Did the Jolly Green Giant piss on that photo?

ANoel

MADEINLIEGE, I believe the roadmap says it is 15.4" WXGA, not 15.1".

Not sure if that makes a difference though.

billy8147

Uh, I meant 15.4". Whatever...

MadeInLiege

Which fucking moronic idiot keeps on perpetuating the idiotic notion that people actually want a fucking 15.1" WXGA screen. There is no other resolution to physical size ratio that is more projectile vomiting inducing than it. Whoever came up with that moronic idea to begin with better pray they are dead or dying, because if I ever lose my mind, I am going to hunt them down.

MadeInLiege

Based on that timeline, they're about a year behind Sony, who will have their 11" OLED 1080p set on the market for the 2007 holidays. Maybe Sony will have a 50"-60" offering by 2010 when Samsung has their 40". Here's hoping... I can't wait forever to buy my HD set, and I've already shed my tears over SED.

macserv

@EQC: Maybe you're right, but I'd assume the reasoning behind their decisions wil have some purpose to it. Or should I be more cynical?

Krondonian

The tech will have lower costs than LCDs or Plasmas eventually, once production ramps up and enough units are out there.

Freaking story of the world, man. I wish, just once, some rogue manufacturer would jump the gun on everybody else, get a whole mess of venture capital (from an insane billionaire, I guess), and start mass producing "new" technology NOW at affordable prices.

Hey! OLED! You're not going to be "new" and "cool" when you finally come on the HDTV Scene in 2010, after I've been hearing about you for 8 years, and all you've got is a $1200 40" screen to compete with $200 40" LCD's and Plasmas. Man, by 2010, OLED will be competing with way advanced LCD's (IMLED/HDR like Brightside, maybe?) and new plasmas, and they're not going to seem as awesome as they would today.

Dammit...it'll be 2018 before they're actually "cheaper" than LCD, I bet. That's just lame.

If just one manufacturer would step up, sell their LCD plant to another guy, and build an OLED fab today (or a year ago), we'd get this tech so much sooner. Sure, it'd be riskier...that's why they need the insane billionaire...but if they got it to work, they'd dominate the OLED market and make all the others selling "ugly" LCD's look like idiots.

But no, instead, all the manufacturers are going to set aside one little 6'x8' room in the LCD factory where somebody hand-assembles OLED screens, forcing small, overpriced displays onto the market for the next 5 years.

Great! Thanks jerks!

EQC

@ ECQ, love the comment man.

But the way this works is essentially due to capitalism (and don't get me wrong I'm no filthy commie). We all love technology, thus we are tech enthusiasts. I'd love to see the hydrogen economy running cars and solar panels covering the Mojave desert, but the reason isn't because I care about the environment, it's because the tech would be cheaper, more efficient, and just plain cool. Now why doesn't BP or Shell run out and do this? All the technology is there...but aside from the initial investment, they don't give a crap about upgrading. They are currently profitable with their 2007 business model. Mr. 70 year-old investor guy doesn't give a crap about anything except how profitable his portfolio (and his BP stock) is. That is the master all companies serve. Why upgrade to OLED when people are buying LCDs now? They will juice this technology for all it's worth, thus artificially slowing down human advancement. It's just like when intel was stalled at 200 MHZ for like 3 years. It wasn't until AMD came around that they suddenly threw chip advancement into hyperdrive. And thus OLED TVs will be the ace in the sleeve of the high end companies. As soon as LCDs are no longer profitable, they will "advance" to OLED. You need to understand that these companies don't care about advancement for advancement's sake. They only care about profits. Remember, if intel could be making money selling you vacuum tubes, they would.

RushmoreAA

@ MADEINLIEGE
Did anybody tell this guy that its a 15.4" laptop?

retlawmacpro

Maybe, but not putting out a product doesn't mean they don't have access to the part. Maybe they don't see a market for a 11" 1080P expensive OLED yet.

