CES 2013 - Page 14  

^Not a hint of it on my Galaxy, but I will be watchful and informative here if it does.

It seems like it's rare, but not non-existent.

One thing to keep in mind is how little most smartphone displays are used. We are talking minutes to an hour per day, even for most heavy users. TVs are used 4-6 hours per day by most people.

I think the smartphone folks getting burn-in are the really heavy users of the display, especially with higher settings.

What I'm not finding is evidence that Samsung is actually improving this problem in later generations of the display, but perhaps that exists somewhere and someone can point it out.

The reason I'm more bullish on LG's method is that the OLED material is very different in character since it's not being asked to emit blue light to the end user. Because of that, they can use a different, fluorescent blue that is being asked only to act as a part of a white-light "sandwich". Samsung has to have a very different, "purer" blue, lest it look totally unnatural.

According to someone I spoke with in the OLED materials industry, LG's blue should have a longer lifespan than Samsung's. But, again, Samsung might be advancing the state of the art; I'm just not sure.

Yes, the viewing particulars are not all that equitable. I could run a 5-hour experiment and leave the screen on a static background as a test, but given the unlocked status of the phone, the warranty is more limited than typical and 3rd party. I wonder if/when Samsung will adopt the LG method or one like it...perhaps after exhausting all avenues of R&D with their RGB method. The clock is literally ticking.

Well, the thing is Samsung is obviously really good at making the screens for the Galaxy phones. They make millions of them.

On the TV side, there is on the one hand false urgency to match LG and on the other hand, a need to eventually compete in OLED. I wonder if they are sitting and waiting for the "printable" tech to succeed or not. One thing people don't fully grasp is that the upstream equipment is typically not owned by the mfrs. So if Panasonic and Sony perfect "printing" their OLEDs, Samsung could basically leverage most of that R&D and buy technology from the people who supply them the "printers". This is what allows a Chinese company to build an LCD fab for so much less than a similar fab was built a few years ago in Taiwan or Korea. The machines now exist and someone wants to just sell more or them.

While some tech is mfr. proprietary, most isn't.

It is hard to say with absolute certainty, but Samsung seems to have been fairly slow to upgrade the material stack in their smartphone OLED's. It has taken nearly two years for them to adopt a phosphorescent green which will save them 25% in power consumption and while it is possible that they upgraded their red and blue materials, I have never seen it mentioned in an article or analyst report. They seemed to have been operating under the idea that since they were selling every display they could make, that they could wait on improvements.

FWIW, I think it is safe to say that Dupont is working with Samsung on printable displays. Dupont licensed a "leading Asian" OLED manufacturer last year for $20 million. It was widely reported to be Samsung. The fact that Samsung was willing to spend the money to license is promising, but I have my doubts that manufacturing is a near-term event.

Well, I only meant as a matter of perception when it comes to LG one-upping them on delivering product first, as meager as the initial number of units from its only national competitor appears to be. Being first isn't everything, but it can make a lasting impression. Undercutting them at a future date could just as easily outdo that impression, I suppose.

I'm not sure I would agree. If OLED had happened a couple of years ago, and it was $10,000 for a high-end 55" panel back when 55" panels normally cost $5000, I would have paid it. Not because I'm rich, but because it would have been almost a decade of buying flat panels and being dissatisfied with their performance, and if OLED lived up to its claims, it would have been worth the premium to me, as it offers more than a 2x improvement in performance in all areas. If I was spending $10,000 I would have expected to get at least 5-10 years use from it, because you can't do better than infinite contrast, perfect motion handling, perfect colour, and perfect viewing angles. If they get it right, OLED could be the last display most people would ever need to buy, and it's cheaper to buy an expensive panel that lasts, than constantly be upgrading cheaper displays every year or two.

I could see that OLED was realistically at least another 2-3 years away though, and that first generation sets would be likely to have a number of problems, so I bought my Sony HX900 instead of continuing to wait. It has excellent contrast, colour, and doesn't have the motion handling problems of older LCDs. (not perfect, but not bothersome either) People thought I was crazy to spend that much on an LCD (2-3x the price of a similarly sized Edge LED from LG/Samsung) and yet it still bests just about any other display that has been released since, particularly with the trend towards only offering Edge LED.

