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LG's 48-inch gaming OLED TV arrives in June for $1,499
If your idea of sticking it out at home involves catching up on games and movies, LG might have some good news. The company has started rolling out its 2020 OLED TVs, complete with US pricing and release dates for the collection. The highlight for many may be the smallest of the bunch -- the gaming-oriented 48-inch model in the CX series will arrive in June for $1,499. That might be more expensive than you were expecting, but it could hit the sweet spot if you either intend it as a gaming PC monitor or just want something better-suited to a small space.
LG covered some televisions in Swarovski crystals, because why not?
We'll be honest: We were expecting more. When we heard LG was coming out with a television covered in Swarovski crystals, we just assumed LG would go big. Crystals on the bezels. Crystals on the remote. Crystals coming out of the HDMI ports. Actually, though, it's just a dusting of 460 crystals on the base of an otherwise normal 55-inch OLED TV. Additionally, there's a version where the base is made of sculpted crystal. Like, the see-through kind. Not the sparkly Freddie Mercury kind. It'll ship by the end of this month for €4,000 in Germany, and maybe some other European countries. Because if there's anyone who knows class -- well, we won't go there.
Nikkei: Sony and Panasonic will end OLED TV partnership to focus on 4K
A partnership formed last year that was supposed to take advantage of Panasonic's printing tech production capabilities and Sony's OLED tech smarts has ended, according to a report from the Nikkei. The pair were reportedly unable to create panels that were durable or cost effective enough, and have decided to part ways when their contract ends this year. Instead, each will focus on 4K TV sales, which have only recently started in earnest but have already climbed to 1.95 million units this year, according to DisplaySearch. Of course, CES 2014 is rolling around in less than two weeks, and if last year was any indication, expect even more models -- hopefully at prices that won't make your knees weak.
LG's 55-inch OLED TV enters the third dimension, we slide on our glasses (hands-on video)
We first saw LG's 55-inch OLED TV at last year's CES, where it drew a fair share of oohs and ahhs at the company's press event. In May, the tentative pricing info for the European market was released, but this set's future in the US remained TBD. Fast forward to IFA 2012, and we're in front of this giant again -- but this time, it's sporting 3D. True, at 55 inches, it's no goliath compared to the 84-inch TVs we've seen this week from Sony, Toshiba and even LG, but the company claims this 55-inch model is the largest OLED HDTV available, and its carbon fiber backing and ultra-thin 4mm profile are certainly the markings of a high-end setup. During LG's booth tour today, we had a chance to sneak a peek at the now 3D-capable set, which otherwise looks quite similar to the version we saw at CES, albeit with a bit more polish. In order to achieve a 4-millimeter profile, the set packs all of its connectivity in the base module. There's also an Invisible Connection module on order, which hooks up to the TV through a proprietary optical connector and transparent cable, should you wish to mount the display on your wall. Naturally, 3D content wasn't as sharp as its 2D counterpart, but the OLED looked great regardless. With its ultra-thin design, it's surely meant for consumers who care about aesthetics perhaps even more than image quality, but if you can stomach the €9,000 price tag, this is one fine get. Take a closer look in our gallery just below. Follow all of our IFA 2012 coverage by heading to our event hub! %Gallery-163863%
LG's 55-inch OLED TV gets official design, possible €9,000 price tag (update 3: LG fills in more)
LG has been coy quiet about details of its 55-inch OLED TV since we saw its hyper-rich organic colors at CES, but it just nailed down a number of details at a Monte Carlo Monaco event. The 55EM9600 has seen its display base get visibly bigger now that the screen isn't being specially perched at a trade show, but the redesign and using a carbon fiber back has let it shed an extra millimeter of thickness, down to 4mm (0.16 inches). The steadier footing puts all the AV connectors at the back, while a trio of USB ports sit on the side for those who often share media from their cameras and flash drives. LG wouldn't give our Spanish team definite release info about the OLED set, but there's been repeated murmurs of a European price of about €9,000 ($11,313) and a possible release as soon as July, just inside LG's official target of the second half of the year. Certainly not the most frugal TV you can buy at this size if that's true, then, but it'll certainly get everyone's attention -- now where's our US details? Update: There's now a swishy promo video below, plus some English language details at the source link. Update 2: For those who'd like a bit more reading material, we've added the full PR after the break. Update 3: LG has also helped settle some of the details that it can share at this early stage: July isn't looking likely, but the price could be on the sunnier side, tentatively edging closer to €8,000 ($10,063).
