Samsung Gets the AMOLED Out
Samsung created an entire cluster of fuss at January’s customer electronics burlesque with its archetype laptop that showed gorgeous OLED images on a clear “see-though” screen. It all appeared a bit sci-fi-ish, but bangs are that the Korean marque will bring AMOLED (active-matrix organic light-emitting diode) gadgets to market in the next year.
Conferring to the site PlusPlastic Electronics, as a teaser to the laptop, Samsung in the next few months will bid a movable audio/video player, the IceTouch, that integrates the technology, much in the way that Sony has immersed a toe into the OLED pool with its $2,500, 11-inch desktop TV and its Walkman X series. OLED screens have also found their way into mobile handsets, a benefit in that arena because they guzzle less battery power.
The 16-gigabyte Ice Touch, also on display at C.E.S., has a 2-inch screen. Probable price: over $300.
Though the laptop screen showed off excellent color and detail, the feeling is a bit disturbing, since one sees objects, lights and shadows right through it.
“We have a lab in Korea that is currently working on developing a laptop with partially-transparent screen,” Samsung Electronics America’s Reid Sullivan articulated PlusPlastic. “Soon, I imagine that all Samsung’s audio-visual products will feature this technology. We want to be the first in this market.”
