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By Oo Gin Lee
SUPER slim is in.
First in television sets and now in monitors. In some cases, they can be as thin as two slices of bread.
Samsung is leading the charge in both appliances.
In April, it brought out a new range of what it calls LED televisions. The 40-inch B7000 (above), for instance, is just 3cm thin.
Now, enter two of its lightest models.
The 23-inch XL2370 monitor, which weighs just 3.6kg, is 25 per cent lighter than similar models. And the 14-inch X420 laptop, just 1.76kg, is touted to be the lightest in its class.
All three gadgets tap bleeding edge smarts and are known as 'edge LEDs'.
In these appliances, tiny LEDs or light emitting diodes are lined along the edge of the display instead of at the back, where they usually sit. This layout cuts down the depth of the television set.
LG is also in the edge-LED fray. Its new 24-inch W2486 monitor will make its way to the shops later this month.
There has been some confusion over the term LED television sets: given their lighting know-how, these are essentially LCD screens and not LED displays.
LCD technology requires a backlight source to light up the liquid crystals sandwiched between two glass panels. This is because liquid crystals cannot emit light on their own, unlike say light bulbs and the pixels in a plasma television set.
First-generation LCD panels made use of cold cathode fluorescent lamps (CCFL) which are simply mini-fluorescent tubes placed at the back of the screens. This explains their bulk, heat and guzzling of energy.
Then, the industry started replacing CCFLs with the cooler, more energy efficient and smaller LEDs last year. Backlit-LED liquid crystal displays gave more vibrant colours and higher contrast ratios. Instead of eight to 10 tubes at the back, LED backlighting comprises thousands of LED lights.
So each individual blip can go on and off - and brighten or dim - to create crisp and clear images.
This is what the industry calls 'local dimming'. And the more LEDs there are, the finer the details and the better the image quality.
To shrink sizes further, display makers moved the LEDs to the sides of the screen. Using the physics of light diffusion, these edge LEDs now shine towards the centre of a monitor, like floodlights illuminating the grass pitch in a football stadium.
With even less circuitry, the benefits were obvious - thinner and even more power-efficient displays.
But the setback is that edge LEDs cannot handle local dimming.
Critics argue that without local dimming, edge-LED television sets are not as good as the traditional back-LED sets.
Samsung seems to be in the lead in edge LEDs as its screens look slimmer than its competitors' and still have good picture quality.
But competition is heating up.
Sony came out with its edge-LED Bravia ZX1 television in June. It was thin, but Sony removed digital components like the TV tuner and housed them in a separate box. But Sony is in the lead in the laptop space with its featherweight Vaio X 11.1-inch mini-laptop which has a battery life of up to 16 hours.
Alvin Lee, managing director of electronics superstore Audio House, noted that edge-LED TVs are about a fifth cheaper than the traditional back-LED models.
However, the sound is usually weaker, he added, as the thinner displays mean less space for larger speakers.
ginlee@sph.com.sg
This story was first published in The Straits Times Digital Life.
For more The Straits Times stories, click here.
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