Do we need expensive OLED screens in laptops?
How much extra would you pay for a thin OLED display in your laptop?
There's been an alarming amount of chatter recently about laptop makers adding thin-but-expensive OLED displays to systems in the near future. At this week's IFA trade show in Germany, Tech Radar reports that Kyu Uhm, Head of Worldwide Sales and Marketing for Samsung's Computing Division, told an audience, "Samsung is the largest OLED screen manufacturer. And as soon as it's available commercially for laptops we will adopt it." His best estimate was, "Probably sometime Q3 next year."
Sony and Lenovo have also talked about adding the technology to laptops, and while the paper-thin screens look great in the real-world examples we've seen, it's also currently very expensive, and not something you'll find a budget-priced Netbook anytime soon.
Just last week, the Wall Street Journal reported that Sony is putting the brakes on OLED development, after recession-concious consumers failed to snap up the company's' $2,500 11-inch OLED TV.
Of course, we've seen PC makers talk up expensive new technologies before, from SSD hard drives to 3G mobile broadband antennas, only to see those parts remain essentially specialty items. So, the question begs, would you pay extra for an OLED display on a laptop? How much of a premium would you pay? Sound off in the comments section below.
New York native Dan Ackerman, a former radio DJ turned journalist, has written about technology and music for publications including Spin, Blender, The Hollywood Reporter, and USA Today. He hosts the weekly Digital City podcast and the New York edition of Editors' Office Hours. Dan's new album, Tales Out of Night School, is available now. E-mail Dan. 
My guess is that a few people would pay a premium of maybe $100 or $200 over another premium priced notebook (e.g., 17" models like the MacBook Pro), but not more.
Whether or not an individual posts here saying "yes, I'd pay a thousand dollars for one" is irrelevant. PCs are commodity items now and have been for some time.
The major reason that the manufacturers want to push OLED so quickly out is because the economies of scale make it cost effective to do so. LCD technologies literally took two decades (from about 1974 - 1994) before they were cheap enough to scale to large sizes and be used in tv's laptops and monitors.
The reason was the specialty manufacturing methods required to make them, they are complex combination's of glass sandwiches and liquid matrix materials and lots of wire, expensive and requires precision manufacturing on their own dedicated lines unique from stand are MOS based technology fabrication facilities. OLED's are very different, first, they are much simpler in design, less prone to yield failures that boost costs through out manufacture and can be produced on standard FAB's without significant modification to the line. All this makes the ROI on the technology much closer for the manufacturer and with the technologies strengths (best display technology ever made by far) ensures that the initial products will yield a good amount of cream as early adopters bite the bullet for the rest of us.Anything the manufacturers can do to get off the relatively high cost, low margin LCD technology as fast as possible they will do. I predict OLED technology adoption to go faster than any other technology, so far it is already in hand held devices and some cell phones, already in a prototype Sony screen and in pending Samsung large area screens, by 2013 it will be replacing existing technologies en mass across device tiers because again...doing so is a win win for the manufacturers ..if something costs you less to make and it is better than the previous generation product you are going to switch to it asap to maximize profits in the transition.
Now, that said...the first products will be relatively expensive but they won't stay that way. A similar cost and quality driven transition occurred in digital cameras. The big two , Canon and Nikon both have switched the majority of their lines over to CMOS based sensors since methods were found to match and then exceed the signal quality of CMOS sensors when compared to CCD sensors, the fact that CMOS could be produced on existing MOS lines meant they had a built in cost advantage for the manufacturer which could be passed to profit and to the consumer in lower camera prices..and that is what happened. Same will occur with OLED as it cleans out the relatively inefficient , low quality junk that is LCD, Plasma and CRT technologies.
A difference between OLED and SSD's lies in the fact that SSD's are still expensive when comparing cost per gigabyte, they are fast but still can't approach the amazing sizes of routine HDD's. Moreover, HDD's can be RAIDed to simulate the speed of SSD but retaining the robustness to rewrites that SSD's lack, finally HHD production is a refined , high volume process that is very cheap relative to SSD's to produce..the price advantage and the aforementioned performance parity make a switch over mandatory only for those that require the bleeding edge fastest drives and is willing to pay for it.
So to answer your questions, would I pay more? Probably not, the price reduction window on OLED's once they hit mass market is going to be very fast, on the order of how memory scales ...by 2014 there will be 50' OLED screens for sale just around $2,000 by my estimation. When the smaller screens start being mated to laptops they will significantly change the performance equation by virtue that they are so power frugal compared to LCD's ...simply switching the screen with improve battery life on laptops quite noticeably and this increased performance is going to be gobbled up by the consumer (despite profit markup from the manufacturer) Not to mention the thinner screens and lighter weight of these laptops with no need for backlights. I'd pay a premium of up to 20% to get OLED for the advantages it will offer but those not aware how quickly the prices will come down would likely pay more.
Good insight by the way.
Great insights man, I totally agree. The faster they "force" mass market adoption, the faster prices will drop, and the faster we will all have beautiful, power sipping displays. I am still curious how they do in sunlight, as mentioned, but then if they are being put in mobile phones, I am sure they are at the least quite passable in sunlight.
sent2null, nice post. Given the differences you provide in OLED vs. SSD, the article's comparison is not a valid one. Also, when LED back-lighting was available in laptops, I remember it being hailed as a step in the right direction (not necessarily by the author) and it came with a price premium of at least $50-100. I understand it wasn't as complete an overhaul, but most computer upgrades/improvements are evolutionary not revolutionary.
If that's true, I suppose all major companies will be thrusting their heads into the OLED business very soon.
As a Microsoft fanboy, KUDOS TO THE ZUNE TO HAVE AN OLED SCREEN BEFORE THE iPOD!!!!
1, No matter what all you say, the market place is going to be king and the consumer is the market place
2, Adaptation of new technology relies on the market place to bring innovation to the for front. It's like wireless N tech which has been slow to take over wireless laptops, while wireless cards of a G flavor are common in mass
3. 10 yrs ago who would have thought that desktop computers would cost less than 800 dollars and have 1 to 2 tera bites of HD space. Again the market place moved the space and the manufacturing might to this point and beyond
What that means is weather or not OLEDs become big is weather or not they appeal to the customer. If the customer can't see any point then the move to OLED will be passed bye to what ever technology people feel is better; If OLED is found to be better then I as a sales person will be talking up a storm about there value in the next couple of yrs, as if your crazy not to want one. Look what happened to RAMBUS memory or RDRAM or Track balls or what happened to early laser emitter keyboards or VR helmets or video games.
OLED screens in premium notebooks will be accepted and purchased by three classes of people - those who want the extraordinary image quality that OLED screens can produce, those who want the extremely long battery life that OLED screens can provide, particularly in portable workstations, and these who love to be technology early-adapters (remember, there was a market, however small, for the 42" plasma HDTV when it first hit the market at $12,000).
http://www.oledgadgets.com
- by estabardos November 9, 2009 3:43 PM PST
- Does anyone have any figures for the weight reductions we will see with OLED displays or have any manufacturers made public the kind of future specs we can expect to be seeing with their OLED displays?
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