Panasonic, Sony purportedly entering into OLED TV team-up, torrid love affair
Sony might not have taken long to find a new date in the TV scene after breaking up with Samsung late last year: if you believe Nikkei, Panasonic is the belle of the ball. The two Japanese firms are reportedly hoping to speed up the development of cheap, mass-produced OLED TVs by sharing each other's design techniques, including a Panasonic method for printing OLEDs on a scale that lets the company avoid $9,000 price tags. Neither Panasonic nor Sony has confirmed the talks, of course, and there's no guarantee a partnership will emerge even if it truly gets hot and heavy. Still, if real, we'll be on the lookout for a PanaSony OLED TV at CES in the future.
Delawareans rejoice as DuPont builds OLED TV testing plant in Newark
The State of Delaware has bust out a grant of $920,000 for DuPont's obsessed project to bring OLED TVs to the masses. It's building a facility at the Stine-Haskell Research Center in Newark with the chemicals-giant stumping $30 million out of its own back pocket. The new unit will employ 35 people to investigate the possibility of producing Organic Light Emitting Diodes for use in televisions for a fraction of the current cost. In comparison, the OLED TVs we saw at CES could retail for as much as $10,000, enough to make sure you don't ask Grandma for one next Christmas. The line will be used to test the "spray printing" methods that can print a 50-inch TV in under two minutes we saw in 2010. DuPont's obliged to keep the facility open for five years, or it'll expect angry civil servants to storm the building looking for a million dollars worth of stationery in return.
Switched On: Connected Electronics Show
Each week Ross Rubin contributes Switched On, a column about consumer technology. Compared to CES 2011, which featured an explosion of tablets and high-powered smartphones poised to jump on emerging 4G networks, this year's edition of Gear and Gloating in Las Vegas was a more muted affair when it came to mobile devices. Sure, Verizon, AT&T, and T-Mobile trotted out a few devices and there were even a few standouts, such as the Transformer Primesque Lenovo IdeaTab S2 with its its docking keyboard as well as the heavily promoted Galaxy Note, coming soon the U.S. after launching in Europe.
Samsung's got a 55-inch Super OLED TV of its own, coming in the second half of 2012
We're seated here at Samsung's 2012 CES press event, and the company just revealed that it'll be matching rival LG's 55-inch OLED TV... when a 55-inch OLED TV of its own. Not surprisingly, the outfit's trumpeting its terrific color reproduction, the virtual absence of motion blur and face recognition. Sadly, there's not even a model number to mark down, and a price estimate should be even harder to find. It is, however, expected to ship in the latter half of 2012. There's no color filter needed here, either, as the self-emitting RGB sub-pixels take care of themselves; since light output on the Super OLED is controlled on a pixel-to-pixel basis, you can rest assured that your blacks will be deep and your whites bright. Other specs include a dual-core processor and 3D support. We'll be doing everything we can to get a peek at one, so keep it locked for more as we heard it. Update: Check out our eyes-on video here
Sony quits OLED TV in the consumer market, we quietly shelve hopes for the XEL-2
Hope you're in the mood to pour one out, because the Daily Yomiuri Online has just confirmed that Sony is giving up the OLED TV in its consumer business. According to the report, it has discontinued production of OLED TV sets for the mainstream market, and while it'll continue selling 'em to its corporate clients, it'll concentrate the home-use TV portion on LCD models. For historians in attendance, they'll no doubt (fondly) recall the XEL-1 -- a devilishly thin personal OLED TV that never stood a chance at filling anything other than a luxury niche. The same sect will also remember that it discontinued OLED TV sales domestically back in 2010, but exports to America and Europe continued up until now. The real question? Whether or not those rollable OLEDs are still getting researched in a Sony lab; the futurist in us can only pray so.
