Sony's Stringer: OLED TV in US "next year"

So we had a bit of bad, OLED-related news this morning. Now for the good. Sir Howard Stringer just announced plans to launch their 3-mm OLED TV into the US market. While it's not coming this year as we had hoped beyond hope, it will be offered for "limited sales" in the US (Sony's second launch market) sometime "next year." Just as soon as Sony ramps up their mass production capabilities. Stringer admits that the expensive, tiny TV is a "symbolic device" for Sony -- fine by us. After years of corporate stoicism we're perfectly happy to see Sony take some risk. Now please resurrect AIBO, Howie, and your innovation hat-trick will be complete.

[Seth Porter @ Dec 11th 2007 6:05AM]

This tv is on display at the sony style store in burlington ma. I was looking at it last night. Unbeleivably thin. The picture is amazing.

[LondonConsultant @ Dec 11th 2007 6:30AM]

Sexy! A pity we gotta to wait for larger versions...

[Deluxe @ Dec 11th 2007 6:40AM]

Well we gotta start somewhere, right? Might as well be Sony

[Duscrom @ Dec 11th 2007 7:14AM]

Oh, i saw one of these at the Sony store today, and I thought it was beautiful. Orgasmic...

[Ryan Trevisol @ Dec 11th 2007 6:48AM]

I'm surprised they didn't sell both batches over here to begin with. There's way more fools with too much money over here.

If I didn't know better, I'd say this 11" conversation piece was a play at getting some venture capital for their production efforts.

[bratkun @ Dec 11th 2007 7:55AM]

Saw one of these last month here in Japan... amazing product. Almost bought one, until my gaze shifted to the left and saw a LCD Sharp Aquos 42" selling at half the price of the oled.
Salesman mentioned that Sony requested them to keep the listed price at Y200,000 (but with discounts depending on the store --- the one I saw had Y40,000 which made the final price around Y160,000 or about $1,500).

[tamoghno @ Dec 11th 2007 8:16AM]

whats the point in making so much thin ,if it cant be hanged in the wall ?first fix that bullshit base.
LCDs are elready thin enough for me ,please make the development in quality , not in slickness.

[NHAnimator @ Dec 11th 2007 8:29AM]

How is the base BS? It serves multiple purposes - not the least of which is housing essential components and weighting the system down.

And if LCD's are thin enough for you, then great, you can stop there. The only reason you have an LCD is because someone else looked at rear-projections and thought "that's not thin enough for me".

[tamoghno @ Dec 11th 2007 8:39AM]

but how are you supposed to "hang that thing " or whats the point in making it thinner if it practically requires almost as much footprint as a CRT on the table .

this thing is good , but requires a lot of work

[Willen @ Dec 11th 2007 8:43AM]

You want to wall-hang an 11" TV?

Seriously, the only reason why this set is so thin and designed that way is to make it a statement piece. Sony has been making LCDs nearly as thin as this in their TX/TZ/SZ series VAIO computers for quite some time now. Personally, I think that thin-panel TVs don't need to get any thinner than they are now. Any thinner and you won't have space for a decent amount of input jacks or a built-in power supply.

The thing people are forgetting is that the whole point of OLED isn't how thin the TVs can be, it's how much better the picture quality of the technology is over LCD and how much less power it uses versus plasma. Sure, it's also lighter and, if made with flexible materials, bendable, but the major improvement to current TV technologies that I hope OLED brings is better images.

[blade417 @ Dec 11th 2007 8:34AM]

I guess I just have to see it in person to be somewhat interested in it. Maybe I can get sony to send me one if I ask them politely?

[Alex @ Dec 11th 2007 8:38AM]

Until this comes in at least a 720p it's just a neat looking prototype

[randy @ Dec 11th 2007 11:56AM]

Back in '01, when I first learned about OLEDs, I had no idea they'd take a whole decade to emerge! WOW!


OLED:

Revelation: 2001
Occurrence: 2009


MOON:

Revelation: 1961
Occurrence: 1969

[Irfan @ Dec 11th 2007 2:55PM]

are you suggesting nothing was revealed about the moon until 1961?

[hamiltonguy @ Dec 11th 2007 3:07PM]

Oh really....wow that's awesome I can't wait to see the displays in the sony store.

11" OLED
$3750.00

yippeee....
crap... who cares...Sir Howard Stringer Bell is really grasping....jeez...i gotta better idea...why not put out some decent games for the PS3....cripes.

[athousandleaves @ Dec 11th 2007 3:35PM]

Why do you guys keep posting the ben heck hack of the atari 2600+LCD?
Isn't this OLED supposed to look good?

[Wwhat @ Dec 11th 2007 6:34PM]

Weird, firs sony drains money like mad by putting blu-ray into every ps3, because they feel they HAVE to, now they take losses on OLED TV's because they feel they HAVE to, even tho they replaced the CEO I understand, weird shit.

[mario mamattah @ Dec 12th 2007 4:58AM]

what does OLED stand for? i'm a uni student in ghana and i don't think i'v heard about it

[Ryan Trevisol @ Dec 12th 2007 11:27AM]

Organic LED. It's like an LED but . . . more organic.

[poodoo @ Dec 13th 2007 2:45AM]

Forget OLED. Lets just continue the Sony bashing.

[adam @ Dec 28th 2007 11:48AM]

OLED - Organic Light Emitting Diode. It is going to be the wave of the future. It has 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio or greater and is thin and FLEXABLE. If you would take the time to read up on it rather than bashing it, maybe you would see the various uses it will have in the future... like wall paper, windows (since it is completely see thru when it is not on) and various other uses. The industry is predicting that one day it will be cheap enough to be used in multiple applications in every house.