With profit margins as slim as they are for "regular" displays, they could just not want to take the risk. While Sony wants to keep the image of being "cutting-edge". Thus justifying the markup the 11" set.

I'd say they are waiting and letting Sony test the waters in a new market for them. But it's all speculation.

TKWarrior

If Sammy has access to the same 11", 1080p OLED panels Sony does, I can't imagine why they wouldn't opt to put them in a device of some kind. I'm thinking OLED isn't like LCD in this respect.

macserv

"looking to get a XBR4 set myself".
Or that new Samsung LED back-lit LCD. Man every time I turn around a new "Best-LCD eva" model comes out, lol.

TKWarrior

@macserv: You do realize that the actual panels in current Samsung and Sony displays come from the same fabs, right?

Unless Sony has an exclusive OLED fab (which is possible, I could be wrong), screen size will be common among competing brands, with the only differences being looks and added features, just like the market is now.

I'm not knocking Sony BTW (looking to get a XBR4 set myself). But seeing how more expensive OLED will be to manufacture, I don't see the industry changing from the current model of dozens of brands sharing a handful of panel manufactures. So no brand will have larger RETAIL models a full year before the competition.

TKWarrior

Yah...I get capitalism...I'm just sad that it doesn't really work as well as it could. Prices are too high on many things, and as you pointed out, innovation/advancement are slow.

As for the prices, I blame consumers -- every time you see somebody paying "too much" for something, he's the reason you can't get it for cheaper. Prices only drop when consumers are smart enough to "shop around" or actually "not buy" something because the price is too high once in a while. The reason cable TV costs $60/month (or more) is because most people will pay that much...while complaining that it's too expensive. Prices don't drop when you're willing to pay them...

On the "advancement/innovation" front, it saddens me that companies always elect to compete on similar products. It's "safe" and "easy" to just do what everybody else does, and try to make yours a little better (to charge more money) or a little cheaper (to undercut the competitors). It'd be riskier to try to mass-market an OLED now...but I'd argue that the potential for return would be much higher for a single company selling a unique/revolutionary product that made the "other guy's" LCD's look inferior. Instead, OLED's going to come out in a few years, in an expensive, trickle-out way, when the benefits it has aren't even as apparent compared to the LCD's that will be available by then. The chances for a manufacturing/sales coup are dropped to zero because everybody'll be doing the same thing, the "follow the crowd" manufacturers get less profit than they might have with an OLED today, consumers basically get only nominal gains in product quality every year, and everybody loses.

EQC

@EQC: I think it is safe to say that you do not get capitalism.

Pender

pfff. capitalism means privately owned businesses operating for profit. basic supply-and-demand economics says that with good competition, profit approaches zero since consumers look for cheaper alternatives, and businesses must compete by lowering prices as much as possible. (That's not supposed to sound like a conflict between capitalism and economics.)

tell me why that means that every flat panel TV is basically identical except for some nominal differences? Tell me why "profit" can't be achieved by taking a slight risk and being different/revolutionary?

The other reason capitalism is broken is because businesses serve their stock-holders who only have short-term interests. If, say, Samsung stopped producing LCD's now and just started shipping out huge OLED's en masse, there'd be a brief downturn in profits, investors would sell their shares, and Samsung would have a problem. But, if the stock-holders were willing to think ahead, allowing Samsung to be the first to market with a vastly improved product would put them in a great position for the future. Of course, there'd be increased risk if OLED should fail... but the "safe" path is the boring zero-risk small-profit boring-world way of doing things and I'm tired of it.

Maybe Tesla Motors (a startup that's willing to take a risk, unlike established huge businesses) will succeed and show that revolutionary products can be marketed well (unlike GM's EV failure...whatever killed that). Maybe Tesla will serve as an example for a few companies in multiple industries to change their boring business model.

If I'm wrong, and capitalism can't work like this, tell me where my understanding is failing. kthanks.

EQC