Feeling a bit jealous because your neighbor just nabbed a brand new widescreen LCD? Have no fear, the OLED (organic light-emitting display) is here! Today Sony announced the XEL-1, the first OLED TV that will be publicly available to consumers on December 1.
So what is OLED, or "Organic Panel" as Sony advertises it? To put it briefly, unlike LCDs, OLED displays don’t require a backlight in order to display a bright, rich, image. Without the need for a backlight, the displays can potentially be much thinner, since they also don't require as much power as an LCD display. In a sense, you can think of the technology as a much more advanced version of the phosphor-based electroluminescent backlight on your watch; organic materials in the display light up when an electric current is passed through them. Today, smaller products like the Sansa Express use OLED technology also.
Sony claims the 1080p capable XEL-1 is just 3mm thick has a contrast ratio that exceeds 1,000,000:1. On the other hand, XEL-1 will only sport an 11 inch screen with a 960x540 resolution. It also has an HDMI input, 1 USB port, a headphone jack, and a 10/100 Ethernet plug. The TV also has a "browser function", which combined with the Ethernet jack, has me wondering whether it's a possible future Windows Media extender contender.
The XEL-1 looks pretty freakin' sweet, but it looks like it'll sit perched on an arm above a base, so it doesn't look like it'll mount on your wall. Still, it would be a pretty awesome office-desk accessory. The XEL-1 (Japanese) is priced at 200,000 Japenese Yen, and will be available in Japan only (translated). We assume the technology won't take much longer to come stateside.
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