Nokia shifting to OLED handset panels? Sure, but when?

August 13th, 2008 by

It’s hard to knock Nokia given its market dominating position, outside of the US and Japan anyway. But they certainly haven’t been (b)leading edge when it comes to capitalizing on trends such as ultra-slim handsets, touchscreens, or OLED displays. The use of those 3-inch and smaller OLEDs is just the latest trend that started with Sanyo, Toshiba, and LG all releasing OLED-based cellphones earlier this year. Now, it looks like those brilliant OLED displays, specifically Active Matrix OLED (AMOLED), has a place sometime in Nokia’s future — when is the question. According to DigiTimes‘ sources at handset panel providers, Nokia now requires its panel suppliers to have, “development and volume production plans for AMOLED panels,” before Nokia will sign any long-term partnerships. While it’s no secret that OLED is the future of flat panel technologies both big and small, it’s still nice to see Nokia on the ball with this one even though it doesn’t guarantee a Nokia-branded handset with OLED display anytime soon. Assuming these whispering sources are to be believed, of course.