Sony's 11in OLED finally lands in Europe

Blighty will finally receive its first shipments of Sony’s first commercially available OLED TV, the XEL-1, later this week, but your pockets had better be deep. Sony XEL-1 OLED TV Sony's 11in XEL-1 OLED TV: lands in Europe this week The 11in XEL-1 was launched in Japan back in October 2007 and appeared on US store shelves …

[Adrian]

until recently

it was $2 to the pound but it seems that was lost in translation in Japan where they read it as 2 pounds to the dollar.

And what does 3mm thick mean if the required base unit it the size of a couple of house bricks ?

[jonathan keith]

Ahoy, hearties!

Treasure Island in view! Raise the prices! Er, sails, I mean, of course. Yes, sails.

[Anonymous Coward]

Is sony

Trying to be Apple? Are they trying to position themselves as a "Premium Brand" who are above mundane things like reasonable pricing?

[Jon]

Shocking

How can companies continue to hike the prices of there equipment so steeply for sale in other countries?

It's aboslutely insane that we are expected to pay almost double the price for identical hardware.

[Sampler]

2 years later..

..and twice the cost - so if i'd've imported a Japense set back in Oct' 07 I'd've been financial better off aswell as having a screen vastly ahead of schedule.

Can't be that hard to change the plug can it - after all being a monitor it's a standard connection so that's not a problem.

[Ash]

How lovely!

A £3.5k HD screen you need to be 18" away from to see anything.

I'll pass, thanks.

[Fluffykins]

At that price

Does it somehow have access to TV channels that aren't almost unformly crap?

[TeeCee]

"The set's just 3mm thick".

But the stand's a whopper though, presumably containing all the inconvenient bits that usually serve to make the thing thicker. If so that would put the kybosh on hanging the thing on the wall, which is where thinness is a *real* advantage. Oops.

I suppose that in Sony's world it's perfectly possible to have a dual-processor, Quad-SLI gaming rig with a raid disk array in an even more compact format than those mac-in-a-screen thingies. This would use the simple and time-honoured expedient of "hiding the big ugly box under the desk".

[Stuart]

ouuuucccchhhh!!!

I paid about £250 for an early 15" LCD monitor. It was a major advance on an alternative CRT of the time albeit at 250% of the price. Prices/spec improved. Now you can get 19" monitors under £100.

On those ratios nobody is going to buy sufficient in bulk to get mass production going until you get a lot of change from a grand. I'm betting the majority early-adopters will be taking a raincheck on this.

Come on Sony - you are going to have to lose a lot of money before you make some methinks.

[Len Goddard]

Cheaper to collect

It would be a lot cheaper to fly to Tokyo and buy it there.

[Francis Boyle]

Ridiculous price

but please buy one so I don't have to wait too long to get one at a sensible price. (You know you want to).

[Anonymous Coward]

Not sure it's actually HD

You should check. It certainly wasn't HD when it came out in Japan.

The genuinely black blacks and the sparkling highlights will mean the images look extremely lifelike (as good as a CRT in fact but with a thin, flat, screen and perfect image geometry).

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Shocking

" How can companies continue to hike the prices of there equipment so steeply for sale in other countries?

It's aboslutely insane that we are expected to pay almost double the price for identical hardware."

Companies get away with it because people are prepared to pay those prices. It's as simple as that. Perhaps you should ask the question why the majority of people are so stupid, instead?

[bluesxman]

Probably cheaper...

... to jump on a plane to the Land of the Rising Sun and pick one up at the local equivalent of Comet.

[Psymon]

OLED is amazing stuff but...

Last I heard, OLED had a very slow response rate, and like flash drives, is an electro-chemical reaction, so will have a finite lifespan, much like the early plasma displays.

I have a kameleon Mk1 remote that uses OLED for its buttons, and although it's fantastic for that intended purpose, I've noticed that there is a considerable residual glow. Just like the really old TVs.

I can see that causing problems.

You've just sneaked downstairs for a bit of late night porn while the missus is asleep. mid-stroke you hear the stairs creak. Frantically you fumble around for the remote, while simultaniously trying to make yourself respectable...

"Where you watching porn?"

"No."

"Then what's that?!?"

you glance back over to the telly in the dark, only to be confronted with the ghostly apparition of some bint in a highly compromising position!

