Sony announced the release of the first production OLED television, the XEL-1, today. 

In case you are not familiar with the term OLED, it stands for Organic Light Emitting Diodes.  I’m sure you have played around with LED keychain lights and other gadgets.  This is a similar technology, but an OLED uses organic electroluminescent materials that naturally emit different colors of light. 

If you are not a technophile, you may not understand the true significance of this launch, but it is the next big step for several reasons:

• OLEDs organically emit light naturally, so there is no need for a backlight on the display.  This has two advantages.  First, they can be incredibly thin.  Second, the natural light saves somewhere in the neighborhood of 40% of the energy versus a traditional LCD.   When OLEDs transition to laptops, you can expect 30-50% better battery life. 
• LCDs have a bad habit of showing a blur or ghost images during fast moving scenes.  The XEL-1 can render video up to 1,000 times faster than an LCD.  This equals no more blur.
• Contrast is a major issue with current LCD and Plasma displays.  They usually reach around 3,000:1 and seem to fight for every additional multiple.  The XEL-1 boasts a contrast of 1,000,000:1!  It is not even a competition.

So what are the disadvantages? 

• Well, it’s not exactly a big screen at only 11”.  However, the breakthrough is that it is only .12 inches (3mm) thick.  As technology progresses, they will get larger and probably even thinner. 
• OLEDs would have been released by now, but the life span has not been up to par.  With the XEL-1, Sony estimates the screen will last 30,000 hours, or about 13 years for the average user.  Not sure about you, but I am not planning on having the same TV in 13 years, so this is not much of a drawback for me.
• Finally, PRICE.  The cost is about $1,750 USD.  Since you can get a 42” HDTV Plasma for that, it seems extremely high for an 11” screen.  Remember, we are talking OLED here.  Early adopters do what early adopters do and that is buy early with less sensitivity to price.

Well, if you are one of those early adopters and are ready to plop down a couple grand for the latest and greatest, your only option is to wait for the December 1st Japanese release and have one shipped over the Pacific. 

You can find the Sony XEL-1 Japanese website here.