Samsung and Pentax to possibly join the full-frame DSLR race

ElectronRun covers DSLR developments and only last week I listed 7 reasons DSLRs are so important to manufacturers. From PMA 2008 it is becoming apparent that the reflex camera entry category is already incredibly crowded. Manufacturers respond with an increasing number of models and the inclusion of as many features as possible.

This however leads to more price competition and a distinct difficulty to achieve product differentiation. This time the safety valve seems to be full-frame sensors. Canon had them first, Nikon followed with the excellent D3 -that is surely going to cut a lot of business from Canon’s formerly exclusive domain- and Sony has plans to join the club with a 24.8 megapixel sensor.

The shape of things to come in Barcelona Mobile World Congress 2008

The Barcelona Mobile World Congress of 2008 is finishing tomorrow, and those that are following events even superficially must have already got the message. Smartphones and mobile operating systems are all the rage, and later in 2008 we are going to see some really cool new models. Here is some facts from the event worth mentioning:

• Microsoft is getting ready for the upcoming mobile battle with Google. It has even gone as far as talking with Nokia about integrating Windows Mobile in some of its phones. It has not worked out so far but who knows…
• Android is coming later this year and prototype demos are springing up with OS features trickling out.
• Microsoft and Sony-Ericsson have reached agreement to combine their OS and hardware in new products. Sony-Ericsson is also participating in Symbian, so I am not sure how well this will go down with Nokia…

New DSLR cameras coming in PMA 2008

Tired of CES and Macworld yet? Time for something more focused, because PMA is no generalist show but concentrates exclusively on imaging stuff. I am not going to deal with compacts at all, as models change with the the frequency of weather changes, I am going to concentrate on my favourite part of the show, DSLR cameras :-) There is already wind of new DSLR models for the show, the timing is quite critical as 2008 is going to be good for this segment and fierce competition is a certainty.

Canon is going to reveal its 450D/Rebel XSi that will replace its current 400D/XTi. With 12 megapixel resolution, a larger viewfinder, live view, spot metering, 3 inch screen, 14-bit processing and high ISO noise reduction it is a definite improvement but times are changing and the competition is not as weak as in previous years… A point to note is that resolution is higher than the 10 Mp of the more expensive and capable 40D, a case of dismay among Canon customers expressed vocally in the past with the 400D/XTi and the 30D.

Samsung 31 inch OLED at CES 2008

We have written about the 31 inch Samsung OLED here. You can now see some photos from the show. Apart from the immensely attractive thickness and picture performance, lower consumption is the major leap forward. LCDs have roughly half the energy consumption of CRTs, now OLEDs turn the heat on by cutting that by a further 40%! Imagine all the people that have the TV on all day when they cook or do unrelated things at home… Energy savings will be huge and since people are so careless in their energy consumption habits luckily technology comes with some convincing answers indeed. Now let’s hope that the whole thing swiftly evolves in full scale new product ranges and commercial war to get prices down and allow us simple humans put an OLED at our home :-)

Link: Inhabitat

Samsung 31-inch OLED display to be revealed in CES 2008

As if the LCD alliance news of Hitachi, Canon & Matsushita wasn’t enough, now Samsung comes up with more dynamite news. It announced that it has a fully functioning 31-inch OLED display, larger than the 27-inch OLED that Sony has previously shown. OLED displays are an upcoming technology that has the following advantages over LCDs:

• Extremely thin. The Samsung display is only 4.3 mm thick, an order of magnitude less than current LCDs.
• Low power consumption. With roughly half the consumption of LCDs, OLEDs have a critical advantage in our efforts to limit energy consumption.
• Picture quality. Definition, colours, contrast, all are at pretty high quality.

Samsung’s display is going to be revealed at CES 2008 and will likely be the star of the company’s stand. Now that consumers have developed an insatiable appetite for large panel sizes, it is unlikely that anything smaller than 37 inches will be a success. And here is the catch, OLEDs are an upcoming display star technology, but are for the time being very difficult and expensive to manufacture. Whichever supplier comes up with reasonably priced models will have a serious head start. Samsung is the world’s largest LCD manufacturer so it is no wonder it is working on OLEDs really hard as it wants things to stay the same in future…

Link: Reuters