Report: Apple to launch LED-based notebooks

“Although US-based brands such as Apple and Hewlett Packard are expected to launch notebooks using LEDs as the backlight source starting from the second quarter 2007, Taiwan-based LED makers will not be the major beneficiaries, according to industry sources,” Max Wang and Carrie Yu report for DigiTimes.

“Taiwan-based LED makers will not likely earn orders from such major brands, as notebook makers have high requirements for their product specifications – a brightness of over 1,680 nits – and Taiwan-based makers have yet to offer such a brightness level, the sources said. Makers such as Nichia and Cree will be the most likely candidates for orders of the backlight sources, the sources added,” Wang and Yu report.

Full article here.

“LED technology has already found its way into certain Samsung HDTVs and has also appeared in color-accurate desktop LCDs, but has rarely if ever been seen in notebooks due to initial fears of high power consumption,” Electronista reports.

Full article here.

31 Comments

  1. Joe Blow said it right, but there is one more thing.

    Eliminating the CCFL, while it is efficient, would in

    turn eliminate the need for the inverter board (the

    circuit board that ramps up a nominal voltage to

    hundreds or even thousands of volts to fire the

    lamp up). LEDs have a longer life span than CCFL,

    and the inverter boards are prone to failure at times.

    The challenge with backlighting w/ LED’s is to get the

    light diffused and evenly distributed behind the LCD panel,

    thus preventing “spotty” illumination. The CCFL is a nice

    even strip of consistent light, yet the lumen output does

    begin to degrade as the lamp approaches end of life. Our cell

    phones and iPods have LED backlighting on their screens,

    but not a challenge with such a small screen.

  2. “Apple to launch LED-based notebooks”

    Are we back to little red numeric displays. That should definitely cut down on power usage, but Photoshop users may be disappointed at having to use Ascii Art.

    http://www.chris.com/ASCII/

    But seriously…

    That would be a great move and another opportunity for Apple to lead the way in adopting a new technology for use in computers. The current light sources for LCDs fade over time. The only fix is to replace the whole screen, or do some delicate “surgery” to replace the long thin bulb at the edge of the LCD. From my limited experience with LED light sources, they maintain brightness and seem to last a long time.

  3. Just read in the new Mac/Life (old Macaddict) that the problem with the LEDs is that the blue ones don’t have the life span of the red or green and that while OLEDs draw less power, its not that much less. Samsung is working on nano tubes, as turns out not only are they stronger than steel, conduct electricity very well but they also produce light which according to Samsung makes them great for backlighting.

    We’ll see.

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