The new XEL-1 television from Sony Corp. is too small and too expensive. So why am I thrilled with it? Because the XEL-1, with its 11-inch screen and $2,500 price tag, provides an enticing glimpse into the future of television. It's the harbinger of a new technology that makes today's flat panel sets look like your grandparents' 27-inch Magnavox.
The XEL-1 was introduced last October in Japan, and came to the United States in January. It's the first consumer TV based on an enticing technology called OLED - organic light-emitting diodes. Sony and other major TV makers believe OLED is destined to become the dominant flat-panel TV type, rendering today's plasma and liquid crystal display sets obsolete.
Plasma TVs are lined with thousands of gas-filled chambers that radiate ultraviolet light when zapped with electricity. Colored filters mounted over these chambers create color images on screen. LCDs use arrays of crystals that snap open and shut like venetian blinds. A backlight mounted behind the array shines through the open crystals, lighting up a set of colored filters in front to produce a picture.
But OLED uses organic chemicals that glow when exposed to an electrical current. The concept was developed at Eastman Kodak Co. in the 1980s. OLEDs have been used mostly in cellphone displays. They use a lot less power than LCDs, because they don't need a backlight; the chemicals themselves light up when the power is on. In addition, OLED chemicals can be painted onto thin, flexible materials, like sheets of plastic. Sony last year made a prototype flexible OLED video screen that's 2.5 inches wide, and a third of a millimeter thick. It hopes someday to scale up the technology to the size of a living room wall. Sony and other TV makers are also working to streamline OLED's complex manufacturing process, eventually driving down the price to Wal-Mart levels.
For now, OLED is suited only for consumers with thick wallets and excellent eyesight. The screen is too small for comfortable viewing unless you're seated just a couple of feet away. But sit close, and you'll relish the set's brilliant colors and sharp contrast. LCDs are famously ill-suited for displaying black images; illumination from the backlight tends to leak around the closed pixels. But with OLED, black pixels really are black, and stand out starkly from the surrounding colors. In all, the XEL-1 delivers as good a video image as I've seen on a TV screen.
It's not a true high-definition set, however - because of the screen's size, it has only about one-fourth the resolution of today's top HDTVs. I didn't care. The XEL-1 brought out the best in both standard and high-definition digital channels.
Besides, small can be beautiful. Turn the set edge-on, and except for its electronic control box and mounting bezel, the XEL-1 almost disappears - it's less than an eighth of an inch thick. Add in the frame that supports it, and you're looking at a video screen about a quarter-inch deep. High-end plasma and LCD sets are a couple of inches deep these days.
But the XEL-1 is relatively fragile. OLED screens tend to fade much faster than other kinds. A high-end LCD or plasma set should provide 50,000 to 60,000 hours of normal use, or up to 20 years. Sony says the XEL-1 is good for just 30,000 hours, or more than a decade. The video technology research firm DisplaySearch said last month that its own tests indicate a much shorter life span of around five years. Sony has disputed the claim.
We'll let them fight it out. Anybody who can throw down $2,500 for the XEL-1 won't mind investing in a new OLED set a few years from now. With any luck, the sets will be bigger, more durable, and cheaper by then, and ready for the rest of us.
Hiawatha Bray can be reached at bray@globe.com.
Tidak ada komentar:
Posting Komentar