OLED is here. OLED is an Organic Light Emitting Diode and it's being primed to play a big part in the world of hi-def TV. The benefit's of OLED is that you can make TV screens thin, very thin. To give you an idea, Sony have made their panel 0.3 mm thick, or should I say thin? So for fitting into a space or against a wall you can see the advantages.

But as with everything in life, there is always a downside. The downside to OLED is it's lifespan. Within the inner circle's of OLED technology, it is a well known fact that OLED display's have a shorter lifespan than LCD or Plasma screens, with the typical lifespan of an LCD for instance, being between 50,000 and 60,000 hours. These hours in real life terms mean between 5.5 years and 7 years continuous use, but you must remember that 99% of us don't watch our TV screens for 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, so in real life again the screen will last a lot longer, but not as long as LCD or Plasma TV screen's.

However, these numbers do highlight the shorter lifespan of OLED TV screens. Also to add to the mix, OLED panels degrade over time as oxygen and water particle's penetrate the screen's layers of organic materials and chemicals. That alone reduces the screen's ability to display colours consistently. Whilst mentioning this it also worth noting that a company in Singapore has recently invented a plastic film to overcome this problem of degrading and claims that it can boost the life of an OLED display but still not to that of a LCD or Plasma screen.

So to summarise, OLED is definitely coming our way in 2009 with the major manufacturers all investing billions of pounds into the technology but as with LCD and Plasma screens when they were first introduced, OLED's are not going to be without their issues.



Source by Glen Whay