Sony's world's first 16.7 million color flexible OLED

Oh boy, another bendy display we won't likely see on the market any time soon. This time it's Sony's turn to tout with this, their 2.5-inch, 160 x 120 pixel OLED display on a flexible plastic film. Better yet, this organic TFT delivers a relatively stellar 16.7 million colors compared to the 262k and 16k colors Samsung and LG.Philips, respectively, were showing off last week. That's a world's first 24-bit color depth for these types of displays. Take that Samsung. The display also measures a mere 0.3-mm thin which easily bests the hapless Korean (and Dutch) giants. The only downside (if you call it that) is the display's "greater than" 1000:1 contrast ratio compared to Samsung's 10,000:1 rating. But by now you've learned to take contrast measurements with a grain of salt, right?

[Via Impress]

[wink @ May 24th 2007 9:59AM]

Isn't this FOLED if it can be folded?

[cyberjas2001 @ May 24th 2007 10:51AM]

nice!!! finally some interesting stuff from Sony

[Art Vandelay @ May 24th 2007 11:17AM]

Are you sure it's millions of colors? or are they pulling a nasty trick on us and using dithering! damn you display companies!

[Alex Yee @ May 24th 2007 11:37AM]

maybe it has something to do with this

http://www.sony.net/Fun/SonyDesign/2003/Gummi/future.html

I saw this site years ago. Has interesting concepts on it.

[Castle @ May 24th 2007 11:44AM]

Well Sony does have the 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio OLEDs, I'm sure that there is a cost/size consideration for this OLED. Hopes its affordable.

[paloooz @ May 24th 2007 11:50AM]

Cool, now I can have 16.7 million colours on my Red Planet suit.

[Frankenstein Black @ May 24th 2007 12:04PM]

Now this is what we’re talking about! Hey Sony/Ericsson, wanna make an “iPhone Killer?” Take that screen and put it in a device like this one.
http://www.eternal-champions.com/images/efc_device.jpg
This is NOW TECH and it can be done! The alternative is to sit around and let the Cupertino newbs (at lease in the mobile phone space) PWN YOU SILLY!!

[Mark @ May 24th 2007 1:12PM]

Now if only they could make a FOLED screen that was touch screen(see Minority Report or Matrix Reloaded)

[ark_v2 @ May 24th 2007 6:56PM]

A flexible phone wold be hilarious

[drtekger @ May 24th 2007 8:48PM]

Looks like the first rows of pixels have already given up due to exessive bending.

[Mike @ May 24th 2007 9:01PM]

Wait... what? It's 160 x 120 pixels. 160x120 = 19200 pixels total. So, why are they touting 16.7 million colors when it can only show 19,200 at a time? Bad engineering. Remember: to a good engineer, the glass is neither half-empty nor half-full; the glass is just twice as big as it needs to be.

[RubenFerreira @ May 27th 2007 1:50AM]

Thats the stupidest thing ive ever heard. When has the number of pixels on screen EVER decided how many colors can be reproduced on screen. Just because its 16.7 million colors doesnt mean it necessitates a display that is able to display all 16.7 million colors at once.

What the F*%^ do you know about engineering?!?

[Erik @ May 25th 2007 12:32AM]

The LG.Philips FOLED can also do 16.77 million colors.

http://www.digitimes.com/displays/a20070521PR200.html

[Chris Johnston @ May 26th 2007 8:23AM]

Somebody got the "Red Planet" reference!
paloooz - Outstanding catch!

I want a widescreen display on the sleeve of my jacket, and something like those communicators ("Globals"?) they used in "Earth: Final Conflict"!

[SRHarris @ Jun 3rd 2007 1:52AM]

Why is everybody fixated on the flexibility? It's the lightness, color, and non-backlighting. They should slap this thing in the Sony Reader. Wham! Color ebook reader!

[Fred Flintstone @ Dec 13th 2007 2:34AM]

This is relatively boring. We should be utilizing carbon nanotube-based ultra-capacitors to power cars and 747's. This business of wasting time and resources on flexible compact screens is pointless.