Samsung in 'last-stage talks' to use Google TV, will show off hardware after CES
The true second act of Google TV won't take place until new hardware hits the streets, and Reuters reports that while Samsung is still on board, it will unveil its product(s) next year at an event other than CES. There's no word on when or where we might see hardware from other partners like LG, but at last year's show Vizio and Samsung (pictured above) were the only ones to display their efforts. TV division prez Yoon Boo-keun confirmed the company was working with Google on the rollout, and apparently indicated Samsung's service would "differ" from competitors. We'll have to find out what that means, but in the meantime what we can expect to see in Las Vegas are OLED TVs, which he said Samsung would have on display. After being teased by countless concepts, we'll be keeping our eyes peeled for price tags and shipping dates, but those details will likely remain under wraps until January.
AUO VP says large OLED TVs won't be feasible for commercial use until 2014
Eager to get your hands on a big-screen OLED TV? Then it looks like you may still have to wait a few more years -- at least according to Paul Peng, the executive vice president of display manufacturer AU Optronics (otherwise known as AUO). While the technology has been getting cheaper and more efficient as of late, he says that the production costs are still too high and yield rates too low for large OLED TVs to be feasible for commercial use any time before 2014. Of course, we suppose that all depends on your definition of "feasible." Last we heard, LG was still planning on releasing a 55-inch OLED TV by mid-2012 -- for a yet-to-be-disclosed price.
LG promises 55-inch OLED TV in 2012, just in time for the next b'ak'tun
LG is apparently tired of this tiny OLED stuff. 15-inch TVs and 4-inch cellphones? What is this, 2009? The company has decided it's time to super-size the organically-powered panels and plans to introduce a 55-inch HDTV in mid 2012. We've got faith it can deliver too -- last summer the Korean manufacturer was showing off a 31-inch model (above) and it sounds like it's shifting focus completely towards larger sizes. CEO Kwon Young-soo has said that IPS technology is much better suited for the mobile space. Of course, LG has promised impressively-sized panels before and, even if such a set does make it to market, chances are you'll have to take out a second mortgage to afford one.
Chlorine could be key to the cheaper, more efficient OLED TV of your dreams
Chlorine -- it's not just for keeping your clothes white and your pool clean anymore! Soon, layers of the stuff, just a single atom thick, could play a pivotal role in OLED manufacturing. Researchers at the University of Toronto have found that this tiny amount of Cl can almost double the efficiency of existing displays while reducing complexity and driving down costs. Using a rather simple procedure involving UV light, the team was able to chlorinate standard electrode panels found in conventional OLEDs without having toxic chlorine gas wafting about. While this is good news for manufacturers, it's even better news for consumers. We've been itching to mount a big, organic flat-screen in our parents' basement living room. Finally, we may see cheap OLED TVs on Walmart shelves -- right next to the Clorox.
Sony keeps OLED hope alive with 'budget' monitor line (video)
It was just two short months ago that Sony had us drooling over its latest OLED monitors. But, at the double-take-inspiring price of $16,000, its safe to assume the company isn't moving too many of these professional-level displays. For film and TV production companies turned off by the high-priced BVM line, Sony has announced the PVM-2541 and PVM-1741, which arrive at less than a third of the cost. The 25-inch and 17-inch screens (we're sure you can guess which is which) will retail for $7,400 and $4,900, respectively, while boasting the same 1080p, "Super Top Emission" panels (explained in the lengthy video after the break) and 10-bit drivers of their more expensive cousins. The one trade off is the significantly smaller, 89-degree viewing angle. Good thing movie editors are used to huddling uncomfortably close together.
