Sony plans "medium to large" OLED panels in FY2009 -- Samsung trembles

Competition: so beautiful in its simplicity, so effective in its execution. Sony just authorized an additional ¥22 billion ($210 million) as it aims to produce "medium-to-large sized OLED panels" in fiscal 2009. For Sony, that's the year spread from April 2009 to March 2010. Not coincidentally, that's the same production timeline that Samsung is on. Oh, the OLED game is so on.

[Soddice @ May 22nd 2008 6:48AM]

Maybe with all the future competition, the prices will start lower and stay that way?


Haha, not.

[gad get @ May 22nd 2008 6:58AM]

Haha, tell me about it! :D



Wait, did you say "not"?

[HydePark @ May 22nd 2008 7:12AM]

The competition will reduce its prices. It's just the way markets act, unless one company takes control of another one and the prices will rise.

[Soddice @ May 22nd 2008 4:03PM]

Nah, I'm just kidding.


The price will go down eventually.

[NineT9 @ May 22nd 2008 7:02AM]

man these are sexy!

/me waits for a 80" :D

[Shinigami @ May 22nd 2008 7:20AM]

And in the end we'll find out they are produced either on the same factory or on different factories but using same production equipment, which was produced by the same company. Which means they'll just set 12x price for 4x size compared to Sony OLED. Which means both companies will sell the same 40-inch OLED TVs (in different casing) for $25,000 xD

I hope not...

[guerilla779 @ May 22nd 2008 7:52AM]

it wont happen this time...........lcds are are totally different issue due to the fact that in 2005 SONY was financially f@#$ed . This time around sony is ahead of samsung and they already have a good production line running in japan.


If sony would have waited for their own panels in 2005 maybe by next year we would have seen the first sony bravia !!!

it takes about 2-3 years to make a panels factory. Plus they got sharp as a future partner now.

[Richard Lai @ May 22nd 2008 7:19AM]

I'd just like to point out that the photo is quite cleverly done - the contrast between the light reflection of the base and the background makes you think it has a slim base too.

[Shinigami @ May 22nd 2008 7:22AM]

Iono whatcha talkin'bout but the picture was made by a professional artist. You can find videos about it on youtube (not this same picture, but how its drawn). Quite simple yet impressive. Takes a lot of skill, effort and time and looks amazing in the end.

[gaz_poole @ May 22nd 2008 7:50AM]

32" 1080p OLED Bravia pleasee

[Kinger @ May 22nd 2008 3:10PM]

¥ 1000000

thank you.

[John @ May 22nd 2008 9:04AM]

Yeah...good for Sony. Now let's see if they can make it last longer than three years and can get as bright as a LCD or Plasma.

[rock99rock @ May 22nd 2008 9:40AM]

Agreed. That brightness half-life issue needs to be addressed asap.

[tekdroid @ May 22nd 2008 10:16AM]

Dear Early Adopters,
Please test these when they reach the market. Full report on longevity as you live with them in 1, 2 and 3 year+ time frames. Particularly interested in heavy tv watchers/ PC users.

Regards,
Joe User
(3 years behind the cutting edge)

[James @ May 22nd 2008 10:23AM]

Expect Apple to "invent" these screens in a future iMac refresh.......

[nDee @ May 22nd 2008 11:42AM]

Japanese would enjoy these tiny tvs where their house is smaller than your bathroom.
(ok not all of them live in such small place but it's true that many japanese suffer from terribly high land price and live in cubes

[Iridium @ May 22nd 2008 11:06AM]

The OLED panels are bright enough. If you haven't seen one it is the most amazing screen you will ever see.

Even though the XEL-1 is too small to be a main TV it really shows that the tech is sound and it is the future of display panels.

The panel at the SonyStyle store by me has been running 8 hours a day since it came out and is still doing fine. Even if it loses half of its picture quality it will still be better than any LCD on the market. Plasma can't hold a candle to it either.

[Ethan @ May 22nd 2008 11:14AM]

The thing itself looks stupid and ungainly, even at it's size, a side-effect of designing it to be as small as possible.

However, when I saw the screen for myself? Wowzers. When it's 28", certainly.

[Christian @ May 22nd 2008 1:06PM]

I have been wanting this tv for a while now everytime I visit the sony store. I do hope they start releasing better sizes soon; I waited for SED and that failed epicly. 32" is a good start but would love 40"+

[nathan.wong @ May 22nd 2008 2:26PM]

I'm still waiting in line for any company that can come out with at least a 47" OLED screen.

[Skry @ May 23rd 2008 10:46AM]

It looks so pretty :D

while OLED TV's will be very expensive for at least a few months after they come into market it will make some of the best LCD's on the market dirt cheap.

[Ferdinand @ May 23rd 2008 4:12PM]

I want a 21 inch 1600 X 1200 OLED monitor more than I need TV

[MAVric33 @ May 24th 2008 12:51PM]

given the fact that oleds are printed (inkjet style) onto a printed circuit board (also made with a technology resembling inkjet printing), both processes being much cheaper than those used to make lcds and plasmas, you might find that the price will be lower than one might expect... though new tech does tend to have a high initial premium, i doubt it will be as high as lcds or plasmas started out since it is an already established technology in mobile devices...

[Adam @ May 26th 2008 3:04AM]

Or we might find that people are willing to pay a premium for the premium picture... Thus Sony can name their price, regardless of their cost of manufacture.

[SketchPad @ May 26th 2008 5:32AM]

The funky thing with the OLEDS aren´t that they´ll "only" last 3 years....if that was the problem...you probably wouldn´t notice as most people don´t keep hardware around for that long anyway.

The actual problem is that the BLUE color dies faster than the
rest, imagine the colors on your movies when the blue fades away and
you need to ajust the color-balance all the time...In the end you
won´t even see the blue colors.