I definitely still want OLED, but I'm happy enough with my HX900 now that I am no longer in a rush to get it, and I wouldn't pay anything more than today's 55" LCD prices for one. It would also have to be 4K to be a worthwhile upgrade too, which these first generation OLEDs are not. I really notice a lack of resolution with this only being 1080p native, so I would not even consider buying another 1080p display now that 4K panels are becoming mainstream. But I also use my display as a monitor and play games, rather than just using it to watch films, so burn-in is a big concern. If these sets have the possibility to burn in, it's very likely that I would manage it, and that would be completely unacceptable at that price - I would only consider buying a display that has the potential to burn in if it were significantly discounted.
Edited by Chronoptimist - 1/18/13 at 4:43am

Dangerous though. Being first to produce a product that does not deliver on expectations, or pisses people off (the latter is the danger I see with OLED), leaves a lasting impression as well. I'd argue, MUCH longer than being first. I remember the trauma IBM went through with their first revs of OS/2. Even though it was on paper a tower over anything that Microsoft was offering at the time, it was a disaster in real life. That hung around their necks long after they were able to clean the thing up.

True...bad impressions seems to outlive good ones.

I really wonder if you know wealthy people. The ones I know would react to spending $12,000 on a TV that fails in 3-4 years with a "I will never buy from that brand again" approach.

If they achieve that "last display most people would ever need to buy..." then wealthy people would be delighted to buy them, even if they end up replacing them. Wealthy people often build rooms where the electronics are built in and the idea that something might not last is pretty unacceptable. The idea something might be good for a decade means the cost ceases to matter.

Always the future, never the present.

Are they bragging? Or admitting no one wants this thing for $20,000? I'm struggling to tell. It came out in July so we're talking 6 months in a country of 50 million and they are moving 50 per month. My guess, all the smart Koreans are buying the Sharps, pocketing the extra $10-15K (depending on which size they get) and waiting till LG delivers a 2nd-gen product that has a reasonable price.

Which is why you can't ship burn-in prone TVs to wealthy customers and figure they won't mind. Or why Boeing's 787 is in trouble right now (even though I suspect they'll get by it, it will come with tremendous cost).

It stands to reason that if LG is warning about it for their own OLED product then it's real, no? If it weren't something to worry about, they'd be flaunting that left and right I would have thought.

I'm either going bonkers, or they've pulled their warning. Here's the post from the Crystal LED thread where Wizziwig saw the warning from LG about OLED. I read it myself on the LG site.

http://www.avsforum.com/t/1386177/sony-crystal-led-display-new-display-tech/360#post_22826405

Here's the LG URL he references: http://www.lg.com/us/oled/whats-oledtv.jsp

And here's what it used to have within it:

^Yes, I rememba' those references, though I didn't verify them at the source site. LG must've had a recent breakthrough.

Which argument would you like:

(a) Rich people don't care if their TVs are trash in 3 years or

(b) The TVs will last 10 years ?

I'm going to guess LG is shooting for (b), but that's just me. It's pretty clear that the technology used in the Galaxy S phones is not good enough for 10-year TVs. There should be none with burn in and yet there are some. That said, it's not clear the technology in the TVs will be identical. That said, comparing to 10-12 years ago is pointless. When plasma was new, it was the only flat panel TV you could buy period. People would put up with a lot just to get one. That is no longer true. People are not going to put up with astronomical pricing or design flaws just to get somewhat better contrast. It's a different world and so comparisons to some prior world do not apply.

Or they pulled the warning and will place it somewhere else.

Or they agree that their technology makes the risk pretty freaking marginal.

Or they are still repeating the errors of bygone days where the warning was in LCD TV manuals for years, even though the risk was pretty much non-existent in every such product.

Ha! Got one in. Good thread.

closed OP request