Apple

Mobile-Review.com has posted a preview of the new Samsung Wave with the Super-AMOLED. And they absolutely love the display. It's great under sunlight, it is bright with unbelievable colors, it's got better lifetime (Samsung say that this is because there are less 'layers of air'). And the touch is very responsive - even better than the iPhone's display. 

They continue to say that the screen is marvelous, extremely bright and crisp. It is the best they have seen in any portable device: "After the S8500, the displays found in the Nexus and other phones seem bleak and lifeless". They posted a few of photos showing the Wave next to a Nexus One and to a Nokia X6. The difference is showing, alright, click on the photos to see it better (the Wave Super-AMOLED is on the top on both photos):

So, yesterday Apple finally unveiled their new device, the iPad tablet, which basically seems to be an oversized iPhone. And it hasn't got an OLED display, but rather an LCD (an IPS LCD to be exact - which has a better image quality and viewing angle than normal LCDs, but requires more power).

Apple iPad

So it hasn't got an OLED - this was rather expected. It seems that we'll have to keep waiting for Apple's first OLED gadget.

There's a very interesting discussion over at ArsTechnica about OLEDs and Apple's upcoming new device. They are talking to Barry Young from the OLED-Assocation, and he says that no one is making any 10" OLED panels, so it's not possible that Apple are 'hoarding' up all the available panels....

Barry says that Samsung, the most advanced OLED manufacturer, can produce about fourteen 10.1-inch panels per substrate. That means that they could produce around 150,000 10.1" panels a month, but they currently cannot meet their small-panel demand, so it's not likely they are producing any larg displays. 

LG is even less likely, as they have 10%-15% of Samsung's capacity. LG has a new plant that's coming online later in 2010, but Barry says that it'll be mostly dedicated to their own 15" TV panels. LG would have to hurt their own TV business in order to supply panels to Apple.

"The best case is that if Apple announces an AMOLED with a 10.1-inch display, it would have much higher price and have very low volumes," Young concluded. Maybe Apple will announce an OLED device that will only be available much alter in 2010.

Barry says that the future for OLEDs look bright. Samsung are preparing a new 8G fab that can produce both LCDs and AMOLEDs. This can be used to 42" OLEDs. Samsung has doubled their capacity in 2009 and will do so again in 2010. The only bad news come from Sony - who has gone back to an R&D phase.

Apple is holding an event on January 27th, to show off their "latest creation". It might be their tablet/e-reader which may or may-not have an OLED display option, or the new 4G iPhone (with an OLED display?). Or maybe both.

We'll to have to wait for just a few more days, but we're really hoping for the first ever Apple OLED product...

Just a week after telling us that the 3.7" AMOLED as used in Google's Nexus One costs $23.5, iSupply now says that the 3.7" TFT-LCD used in Motorola's Droid costs $17.75. That means that the AMOLED costs 32% more. The touchscreen overlay costs $17.75 in both the Nexus One and the Droid. This means that totally, the AMOLED touch display is only 16% more expensive than the touch TFT-LCD.

Interestingly, the iPhone 3GS' LCD is smaller than the Droid's (at 3.5") but costs more - $19.25. That means that Google's 3.7" AMOLED costs only 22% more than the smaller iPhone display.

Obviously these are just iSupply's estimates, but it's interesting anyway. 

Via Engadget 

The Apple-OLED rumor mill never stops working. Korea Times reports that KT plans to introduce a new, upgrade 4G iPhone to the local market in April. The iPhone 4G will have an OLED display, live-video chat capabilities and a removable battery. It'll have dual-core processors and a faster graphic chip. 

There are also claims that Apple ordered lot's of 10" OLED and LCD panels for their upcoming tablet. Everybody's hoping that Apple will unveil the tablet at January 27th, so we'll finally know what's going on with that...

There are some new rumors that Apple's new device will actually be marketed primarily as an e-reader. It makes sense that Apple will want to enter the e-reader market now, when it's starting to take off.

It'll be interesting to see what kind of display will be chosen for such a device. Almost all e-readers use e-paper displays which are very efficient and great on the eye. But they are monochrome (although color ones are expected in 2010) and have slow refresh rate. If Apple wants this device to be used as an internet tablet too, they'll have to choose another display type. Obviously we're hoping for the first Apple OLED product...