Categories: TVs & Home Cinema News   Tags: , ,

Samsung showed off OLED TVs at CES in January, but now it’s backtracking, saying the technology is far from perfect and “not ready” for sale yet.


At its 2009 European Forum today, the company admitted that it is still some way from offering OLED TVs for sale, unlike its competitor Sony, which has been selling the XEL-1 OLED TV for more than a year, and has OLED screens in the new X Series Walkman.

“We still have several issues to overcome in terms of cost and production,” HS Kim, vice president of Samsung’s Flat Panel Development team told Pocket-Lint. “It will be four or five years before OLED is mainstream.”

Ouch. Looks like Sony’s well and truly in the lead when it comes to OLED, at least until Samsung works out the kinks.

TBC | £TBC | Samsung (via Pocket-Lint)

Be Sociable, Share!
  • andy

    No disrespect Mr. Holland, but this article really needs a little fact checking and perspective. Samsung (primarily through Samsung Mobile) is FAR ahead of Sony in terms of AMOLED production. Sony ONLY manufactures the XEL-1 11″ screen, which is basically hand built on an R&D line. The new X Series Walkman will almost certainly use a Samsung AMOLED display. Samsung is currently operating 2 production lines that make screens up to about 5″ diagonal, and they are continuing to ramp. Sony has shown no real plans to mass produce AMOLEDs to date.

  • http://www.gravatar.com James Holland

    Thanks for the comment Andy, but this is about products actually on sale. So far only Sony have made their OLED products available on a consumer level, however expensive. I take your point on the OLED screen inside the X Series Walkman, but as it’s unclear who actually makes it I doubt you can pin much hope on that argument. Samsung make MP3 players too you know, and phones. If they’re so far ahead, why don’t they use it to the advantage of their own CE divisions? It’s certainly a one horse race at the moment. At least, until LG makes good on its promise to put an OLED screen in the next iPhone.

  1. Pursuit of perfection: The Japanese swordsmith
  2. The lamp helping bookworms in relationships
  3. Crafting smart paint that detects cracks

Hot chat, right here!


Our most commented stories right now...