While TV manufacturers are still struggling to scale OLED technology up to the sizes needed for mainstream televisions, it looks like mobile phones can benefit from the technology just fine in its current state. Samsung became the very first company to bring a carrier-subsidized OLED phone to the U.S. when it announced the Impression earlier this week.
We had a chance to see and handle the Impression, which resembles what you might expect if you’ve seen previous OLED displays. Much like its television counterparts, the Impression’s display possesses a vibrancy and contrast that’s seemingly impossible to achieve in standard LCD screens. Its colors have all the eye-catching potency of neon signage – in pocket-sized form.
And Samsung was quick to put the phones to work for just that purpose. At the edge of its booth, the company exhibited a mosaic of the tiny screens forming a giant exclamation mark.
Though Samsung claims the screens will help extend battery life, the representative we talked to wasn’t able to pin an exact figure on how much it would make a difference in real-life use, compared to a traditional LCD. Samsung estimates the phone will deliver three hours of talk time and 240 hours of standby. Likewise, no one was able to explain whether these OLEDs would be affected by the same lifespan problems larger OLED displays have, which lose their brightness with time. (To be fair, consumers replace their phones so frequently in modern times that it doesn’t likely matter, unless the screens begin to degrade in under two years.)
The Samsung Impression became available on AT&T this Tuesday, with a price of $200 with a two-year contract.