LG says it will mass produce large OLED panels by 2013, aims for market domination
LG has plucked our heart strings once again by announcing on its Q4 earnings call that its mass production of large OLED panels will ramp up at the end of 2013. In other words, the schedule it laid out a little less than a year ago to triple OLED production via a $226 million facility expansion is still on track -- which is pretty amazing given that other OLED schedules we've seen have been 90 percent fantasy and 10 percent hype. On the same call, vice president of LG Display Jung Ho also took the opportunity to share the company's goal of becoming the market leader in OLED TV. Considering LG has already announced plans to release a 31-inch 3D OLED set in the US and Europe this year with a 55-inch prototype following in 2012 -- it seems Samsung may now have a real fight on its hands for OLED dominance that it can't dance its way out of. No matter who wins, though, the possibility of ultra-thin TVs gracing our walls is definitely getting brighter.
Samsung 'prints' 19-inch OLED TV, teases our display daydreams yet again
Considering Seiko Epson was touting its inkjet OLED technology over a year ago and researchers have supposedly been developing OLEDs as cheap as newspapers for some time now, at this point we're really more interested in seeing electronics manufacturers do more walking and less talking. Thankfully Samsung has acknowledged our tech impatience by sharing a prototype 19-inch OLED that's capable of displaying 58ppi -- or about a quarter of full HD's resolution -- and 16.77 million colors with a limited 8-bit color scale at a brightness of 200 nits. No, it may not look or sound as sexy as the 0.5mm thick flapping panel or 40-inch 1080p OLED sets Samsung shared back in 2008, but unlike those dinosaurs, this latest prototype was made via the old OLED "inkjet method." Sadly the Korean tech giant dashed our hopes of heading over to Kinkos anytime we needed a fresh OLED big screen by stating "the technology is still under development." Now if we had a nickel for every time we've heard that before, we'd probably be staring at an OLED printer on our desk right now.
Plextronics rolls out next-gen OLED ink, promises bigger, better OLED displays
A bottle of ink may not exactly seem like the key to bigger, better, and cheaper OLED displays, but that's just what Plextronics is promising will result from its new "next generation" Plexcore OC NQ ink. That's particularly notable because it's a non-aqueous, inkjet-printable ink, and is intended specifically for use with so-called solution-processed, phosphorescent OLED technology (as opposed to the vapor processing now commonly used), which at least some folks are betting on as the next big thing for OLED manufacturing -- recent tests have also shown significant advances for the technology, including a lower operating voltage and boost in lifetime over previously tested systems. What's more, while it's still in the testing phase now, Plextronics says it expects the ink to be broadly available to manufacturers sometime next year, which should mean that actual OLED displays using it will follow sometime thereafter.
LG's 31-inch OLED prototype to slice through IFA
OLED's failure to do anything for the mainstream so far outside of phone and camera displays is only bittersweet: sure, we don't have millimeter thick TVs yet, but LCD has gotten slim enough that it hardly matters. So, in keeping with tradition, LG has stolen its own OLED thunder today. In line with earlier rumors, it will be showing off a 0.11-inch thick 31-inch 3D OLED display prototype at IFA this week, but that poor little OLED-that-would will be sharing a booth with a ready for retail 0.35-inch thick LCD that comes in big people sizes. Despite our undying affection for OLED, we know which one we'll be (theoretically) taking home in the windowless van we (theoretically) plan on parking out behind the Messe Berlin.
LG parading 31-inch OLED TV among other sets at IFA 2010
We've been tracking LG OLED TV production rumors for nearly as long as Bieber's been alive, and recently got wind that their ultra-thin 7mm LED TV would be appearing at IFA this year, but now more news has materialized. According to OLED-Display, the company plans to show a new 31-inch OLED television prototype in addition to confidence-compensating 72-inch 3D LED TV. Sadly, other critical details like resolution and pricing are nowhere to be found, but considering the company's 15-inch EL9500 OLED -- which we're still waiting for stateside -- is selling for close to $2,400 in the UK, it's fair to assume a model double in size will be a Kanye-level extravagance. Seeing a larger OLED example before 2011 though will be a step in the right direction for LG, and appears to fall in line with the company's own rollout predictions.
