Sony’s XEL-1 OLED TV Expensive and Limited

• November 23rd, 2007 | General

You may recall our post from earlier in the week regarding Sony’s OLED TV, the Xel-1. The idea behind the XEL-1 is to give connoisseurs of fine Television-watching a low-power-consuming, elegantly designed and incredibly compact experience. You may recall theXEL-1’s Organic Light Emitting Diode screen, which is made from organic materials which require no backlight, thus consume a substantially smaller amount of power than LCD TV screens. Sadly, the organic-ness of the OLED screen means a shorter lifespan, but if you don’t mind the trade off, it’s perfect for you. Of course, the really amazing part is the size of the thing. TheXEL-1 OLED TV has an eleven-inch-diagonal screen that just happens to be three millimeters thick.

Now, the XEL-1 is set to drop in Japanese electronics stores on December 1 at a price of a whopping 200,000¥ which works out to about $1800US at current exchange rates. If the price isn’t enough to make you said, as the headline to this post informs, Sony is only making 2000 of these gorgeous little TVs. So, the odds of a drop in the West, is pretty slim–probably more slim than that damn amazingly 3mm screen.

Of course, if you’re willing to make the jump and can read Japanese, it looks like you may be able to pick up theXEL-1 OLED TV on Sony’s Japanese website (but don’t quote us on that). If not, just head to Japan in a week’s time, head to the finest electronics shops, and look for the massive XEL-1 display. You won’t be able to miss it. There it is now to the left. Crap, that’s big.