Wait Before Buying An OLED Television

While OLED televisions and monitors may become the standard of the future, they do not make a viable option for commercial or home use at the moment. The technology may look promising and attractive, but manufacturers have some major drawbacks to work out before OLED displays see popular use.

The manufacturing process is very expensive, involving the use of rare materials.
One issue with OLED TVs is the price. The only, mass-produced OLED screen currently available is an 11-inch screen produced by Sony. I mean no offence to anyone’s culture, but I grew up believing that a television of that size usually fills a secondary role in the kitchen, studio, or workshop.

Sony’s XEL-1 OLED television carries a hefty price tag for a secondary-role view screen. The XEL-1 currently costs $2499.99 in the US, about the same as a fifty-inch plasma screen from Amazon.co.co.uk.

OLED screens also have an incredibly short lifespan.
The biggest issue OLED has is a short life span. The organic compound that composes the screen begins to degrade immediately upon use and, as a result, OLED Televisions only have a life span of about 14000 hours (about five years at eight hours per day). To put that in perspective — LCD, LED, and Plasma screen technologies have an average lifespan of 60000 hours, more than four times as long.

This means OLED televisions can hardly present an attractive and affordable option for commercial use, in which businesses may need to use televisions far longer than eight hours.

The average individual in the market for a new television, as well as many businesses and institutions, should wait on OLED. Wait for OLED technology to improve and become more affordable. Let the technophiles out there buy them up and play around with them.

LCD and Plasma screens are, just now, becoming an accepted standard, with years of development and refinement behind them. OLED Televisions will reach that point too, eventually, but not right now.