You would have heard of plasma, LCD and then the LEDs. Now there is a new technology that promises to take the TV industry by storm, just like the former technologies. This technology is the Organic Light-Emitting Diode – the OLED. This amazing technology makes use of the organic semiconductors rather than the conventional semiconductor compounds that are currently being used.
Some of the amazing used for these OLED is the displays of flat screen TVs. There are several positive traits of OLED TV which promise to change the way we consider our TVs. Some of the advantages of having OLEDs over LCD include:
- The cost will be much lower due to simpler manufacturing techniques once mass production is realized.
- Your OLED screen perhaps be printed on fabric that you can easily drape on your wall. The OLED displays could be easily displayed on flexible fabric or plastic.
- Unlike the LCDs, the OLED pixels emit light which helps improve the picture brightness and enable the colors to appear natural even from much wider viewing angles than usual.
- OLEDs do not require a backlight as that of the LCDs so they can be even thinner than the thinnest appliances available today.
- OLEDs do not consume power while they are inactive which leads to lower energy costs and better power efficiency.
- They offer the possibility of enhanced refresh rates of more than 200 times that of the highest available refresh rates considering that of an LCD.
As it is with the latest technology there are some tradeoffs and then some drawbacks too, which are:
- For quite some time it is very likely that the OLEDs will be very costly than their conventional counterparts.
- The life span of an OLED is currently less than half hour compared to the LCD
- As OLED ages, some colors of light degrade quickly than others creating the issue of color balancing, and the user needs to adjust the balance manually.
- OLEDs offer flexible displays, but water can damage the organic compounds that may shorten their life of flexible displays
- OLEDs work as a mirror when compared to the LCD and leads to poor viewing when the light is bright such as the daylight.
- For most of the black images, the OLEDs consume less than half the power as compared to the LCDs. However, for most of the white images the OLED power consumption catapults to over three times as much.
OLEDs are now available and are quite expensive. So even though the future for these machines look bright, it will perhaps be quite some time before we get to enjoy it’s amazing benefits.