[rogo]

(1) Apex's 42" ALiS plasma with a $4K MSRP is due this spring. Could this push the non-ALiS HD 42" market to lower prices? We can hope.


(2) Sharp's 30" is showing up at retail everywhere and -- at least in one store -- was $4K (with stand and speakers). Sony's 30" seems very pricey right now.


(3) Toshiba and Canon's "single-pixel CRT" technology, SED, is now due for commercialization in 2004. Apparently, the challenge the technology faced 2 years ago -- keeping the gap between the plates consistent at a few nanometers -- is the same challenge today. But they are claiming to have a product next year. Size and price unknown. [They claim to have a 30-50% advantage in cost over plasma, but it's unclear whether they mean today's cost or the cost when they reach the market.]


(4) iFire's inorganic electroluminescent technology is supposed to be prototyped in monochrom this year, prototyped in color next year, and released in 2005. This technology is being targeted at the 30" diagonal TV initially. It's going to need to be awfully, awfully cheap to be competitive in 2005 at 30". I am quite confident that LCD will be $1500 by then (recall that the other source I quoted had it reaching that level by mid-04 which struck me and others as unlikely but not impossible). Also, 37" plasma should be $1200 or so by mid-05.


(5) OLED continues to march on, but the chance of any commercialization at 30" and up before 2006 remains zero. DuPont coined the name "OLight" for its technology supply subsidiary to the OLED industry. Also, red-green-blue diodes with 10,000 hour+ life have been confirmed to be a real thing right now.


Mark

 

[dwx]

We must be missing something on the SED stuff, it's really starting to look like a non-starter. Clearly there's a magic bullet we don't know about somewhere in there or they would be bothering with it.


-dwx

 

[rogo]

Dwx: They are bothering because Toshiba has backed no other horse and because Canon has no game otherwise either.


Apparently, to make it cheap enough, they need the magic nano-gap and that is just hard to do.


Also, I don't think any new display tech has ever come to market on schedule or easily.


Don't give up on these guys yet.


Mark

 

[LisaJ]

Quote:

(1) Apex's 42" ALiS plasma with a $4K MSRP is due this spring. Could this push the non-ALiS HD 42" market to lower prices? We can hope.

Im really curious about Apex, in other electronics they seem to be very well priced and of decent qaulity, of course we know the Plasma ballgame is a little different. However, I think this will fit a place in the market somewhere and the name is recognizable enough to give it some push.


I think Apex is definatley one to put on the "must watch list".

 

[ConceptVBS]

Quote:

Originally posted by LisaJ Im really curious about Apex, in other electronics they seem to be very well priced and of decent qaulity, of course we know the Plasma ballgame is a little different. However, I think this will fit a place in the market somewhere and the name is recognizable enough to give it some push. I think Apex is definatley one to put on the "must watch list".

Those canadians seem to be rollin up their sleeves. Just wish we have an American electronics company that can compete with the rest.

 

[rogo]

Apex is Chinese.

 

[rogo]

LG Philips president Koo Bon-joon said today:


* That the global LCD TV market would surge to 12.6 million units by 2005 from 1.4 million units last year -- according to analysts


* That the price of a 30-inch LCD TV was projected to fall below $2,000 in 2004 (essentially reiterating the other prediction I posted about last week; perhaps they are quoting the same source but this guy makes LCDs at least so I'm excited about that)


* That big-screen 42-inch models were expected to reach that milestone in 2006 (the $2000 milestone)


* That Sharp is the king of the TV market with a 50 percent share, but that he plans to compete quite aggressively to take share (excellent!)


* That their 6th generation plant comes on line in 2005 and will use 1.2 x 1.85 meter motherglass. He added nothing about that and -- understand this -- it's not being built for this purpose, but it could produce 87-inch panels. Their 7th generation plant will use 1.8 x 2.1 meter motherglass but isn't expected until a few years after 2005.


This continued news about competition seems pretty good to me. I am hoping that to keep LCD at bay, the 42" plasma reaches $1250 or so by 2006 and would not rule that out. But regardless, bring on lower prices, and bigger and better panels.


Mark