Sprint Will Soon Release Its First Phone with an OLED Display

Sprint says it will soon join the small group of wireless carriers offering phones with AM-OLED displays. Its first device using this technology will be made by Samsung, and will debut by year's end.

Few details on this upcoming model are available, aside from the fact that it will be released during the fourth quarter of the year. In addition, David Owens, Sprint's head of Consumer Acquisition, said that it will be a high-end model, as AM-OLED screens are currently more expensive than standard LCD displays.

Which Phone?
There's little official information, but much of the speculation says these companies are referring to the Samsung Instinct Q, an Android-based smartphone that rumor says is on its way to Sprint in early October.

But it could easily be another device. Samsung has embraced AM-OLED technology, and offers it on multiple models, although only one of these is available in the U.S., the AT&T's Samsung Impression.

More about AM-OLED
OLED (organic light-emitting diode) displays take advantage of the fact that some organic compounds glow when an electrical current is applied to them. This means there is no need of a backlight, as the individual pixels provide their own light. This allows OLED screens to be thinner and lighter than standard LEDs. Colors also tend to be more vivid.

Active-matrix OLEDs (AM-OLED) require a thin film transistor backplane to turn each pixel on or off, and can make higher-resolution and larger size displays possible.

More information on OLEDs is available on Wikipedia.

Source: Reuters