Sony XEL-1

Display Size & Technology
The XEL-1 is the first commercially available TV to use an Organic LED display. This new technology is very different from the LCD and plasma displays that conventional HDTVs use; it uses an organic compound that emits light when a current passes through it. This means that there is no backlight; the panel itself creates the light that forms the image. The problem with OLEDs is that they are difficult and expensive to manufacture, which is why Sony is the only company to make a TV that uses one so far. But the price is falling, and they won't be the last. We have already seen OLEDs being used in some media players and one small laptop, and the manufacturing processes are improving.

Format & Resolution
The XEL-1 can work with a video signal at up to 1080p resolutions, but there is a big caveat; the screen itself is only 960 by 540 pixels, for a total of about 518,000 pixels. Contrast this with the 2 million or so that a typical HDTV has, and you'll see one big problem: the image has to be significantly scaled down to fit onto the screen. So, even if you are watching a Blu-ray disc, the image looks much blockier than on a standard HDTV.

Brightness, Blacks & Contrast Ratio
The advantage of the OLED screen comes when you look at contrast; because the screen can turn off the elements when it is showing black, it can produce very deep blacks and bright colors side by side. Sony claims a contrast ratio of over 1,000,000:1, and our experience with this display at the CES show would seem to back that up; blacks on screen very deep, while whites were bright. The screen lacks the eye-watering brightness that we've seen on some other HDTVs, but these usually come at the price of the blacks getting brighter. We didn't see that on the XEL-1.

Refresh Rate & Motion
The other advantage of OLED displays is that they can change the amount of light they emit very quickly, which means that you should see less motion blur and ghosting than you see on normal HDTVs. Motion was extremely smooth on the XEL-1, but, in our limited examination of the screen, it didn't seem to be significantly better than many of the newer HDTVs we've seen. 

Viewing Angle
OLEDs are also supposed to have good viewing angles, and the XEL-1 seems to bear that one out as well. Because the panel is so thin, the light can pass out of it in all directions, so it doesn't have the weak contrast that we see on LCD screens at an angle.