Hands-on with Sony's Crystal LED-TV

Sony unveiled their Crystal LED-TV prototype last week at CES and FlatpanelsHD had a chance to see the impressive piece of display technology in action. Here are a few hands-on impressions and pictures.

Hands-on with Sony's Crystal LED-TV
We got a chance to see and play with Sony’s Crystal LED-TV at CES - and it is impressive. Sony underlines that it is still a prototype, and probably too expensive to manufacture on that account, but how we wish Sony would take this to the next step.


Sony’s Crystal LED-TV prototype
The colors stood out as amazingly clear and vivid, the black levels looked amazing and the viewing angles were pretty much perfect. We saw a few reports claiming that Sony hesitated from showing motion content on the TV the first day but from the second day and onwards the TV was being put to the test on all kinds of test scenes and panning shots – and it looked great. It utilizes a scanning technology, meaning that a scanning line runs from top to bottom on the TV panel, invisible to the naked eye (but seen in some pictures here).


Sony’s Crystal LED-TV prototype
Sony‘s Crystal technology actually resembles the OLED technology in many aspects, and is what one could call a “real LED-TV”. Sony’s has ditched the LCD panel and instead made every single pixel consist of three sub pixel LED lamps in RGB (red, green, blue). By mixing these three colors, Sony can create all the necessary color shades.


Sony’s Crystal LED-TV prototype
In OLED panels, LEDs are also used but a different kind, referred to as Organic LEDs. Organic LEDs are more flexible and holds a bigger future potential for different applications but if we are talking strictly about TVs – a flat plate showing a picture - the two technologies should exhibit very similar characteristics.


Sony’s Crystal LED-TV prototype
Sony’s Crystal LED technology is impressive and we would love to see it in stores. Still, we cannot help wonder why Sony decided to take this route instead of just supporting the OLED trend – but maybe they will, eventually?


Sony’s Crystal LED-TV prototype