X-bit labs

February 2004 Hardware News Overview (page 10)

Category: Editorial

by Andy Yaschenko

[ 02/23/2004 | 06:37 PM ]

In January, Sharp also announced six new “Aquos” LCD TV-set models, assembled from 6G panels. These devices with a diagonal of 26-37” and a price of $4,000-6,600 will start selling in February-March. A 45” model will complete the series in May.

However, the diagonal size is not the only thing that matters. In January, Sony released a cute product called LF-X1, which is a portable 12.1” LCD screen (I just can’t call it a monitor or a TV-set). It comes with a dock station with an integrated TV-tuner and a Wi-Fi transmitter. The screen contains a receiver that can reproduce the MPEG4 video stream broadcast by the station. In other words, we’ve got a TV-set, which looks like a tablet.

On the other hand, the 12.1” diagonal is rather small, especially if you like plasma screens. While the 61” PX-61XM2P from NEC is normal enough, the 80” panel with 1920x1080 resolution showcased by Samsung is a kind of record (LG’s 76” screen was the previous record-holder). This is only a sample, though. Such screens will start shipping from the second half of the year when the appropriate production line starts working.

Of course, you can’t go around with a plasma panel in your pocket. There’s a solution from Leadtek (Leadtek is selling what eMagin Corporation produces, to be exact) – the Leadtek X-eye. The OLED matrix provides an acceptable image quality equivalent to watching a 50” screen from a distance of 1.5m. The resolution is 800x600, power goes though the USB cable, and the device connects across the standard analog interface.

Another exotic topic of the month was electronic paper. This idea emerges from time to time, but was quite actively discussed in January. Philips announced the foundation of Polymer Vision to produce flexible screens: 5000 items annually with resolution of 320x240 and a diagonal of 4.7 inches. Fujitsu Laboratories showed a nice concept with brightness comparable to that of ordinary paper. Fujitsu doesn’t promise this technology to come into the market before 2006, though.