Plasma and LCD TVs getting thinner

Ultra-thin flat panel displays were the highlight of this year’s International Consumer Electronics Show, with many vendors showing thinner and sleeker high-definition TVs, giving users a peek of what LCD, plasma and OLED screens will look like in a few years.

Visitors thronged the booths of Sony, Samsung, Panasonic, Pioneer and Hitachi, where the companies were showing larger flat-panel TV prototypes with reduced thickness, ranging from 3 millimeters to 39 mm, depending on the screen size.

The thinnest perhaps was Sony’s 11-inch OLED (organic light-emitting diode) TV, the XEL-1, which is 3 millimeters thick. At $2,500, the panel is much thinner than LCDs, which start at 24 mm in thickness. The XEL-1 went on sale in Japan in December and was launched in the U.S. this week. Sony also showed off a 27-inch prototype OLED TV at CES.

Samsung showed off a thin OLED display prototype with a 31-inch screen, the largest of its kind on display at CES. Measuring around 4 mm thick, it is thinner than LCD panels and displayed vivid pictures than LCD TVs.