6. Ergonomics, Continued: Kodak OLED

The LS633 is the first digicam with an OLED screen. This technology may gradually overtake the LCD on digicams, cell phones, GPS systems and computer monitors in the next three years. They are supposed to be finer, smoother, more readable and more responsive, with better colors, etc.

When we met them at the CeBit this year, Kodak gave us specs that were nothing like those of an LCD, so we were interested.

The OLED screen behind the LS633 is indeed splendid... but a little below our expectations. It is big (56 mm diagonal), with a good refresh rate, good readability, and so on. The dot matrix can still be seen if you look closely, but disappears a bit further away - 20 cm is enough. The way the pixels are arranged is not the same as on their large format prototype. On small screens, the diodes are arranged in staggered rows like brickwork. On large screens, they are laid out like a chessboard. This is a lot cheaper to produce but means you can see a vertical thread at less than 50 cm away. This requires finding another solution for viewfinder screens which are closer to the eyes.

With regard to specs, Kodak claims that OLEDs have a response time of less than 5 ms! This makes even the best 16-ms and 20-ms LCDs pale in comparison. Contrast and brightness are more the norm at 300:1 and 300 cd/m, respectively.

The claim of 5 ms finally seems greatly exaggerated. The actual response time is more like ten times that, at around 50 ms. The screen blurs a bit when you move.

Fortunately, OLED screens do have a major advantage: the angle of vision really is practically total. You can hold the camera high up at arm's length and still see the image clearly, something you'd never get with an LCD screen.

Our last criticism, and this is why OLED screens are not spreading fast, is that they have a short lifetime. The average time before the screen's brightness is halved is currently 5000 hours, versus 20,000 hours for a CRT (cathode ray tube) and 50,000 for an LCD. 5000 hours is only 208 days for a screen that is permanently on. So it's a good thing that this is unlikely. But, if it's on for two hours a day, it will have a lifetime of around seven years.