OLED, What's It To Me?

The first OLED (Organic Light Emitting Diode) displays have hit the market. Sony is claiming that it's XEL-1 is the “next big thing”. I think they may be right. Don't get me wrong, I love my dual 21” wide screen LCD's, however their contrast ratios are a measly 2000:1 compared to the XEL-1's 1,000,000:1. That's right ONE MILLION TO ONE! In layman terms, that means that the whites are 1,000,000 times brighter than the blacks. That's another thing OLED displays have to offer: complete darkness. With an LCD display black is simply a dark combination of reds, greens, and blues. However, this is not the case with OLED's; when pixel is “off” it really is “off”, there is nothing to be displayed but total darkness. Along with total darkness comes an incredible array of colors that can be displayed with OLED's. It's not that any different colors are displayed with OLED's. It has more to do with the contrast ratio allowing for a greater difference in colors resulting in what is seen as a purer hue. Power consumption is another great feature of OLED's. LCD displays require a backlight, to be constantly on in order to make the display bright enough to see. With OLED technology the OLED molecule itself is the backlight. So going back to the total darkness, this means that when the pixel is off it consumes no power whatsoever. Given that there is no longer a need for a backlight the OLED displays are significantly thinner. In fact Sony's XEL-1 is only 3mm thick (or thin for that matter). To put that into perspective, two penny's stacked on top of each other are 3mm thick; really, really thin to say the least. Now, Sony's display is designed for consumers and has a nice cover on it and what not. However, without any plastic housing OLED displays are much thinner than that. There has been talk of developing HUDs (Heads Up Displays) for military vehicles using this technology. They would simply adhere the OLED to the windshield, plug into the appropriate interface, and go. Also, OLED's are incredibly flexible allowing for them to be rolled up and taken anywhere. One drawback with the current OLED technology is that the displays are pretty small at this point, for example Sony's XEL-1 is a whooping 11” measured diagonally. All of that will change as the technology matures and its market share increases. Until then, I will stick with my dual 21” wide screen LCD's.

posted by RawburtG. @ 8:17 AM 0 Comments Links to this post.