SCREEN PRESENCE

Fortunately, that last question will soon have an answer. There8217;s a new TV on the block, and its picture is so amazing, it makes plasma and LCD look like cave drawings.

It8217;s called organic light emitting diode, or OLED. This technology has been happily lighting up the screens of certain cellphone and music-player models for a couple of years now, but Sony is the first company to offer it in a TV screen. It8217;s called the XEL-1, and it8217;s available only from SonyStyle stores. Its picture is so incredible, Sony should include a jaw cushion.

The XEL-18217;s picture is so colourful, vibrant, rich, lifelike and high in contrast, you catch your breath. It8217;s like looking out of a window. With the glass missing.

Name a drawback of plasma or LCD8212;motion blur, uneven lighting across the panel, blacks that aren8217;t quite black, whites that aren8217;t quite white, limited viewing angle, colour that isn8217;t quite true, brightness that washes out in bright rooms, screen-door effect up close8212;and this TV overcomes it.

Plasma is supposed to offer darker blacks than LCD, but OLED trumps both. Next to this TV, even the blacks on the critically adored Pioneer Kuro plasma screen look very dark gray. Blacks on Sony8217;s OLED TV are jet black. Absolute black.

If you8217;re a TV-technology geek and you8217;re getting a distinct feeling of deacute;jagrave; vu, congratulations. All of this does sound exactly like the descriptions of SED television prototypes demonstrated years ago by Toshiba and Canon. Unfortunately, that equally impressive picture technology never made it out of the lab.

To make this thing even more drool-worthy, the XEL-18217;s screen is only three millimeters thick8212;shirt-cardboard thick. The reason: in an OLED screen, each pixel generates its own light; there8217;s no need for bulky backlights, as there are in LCD sets.

Finally, OLED uses less electricity than either plasma or LCD.

So, if this thing is so amazing, why isn8217;t everyone stampeding to get one?

Because even though the XEL-1 is the biggest OLED television you can buy today, it8217;s only an 11-inch screen. That8217;s not a typo; it8217;s smaller than your laptop screen. Oh, and it costs 2,500.

Several factors are at work here. First, OLED screens are still very difficult to manufacture, and at this early stage, this size is about all Sony can crank out reliably. Second, there8217;s the early-adopter factor; Sony charges that much because it can. Any well-heeled early adopter who sees this winds up desperately wanting one.

If you8217;re tempted, beware of a few items of fine print. First of all, surprisingly enough, the XEL-1 is not actually a high-definition TV. It accepts hi-def signals, but it doesn8217;t display all of that resolution. In fact, it has only 960 by 540 pixels; you8217;d need four of these screens to equal the pixels of one 1080p high-def screen.

Yet here8217;s what8217;s shocking: instead of complaining how coarse the picture is, people exclaim how much sharper it is than hi-def plasmas or LCD sets. That8217;s partly because the pixels are far tinier than they are on a 50-inch behemoth. You can8217;t see individual pixels even with your nose smashed up against the glass.

This example makes you suspect that perhaps pixel count is not the be-all, end-all television measurement that the TV industry would have us believe it is. Just as the number of megapixels has little to do with the quality of the photos from a digital camera, maybe the perceived clarity of a TV image may depend more on other factors.

In any case, nobody will ever complain about the XEL-18217;s sharpness or resolution.

As a 8220;desktop television8221;, the XEL-1 comes mounted on a flat tabletop base. The screen floats above it, suspended by a chrome arm on the right side. This design is tidy and self-contained, and it permits the screen to tilt 70 degrees forward or back. The screen doesn8217;t rotate on its vertical axis, however; if you want to show it off to someone next to you, you have to turn the whole base. Or don8217;t, and just exploit the screen8217;s nearly 90-degree viewing angle.

Nor does the screen come off of that base, so that you can suspend it or mount it8212;a fantasy that occurs to almost everyone. The base is where you connect the power cord and the video sources. Its back panel offers a coaxial cable input, two HDMI cables, a headphone/digital-audio output jack and a Memory Stick slot.

There are no component-video inputs and no analog inputs for things like VCRs, although if you8217;re spending 2,500 on an 11-inch TV, chances are pretty good that you8217;ve graduated beyond the VCR.

Another concern: until recently, OLED had a reputation for short life span. Sony, however, says that the XEL-18217;s screen will be good for 30,000 hours. There8217;s no way to know for sure how the claim will hold up.

The user guide, meanwhile, does warn that OLED screens can develop plasma-like burn-in if you leave a static image on the screen for a very long time.

The XEL-1 comes with a very thin, nicely laid-out remote, but it8217;s non-illuminated and can8217;t control any other gear. On the base are volume up/down, input-switching and power buttons. Their labels light up when the TV is on, and disappear into the black surface when it8217;s off. Cool.

Though the XEL-1 is the first and only one of its kind, but with this big price and small size, it won8217;t be showing up in sports bars and home theaters soon. NYT