Sony's OLED TVs.

Way back early in year 2004, Sony announced of mass production of OLED displays. This year, Sony have been showing off their 27in, yet to be priced announced, OLED TVs during a Tokyo Show in April. Sony have again put the OLED TVs on display during Sony Australia's annual consumer electronics trade event, known as The Sony Experience.

Materials in an OLED display emit light when an electrical current is applied. Because of their luminescent nature, OLED displays don't require a backlight, consume less power and can result in thinner screens than LCDs with much brighter screens. Boasting darkness contrast ratios of 1,000:1 (translate to Dynamic Contrast of 1,000,000:1 !!), 1080P output, 180 degrees all round viewing angle, less than 0.01ms response time and 100% NTSC color reproduction, these OLED TVs are to die for.

Unfortunately, its expected that the prices are also to die for, as only prototype models are being display. Sony have not committed to any street date for the OLED TVs, but have hinted that they may hit the market as early as in 2008. It will take mass acceptance of the technology as well as many years for the prices to reach affordable levels.

Sony Bravia Xseries LCD TV

I was walking past some electrical shop recently. It turned out to be a Sony Centre, the place where they showcase the latest Sony gadgets in. What caught my eyes to this was a screen so clear that the images seemed to pop out in real life.

Now, I am not promoting Sony (but I do like the PS2/PS3, their HP, their TVs.... haha), but the Bravia X-series LCD TV was something that you really need to see it with your own eyes to believe.



Sony Bravia KLV-40X200A is in a soft silver finish, with an elegent floating glass design, with removable stand and two 11watt speakers.

Sony's marketing have tagged the X-series with "Full HD", meaning the max screen resolution is at a very impressive 1920X1080 and 1080P refresh. Using the new Bravia Engine EX, Sony have smartly used it with the built in HD tuner and "live colour creation", the TV increases the resolution by 4 times to fit the max resolution. This new feature is the single one most prominent feature of the TV. Also featured is the S-PVA (Super Vertical Pattern Alignment) technology, the screen is viewable from 178 degrees too.

The screen display is very impressive, being hooked up to a HDMI output from a DVD player and resolution set at 1080P (I asked the sales rep as I cant see the setup at the rear), I was salivating at every image displayed on the 42in TV. The clarity and details was really impressive as the images was almost 3D to my untrained eyes. And imagine hooking this baby up to the HDMI PS3 1080P games, heaven!!

Featuring dual HDMI, component video, s-video, Dobly(R) Surround Pro-Logic II, this baby is fully loaded and ready to go. You can even hook it up to yr PC and play yr fav games on it as well, but this cant be verified as it was not hooked up to a PC. I am looking forward to finding someone in MY that will use this baby as a home media center.

As Msian free and paid air TV channels go, the images are not broadcasted in HD (yet, as RTM plans to go HD in a few years, but I wont hold my breath for it), so the max resolution will only be impressive with the proper setup as above. Watching regular Tv or Astro will still bump the resolution lower, but its still much more impressive that other brands. Still some consolation as Sony boasts to have an "Astro Picture Enhancement Mode" that will clean up the smudges of Astro images usually found in regular HD LCD TVs.

Still, there is a massive hurdle to get this baby back to my living room as my centerpiece, the cost. The 40inch KLV-40X200A retails at RM15,999.00, the 46inch KLV-46X200A at RM19,999.00 and the 52 inch KLV-52X200A is at a whopping RM50,000.00. Comparatively, the new 40inch V-series KLV-40V200A retails at RM9,999.00.

Now you know why I am depressed when I eventually left the outlet...