at the laptop market. Dell's Alienware announced their latest gaming laptop, the Alienware OLED 13 R2 - and it uses a 13" 2560x1440 AMOLED display.

The Alienware OLED 13 laptop will ship in April 2015 starting at $1,499. It's quite similar to the LCD Alienware 13 R2, just with an OLED instead of the LCD (which has a higher 3200x1800 resolution). The LCD model currently starts at $1,068 - this means that the OLED premium is about $450 - but then again it may also have higher specs, so it is difficult to compare. Alienware themselves says that the OLED model will cost exactly the same as the LCD model.

A day after Lenovo announced the world's first OLED laptop (the 14" X1 Yoga), HP announced a similar product - a model of the popular Spectre X360 hybrid laptop/tablet that comes with a 13.3" 2560x1600 AMOLED display.

HP did not reveal the price premium of the OLED model, but they said that it will ship by the spring of 2016. It's highly likely that Samsung Display is the producer of the AMOLED.

Lenovo announced a new laptop-tablet hybrid family - the X1 Yoga, which is the world's first OLED laptop. The X1 Yoga is equipped with a 14" 2550x1440 display - LCD in the lower models and OLED in the higher-end ones. The hybrid configuration goes up to Core i7 CPUs, 16GB of RAM, 1TB of SSD storage. The laptop weighs 1.27 Kg.

The basic X1 Yoga starts at $1,449 (with an LCD) - the OLED model will be released in April 2016 - price hasn't been announced yet.

According to ETNews, LG display aims to start producing OLED panels for computer monitors and laptops. LG wants to diversify their OLED product lineup, and this seems like a logical next step. ETNws estimates that the first monitors will be released in 2016 or 2017.

Samsung 12.1 inch laptop prototype, 2009

LG Display is currently focused to solve the burn-in problem inherent with OLEDs which is a problem with monitors. LG also sees blurred-images on their OLEDs when used with different image sizes and monitor frequencies and has to solve that as well. LGD will first produce monitor panels and notebooks will come next as prices will have to be lower for that market segment.

A couple of months ago I posted an article about OLED monitors and laptop displays in which I discussed why there isn't any such product on the market yet. Today the Korea Times reports that Samsung Display will today unveil new 14" OLED panels at the IMID 2014 tradeshow in Korea.

If this report is correct, this is very interesting - as it probably means that Samsung Electronics is finally developing a laptop device with an OLED display. This could also be used in a large tablet (perhaps with a keyboard attachment) or a laptop/tablet hybrid device. We'll probably know more later when we have a real report from IMID.

Several OLED markets are heating up - OLED TVs, Flexible OLEDs, wearables, OLED lighting, the automotive market... Barry Young from the OLED Association, one of the world's top OLED experts, was kind enough to offer his views and opinion on the OLED market.

Q: What is your expectation from the OLED TV market in the next 1-3 years? Will LG be the only player (and if so what will be their capacity) or will Samsung and perhaps other enters the market too?

LG chose to implement the metal oxide/White OLED approach and has succeeded, where Samsung’s choice of LTPS/Small Mask Scanning (SMS) has proven too expensive to pursue even with ~80% yields.

An OLED-Info reader recently raised the question - where are the OLED laptops and OLED monitors? This is an interesting question. Samsung currently produces AMOLEDs ranging in size from 1.63" for wearables to 10.5" tablet displays and LG Display is mass producing 55", 65" and even 77" OLED TVs.

Samsung 12.1 inch laptop prototype, 2009

It seems that technically there shouldn't be a problem producing 13-15 inch OLED panels for laptops or even 20-25 inch panels for monitors. In terms of pixel density, these panels will be simpler to make compared to Samsung's mobile phone panels. Even a 13" 4K laptop panel will require only 339 PPI - much lower than SDC's latest 5.1" QHD panels (577 PPI). And of course SDC can start with a 15" FHD panel (146 PPI) which is easier to produce.

Frost & Sullivan posted a new analysis (as part of their Technical Insight research) regarding medium and large-area OLED panels. They forecast that further technology development and new manufacturing techniques will reduce OLED panels prices to a level suitable for mass production by the end of 2014.

In fact, F&S say that this will enable OLEDs to enter the TV, tablet and laptop markets. Looking even further into the future, flexible OLEDs will promise newer applications as well.

According to industry insiders, Samsung is considering to invest in a 6.5-Gen (1500x1800 mm) AMOLED fab to produce tablet and laptop OLED displays. The company is currently producing AMOLED displays in a 5.5-Gen (1300x1500 mm) fab, but this is geared mostly for small sized panels (up to 5" in size or so), and their upcoming 8-Gen (2200x2500 mm) fab will make larger panels for OLED TV applications, and the pilot line yields are too low for medium panels.

According to our source, Samsung thinks that the market is now ready for medium sized OLED panels. If this is true, then indeed they need to have an AMOLED fab that's somewhere between the 5.5-Gen and the 8-Gen ones.

Update: There are reports that the Razer doesn't really use OLED keys. The keyboard is actually a touch LCD (one 7" LCD) with transparent keys on top. Clever design!

Razer has a nice small laptop on display at CES, with an OLED keyboard. The idea is similar to Art Lebedev's OLED Optimus (which interestingly is still available for $2400) - each key is a small OLED: