It’s CES, so that means we are going to see a ton of cool things that might not even make it to the market. But it looks like Sharp is serious about that whole IGZO thing. This is their revolutionary new screen technology that they’ve been working on for years. And in this instance when we say “revolutionary” it doesn’t mean the same thing as when Apple says it. It turns out that Sharp has spent lots of time at CES 2013 talking up their IGZO displays, and explaining what the benefits of the technology are, compared to other technologies available today like AMOLED and LCD.
You’ve probably heard before that IGZO promises some pretty big things. Including being able to easily double the resolution of a screen, while dramatically reducing its power consumption at the same time. This new IGZO technology actually has this special characteristic that allows it to continue displaying an image after it’s stopped receiving power. Isn’t that pretty awesome?
So how long before this new IGZO display technology is used in our daily mobile devices? Well it might still be a few years before you see it being used mainstream. But before manufacturers worry about getting new display technologies, they need to worry about improving battery technology. What good is a 1080p display or even a 4k display, if the battery only lasts a few hours? I’d rather have a 720p display with a huge battery. That way I can use it longer before putting it on to charge. While these IGZO displays sound pretty cool and awesome, it still might be to soon to have them in our devices we use every day like our phones and tablets.
What do you think? When could we start seeing a new display technology like IGZO in our smartphones and tablets? I think it’ll be another couple of years before we really start seeing them. We may see one or two prototypes really soon though. Let us know in the comments below.