First tipped by ChannelNews in April, LG executive Won Kim, LG's VP of OLED sales and marketing said that the new LG offering will be similar to the prototype that was shown at the 2009 CES show in Las Vegas.

In some area's it is significantly better than the Sony 11" XEL1 model which is on sale in Australia for $6,999 claims Mr Kim.

The new model has a 1,000,000:1 contrast (same as XEL1), a 1,366 x 768 pixel resolution (better than XEL1), and a 30,000-hour shelf life (much better than XEL1, which degrades after 1,000 hours).  It is also expected to be ultra-thin (the XEL1 is just 3mm thin).

Also set to steal Sony's OLED position in the market is Samsung who have said that they intend to launch new 14.1" and 31" OLED TV soon. However analysts are saying that they doubt that the 31" model will be launched in 2009.

The Samsung OLED displays use a Fine Metal Mask (FMM) technology to achieve larger sizes and better character in smaller displays.

The 14.1" display is aimed at the laptop market and offers 1366x768 resolution, 200cd brightness, colour gamut of 107% PAL and a 1,000,000:1 contrast ratio. 

The 31" TV set is 8.9mm thick. It offers an impressive FHD (1920x1080) image, 200cd brightness, color gamut of 107% PAL and a 1,000,000:1 contrast.

The Korean Tech Daily said that LG may be able to get the jump on Samsung.

A big advantage for LG is hat Apple has selected them as their prefer display partner and in November 2008 gave LG $500M upfront money to work on research and development of new OLED display technology.

They also signed a $5B contract with LG to supply display screens for Apple products including iPods and MacBooks.