Sony Demonstrates Flexible, Bendable OLED

Sadly, OLED technology was hard to find at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show. At last year’s CES, Sony had demonstrated a 27-inch OLED television that was both unattainable and gorgeous. At this year’s show, however, all Sony displayed was a tiny, flexible OLED.

Sony’s flexible OLED screen was first shown on stage at Howard Stringer’s morning keynote, with his hand bending an OLED screen playing a Beyonce music video. He joked that it was the only chance one would get to squeeze Beyonce.

We checked out the OLED on the show floor for a closer look. Certainly on first impressions, the screen is definitely not one normally expects from OLED. Instead of gorgeous colors and contrast, the screen was low-resolution. Of course, the focus of the technology was on the flexible display, so quality wasn’t the point.

The display measured 2.5-inches diagonal with a 160 x 120 resolution, and just 0.2 mm thick at 1.5 grams. Sony boasted that the display had “great mechanical flexibility” with a bending radius of less than 2.5 cm.

The idea behind this technology isn’t for super-fantastic looking displays, but rather for more non-traditional applications such as an OLED bracelet. Whatever it’ll be, we can’t wait for OLED to become a relevant technology in the market.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
  • Tindytim
    A bendable bracelet seems silly to me, as electronic ink is a much better idea for such an application.

    I could only see this being interesting for t-shirt. Like the shirts in the PS3 commercials.
    Reply
  • gratzuwin
    Wow! Are u seriously a professional journalist? Next time walk behind the same display to see the other OLED products including the 27" screen. Or try asking a Sony rep if you can't navigate the floor yourself. Ridiculous....
    Reply
  • descendency
    OLED = Major Vaporware
    Reply
  • Tindytim
    descendencyOLED = Major VaporwareSony is already selling OLED displays. 2 of them at 2 different sizes.
    Reply
  • Tindytim
    descendencyOLED = Major VaporwareSony is already selling OLED displays. 2 of them at 2 different sizes.
    Reply
  • Just because sony are selling OLED TV's doesnt make them decent products. Their lifetime is short, cost high, brightness decays pretty rapidly over a few hours and the blue light doesnt even come from an OLED. It'll be a very long time before OLED technology becomes the mainstream.
    Reply