Sony’s XEL-1 OLED Lasts Half as Long as You Expect, Says Study

Now, we’ve been raving about Sony’s diminutive XEL-1 OLED TV for a while, but an independent investigation by Displaysearch is casting doubt on the screen’s lifespan. They ran two XEL-1 units for 1000 hours, then measured the change in brightness emitted by the screen. They concluded that it would take 17,000 hours for the screen to lose half its brightness—a usual measure of display life. That sounds like a lot—it’s 5.8 years, at 8 hours use every day—but it’s actually close to half the 30,000 hours claimed by Sony. Sony, of course, is defending their figure, saying it’s based on years of experimentation. Sounds like bad news, though of course when larger OLEDs hit soon they’ll have newer tech inside. [Displaysearch via OLED-display]