Paris, cause her ghostly apparition always causes a glow!

[Anonymous Coward]

price difference

so that means I can, say, fly to the US, do some sightseeing, pick up the OLED, and bring it home for less than the UK price.

And even if I have to pay the import VAT I'm still better off!

[Lol Whibley]

hike the prices

any excessive import duty or such levied by HM Customs on this..? Is there an official reason they think the price should be so massively inflated? i get the dollar/yen/quid conversion thing but it still seems excessive.. any thoughts Oh Crowd Of Wisdom?

[Bumhug]

Sonys guide to the credit crunch

Step 1: Spend vast amounts of money on R&D

Step 2: Come up with a product that on paper is fairly impressive but in practice useless

Step 3: Spend vast amounts of money making it look pretty

Step 4: Spend vast amounts of money marketing the thing

Setp 5: Release the fairly impressive but in practice useless product in Japan and US at a price point higher than anything else on the market, if they complain slag off the competition and say your product is the best and people are paying for quality

Step 6: Wait a few months

Step 7: Release fairly impressive but in practice useless product in Europe for twice the price it costs in Japan and US, if they complain blame VAT

Step 8: Lose billions

[Anonymous Coward]

Its all about the look

Ive actually seen one of these in the flesh on a recent visit to Tokyo (the Sony building in Ginza is a joy for any Sony fanboi but I digress) OLED does indeed look fantastic & with the HD demo I saw it makes the price slightly less gaulling all be it still fantastically expensive but that's Japan

I paid 600Y for a local beer in one faux Italian restaurant (only once I may add) Amazing place though :) As for buying stuff from Sony Style you must be completely devoid of any intelligence if you buy direct. You can pretty much guarantee that Amazon et all will be way below the RRP when it arrives for the masses.

Re the tuner box, well yes I see the point but its tech demonstrator in my opinion with more developement to follow as the tech progresses, Im not doing in to why it looks better as techies should know already.

Incidentally it seems that the tuner box will make a comeback in the newer Bravia LCD sets that are also wafer thin - I've always preferred a single connecting cable rather than a wedge of phat scart's & HDMI cables going up the chimney. But thats me.....

[Anonymous Coward]

@Adrian

"it was $2 to the pound but it seems that was lost in translation in Japan where they read it as 2 pounds to the dollar."

Give it a few weeks and 2 pounds to the dollar probably won't be far off the mark.

[Anonymous Coward]

@AC 11:45

Is SONY...Trying to be Apple? Are they trying to position themselves as a "Premium Brand" who are above mundane things like reasonable pricing?

Why is Apple always credited with innovation? Sony were in the overpricing game before Jobs even started stealing from phone companies. Anybody remember the Trinitron TV?

[JP Sistenich]

For once it doesn't pay

to live on the continent...

€4758,81 for us over here! With the current exchange rate, I could fly over to London, stay weekend at the Ritz, and still make it back with change!

Helicopter, because it would be cheaper to have it air-dropped.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not at that price...

Hang on, the UK is going down the pan faster and further than Japan and they honestly think UK people are stupid enough to pay THAT kind of price?!?! Well, if we do, it proves all that the French have always said about us.

What was that about elderberries?

[Anonymous Coward]

@ JP Sistenich

Ha! HA! that sticks it to you European types, not laughing at our devalued currency now are you?

Serves you right for having money that is actually worth something.

[Anonymous Coward]

@Psymon

The backlights on small widgets which have an afterglow use a different sort of electroluminescence.

Actually OLED intrinsically has a very fast response time - too fast to worry about. In reality, motion-blur will be governed by the "sample and hold" effect, i.e. what duty-cycle Sony have chosen to run the OLED at (probably 50-100% to maximise lifetime). Motion blur will be at least as good as, and often better than, any LCD-TV on the market.

As for the price, Google shopping results are already showing the set advertised for £2599 (inc VAT and carriage).

[Heff]

wtf

a mere 2 grands shipping and handling from japan, sir. a bargain.

[Bad Beaver]

Why

Why would I want a 11" TV in the first place? It's ridiculous.

[Sam]

11" TV

Strange.

That's exactly the same screen size as the TV my Parents bought in 1950 for 60 guineas (or £63 for those watching in black and white).

Isn't progress wonderful?

Mine's the one with the fold-out jet-pack