Sony: 'Our focus is not on OLED'

Could the XEL-1 be the last OLED model from Sony
Could the XEL-1 be the last OLED model from Sony

TechRadar spoke to Darren Ambridge, Sony's Group Product Manager for TVs, this week and we were interested in how the company's first OLED TV, the XEL-1 was faring in the UK.

"I'm not going to lie to you and say that it is flying off the shelves, but we never saw the XEL-1 as a mass-market product. We really made it just to prove that we could make it," he told us.

The XEL-1 launched in the UK back in January for a street price of £3,500, which puts the 11-inch telly firmly out of reach price-wise for your average consumer.

And considering you can purchase the TV for around $2,500 in the US, it's easy to see why UK TV buying public, no matter the size of their wallets, weren't flocking to buy the television.

Focused on big-screen tech


Ambridge wasn't discarding OLED screens altogether, but did explain that we probably won't be seeing another OLED TV anytime soon.

"Sony is focused more on big-screen technology at the moment," he explained.

"OLED tech is certainly still important and you can see some stunning OLED screens in our upcoming Walkman [NWZ-X1000] series of media players."

To read more about Sony's HDTV range and the full interview with Darren Ambridge, click here.

Marc Chacksfield

Marc Chacksfield is the Editor In Chief, Shortlist.com at DC Thomson. He started out life as a movie writer for numerous (now defunct) magazines and soon found himself online - editing a gaggle of gadget sites, including TechRadar, Digital Camera World and Tom's Guide UK. At Shortlist you'll find him mostly writing about movies and tech, so no change there then.