Samsung LEDs and MacBooks

Electronics giant Samsung on Thursday demonstrated three new LCD panels with LED backlighting, each of which takes advantage of the newer technology to improve the color accuracy and uniformity across even the often-neglected corners of the screen. Most advanced of these is the 40-inch panel, according to the company. Intended for 720p-capable TVs, the screen is bright at 500cd/m2 and is intelligent enough to selectively dim portions of the LED for dark scenes -- effectively generating a 100,000:1 contrast ratio by creating truer black levels. The technology of the 40-inch panel is expected to make its way into the rest of Samsung's LED-based LCD TVs when they launch later this year.

More significant, however, were public demonstrations of two displays that are likely to find their way into mainstream computer hardware. Samsung at its demonstration revaled a 15.4-inch widescreen panel with the new lighting technology (pictured), touting as an ideal choice for notebooks. The display's backlight reduces the overall thickness to 0.22 inches while consuming an average of only 3.1 watts. Although no companies were mentioned as using the new part, the screen's 1440x900 resolution appears to confirm earlier reports of LED-based MacBook Pros and similarly-equipped HP notebooks, many of which already use a similar screen size. A formal launch for the panel in finished hardware has not been revealed but is likely to occur in Spring.

Read through for details of Samsung's third panel.

A final panel introduced at the same time was a new, 30-inch model intended for computer displays, sporting a 2560x1600 resolution. As with the 40-inch panel, the company says it focuses on color accuracy: a higher-than-average 900:1 contrast ratio is linked with 111% coverage of the NTSC gamut, suiting the LCD to artists and video editors as well as the mainstream. No products have been announced but should involve an in-house Samsung model as well as Apple's Cinema Displays. [via AVING]

By Electronista Staff