So I am flipping through a weekly insert in our local paper for Fred Meyer, and my eye catches an ad for a new Samsung 42″ LED television for a little under $2500. I’m instantly confused and perplexed, as I often am, but this time it’s because I am rather surprised that a retail outlet such as the Fred Meyer electronics department, would be one of the premier resellers for cutting edge video technology. I shop at Fred Meyer all the time, love the place, but it’s not the first store to roll off my tongue when searching for the latest electronic gadgets. Also, I’ve been waiting for OLED technology to make it’s way from Japan for several years, and expected there to be quite the fanfare when these were being shipped and….oh, wait….did I say OLED? As in organic light emitting diode technology? The ad said LED… that’s the same thing, right?
Not even close. In fact, the cheapest OLED display I have seen manufactured that I could potentially get my hands on right now, is an 11 inch display being sold by Sony (XEL-1), for about $5000 USD. Organic LED eliminates the need for a backlight. Traditional LCD screens, like what your computer monitor is made from, utilize a backlight to illuminate the color in the LCD layer. With OLED, the screen itself becomes the source of illumination so no backlight necessary. Contrast that with an LED television available now for a reasonable price, the screen is actually an LCD screen, using LED’s for the backlighting source.
So if I were to buy a new TV today, would I skip the LED type? No way! They are awesome. The contrast ratio is fantastic, the color reproduction is great, and they are even more conservative on power requirements that today’s conventional LCD models.
My issue is not with the technology, it’s with the marketing of it. Not so long ago, plasma TV’s were being hyped as the must-have accessory for high definition signal viewing. But remember how they were being sold? “HDTV ready”, “HDTV capable”, and “HDTV monitor”. Not surprisingly, the HDTV part was usually in bold, and the ready, capable, or monitor part was usually not. This was because while true, the unit could reproduce an accurate HDTV signal, they did not have integrated tuners in them, so you were on your own when it came to piping in a hi-def source. That entailed buying a separate piece of equipment, just to tune in high definition broadcast signals, or in the clear QAM signals over the cable system (don’t get me started on the HDTV antenna marketing thing).
What I feel is happening is a subtle brainwashing of the consumer to accept all televisions marketed with LED technology as the same. Eventually, when the real LED TV’s hit the market, the OLED versions, there will be enough confusion so as the consumer will not be immediately aware of the difference between the two – other than the price of the OLED being much higher, which will allow the lower end LED model resellers to squeeze a little bit more of a high out of the LED bong pipe.
Ok, that was a horrible analogy, I’ll admit, but you can see where I’m going with this. Today’s LED television is LED BACK-LIT, it is not a true LED like an organic LED is, it’s just an LCD TV with a more efficient method of illumination. Don’t call it somethin’ it ain’t.