As more smartphone manufacturers plan to adopt OLED display technology for their devices, a new report from Japanese news outlet Nikkan suggests that Sony Mobile will also make use of OLED display technology for at least one of its future Xperia flagship phones. The report goes on to mention that the company’s first handset to utilize an OLED panel will be launched in the year 2018, or in 2019 at the latest.
Up until now, Sony Mobile’s smartphone lineup made use of LCD display technology and the company has yet to give OLED panels a try. However, if a recent report from Japan is accurate then Sony will make the switch to OLED with the release of an Xperia device sometime next year at the earliest. However, the report also mentions that Sony will not abandon LCD display technology for good, but instead the company will adopt an OLED panel for one of its future Xperia flagship phones, as opposed to creating an entire smartphone lineup based on OLED technology. Either way, this would be the first time for Sony Mobile to make use of an OLED display for one of its smartphones, although it wouldn’t be the first time for the parent company to use this type of display technology in one of its products considering the recent announcement of the OLED-powered Sony A1 TV lineup. In any case, the switch to an OLED smartphone display would lead to a number of advantages compared to LCD, including higher contrast ratio, and improved battery life. Another reason why OLED panels are more efficient than LCD displays is because they don’t have a backlight, and in turn, this allows for much deeper blacks.
As yet there’s no information in regards to Sony’s potential OLED panel supplier(s), but it’s interesting to note that Samsung is the world’s largest OLED panel manufacturer and over the past year or so, Samsung Display has made several investments in order to ramp up its OLED production capacity even further, in anticipation of increasing demand. Later this year Apple’s next iPhone is also rumored to make the switch from LCD to OLED technology, and it’s likely that more smartphone manufacturers will follow suit.