The purpose of this demo was to compare color quality between both projectors, and with the express caveat that I have no idea what (if any) adjustments were made to the Sony projector; it certainly appeared to have an edge in color saturation over the Panasonic unit. (The latter projector still created some good-looking images.)

This 4,000-lumen laser 3LCD chassis is the same as Sony’s FH31-series projectors and has the same level of functionality – interchangeable lenses, edge blending, Ethernet control, etc. The only difference is that a laser provides the illumination, and Sony claims it will last to 20,000 hours, presumably hitting half-brightness at that point.

Sony’s laser-powered 3LCD projector will have its coming-out party in two weeks.

I expect to see plenty of lamp-free projector demos in Orlando. Mitsubishi, BenQ, Optoma, Vivitek, Panasonic, Digital Projection, projectiondesign, LG, and NEC are all selling or getting ready to launch laser-powered and laser/LED hybrid projectors this year. And if Sony’s ready to christen a laser-powered 3LCD product, you can be sure that Epson and Hitachi will be close on their heels.

With the European Union turning up the screws on hazardous substances, the days of short-arc projection lamps are numbered. But the bigger problem is the “big LCD” runaway train – one that will eventually wipe out the “hang and bang” projector market.

From time to time, I run LinkedIn discussions about selected AV topics, and just started a new one on lamp-free projectors. And the early responses indicate that sentiment has swung in favor of replacing projectors with large LCD screens across a broad range of markets.

One respondent commented, “We currently have one building with about 30 classrooms that only use LED (LCD) monitors, and the faculty enjoys them immensely. They no longer have a bright light staring them in the face, and the students can see all the images displayed extremely well with much better clarity than with ‘standard’ classroom projectors. “

Here’s another comment. “I have been moving to LED (LCD) displays whenever I have input in a design — aside from spaces that require displays in excess of 120″ because of size. They’re always brighter, they’re more compact, and the maintenance on them is soooo much easier. Plus, let’s be truthful here, users view a 150″ (projected image) as ho-hum, but a 90″ monitor seems to IMPRESS.”

Not surprisingly, the issue of lamp replacements (cost, time involved, and inconvenience) came up more than once as a reason to switch to flat screens. “I would say that lamps took up close to 50% of our supply budget. Plus; maintenance, calls for immediate response, and filling out service ticket documentation, (replacing) a single lamp could take 45 minutes of a technician’s time (+/- 9% of the technician’s day for one response).”

From another responder: “Both financially and logistically, lamp changes are a BIG nuisance. Even with multi-lamp redundancy, critical spare stock is always advisable due to the uncertain stock and delivery issues. Even if one puts this cost aside, lamps can blow out at the worst times and any change that requires any combination of ladders, climbing, dismounting, disassembly, reassembly, and counter resetting is never a desirable situation. Flat panels are less of a hassle.”

Now the million-dollar question: Does lamp-free projection level the playing field with large LCDs at all? “As nice as laser/hybrid projectors are, I think they’re not quite ready for widespread use, especially in a classroom setting. And since we are in the process of moving away from projection as a whole, where they have been installed the 70″/80″ LED monitors, and even the 90″ monitors now, are getting rave reviews from faculty and staff alike on image quality, brightness, and ease of use.”

How about image quality? “I have looked at the Casio and Panasonic lampless projectors. I have purchased some Casio(s) for the portability, but until the image quality improves I will not be installing them for general-use classrooms. The colors are very drab when compared to LCD.”

And one last comment: “The emergence of more practical, brighter, and more affordable lamp-free projectors will definitely take some market-share away from traditional projectors, but I don’t think that it will have as much impact on the large direct-view display market. We’ve specified these large displays instead of projectors when there are ambient lighting issues, in situations where the colors and contrast of a projector just aren’t sufficient, and in spaces where projection isn’t physically practical…”

From my perspective, it’s a good thing that interest and activity in the lamp-free projection space are both picking up this year. The projector industry needs to show it can still innovate and remain relevant; lamp-free projection is a great way to do that and provide facility managers much-needed relief from the “burnt-out lamp shuffle.”

Even so, the once-safe market of small to mid-sized classroom and conference room projection continues to cede ground to large LCD displays with each passing month. With lamp-free technology, projector manufacturers have shown they’ve finally seen the light. But is it too late?

This article was originally posted on the Display Daily Web site.

With very few exceptions the hits of the 2011-2012 season fizzled in 2012-2013. Fox’s New Girl fell from 8.4 to 6.16 million viewers; ABC’s Once Upon a Time fell from 11.84 to 10.4 million; and ABC’s Last Man Standing fell from 9.39 to 7.92 million. (The numbers are from “Sophomore Slump Afflicts Once-Promising TV Shows” by Bill Carter, New York Times, May 13, 2013.)

Carter quotes Warren Littlefield, who was responsible for putting Seinfeld and Friends on NBC when he was head of its entertainment division in the 1990s. “It’s something new for breakout hit shows to be down in their second year. And yes, it’s alarming.”

Peter Dinklage in “Game of Thrones” (HBO). One of several cable TV series that generates

a level of excitement the networks envy.

Apart from the networks’ compulsion to self-inflict wounds both slight and serious, the problem is two-fold. For many viewers, the most exciting shows are on cable. Homeland (Showtime) and Game of Thrones (HBO), among others, generated audience passion and loyalty as few of today’s network shows can. Several executive interviewed by Carter cited this “excitement gap.”

Although numerically less important than the migration from broadcast to original cable programming, the number of people who are giving up both broadcast and cable/satellite is becoming significant. According to Nielsen’s Fourth-Quarter 2012 Cross-Platform Report, released in mid-March, more than 5 million households (slightly less than 5% of total viewers) – up from 2 million in 2007 – do not fit Nielsen’s traditional definition of a TV household. More than three quarters of these home still have at least one TV set, but they use it to watch DVDs, play games, surf the net, or watch streaming media. Of the entire 5 million Zero-TV households, 67% get their video content from other devices:  PCs (37%), the Internet (16%), smart phones (8%), and tablets (6%), either exclusively or in addition to the TV set.

Depending on how you look at it, that 5% is either a lot or a little. I think it’s a lot, and it’s going to grow. As a percentage of the total number of Zero-TV homes, the distribution peaks at age 25-34, with 25.1% of the total. The TV Home distribution peaks at age 65 and over, with 24.2% of the total.

Who would you bet on? NBC or Netflix? If you did not say Netflix, this is the time to remind you that House of Cards was the service’s most-watched show ever, and all of the episodes were released at the same time to encourage binging. It worked. More original programming from Netflix is on the way.

Now, let’s ask this. What if HBO or Showtime, whose programs are only available through cable and satellite services, decided to take advantage of the changing wind and make its programming available on Netflix or Amazon? A portion of the cable service’s viewers would lose an important reasons for subscribing to cable/satellite to begin with. It’s just a matter of time.

How much of a problem is this likely to be for cable/satellite? Back to the Nielsen report: Only 5% of video-watching households are Zero-TV households, but 23% percent of Netflix subscribers had cancelled their cable or satellite subscriptions.  Ouch.

And none of this takes into account the tremendously improved smart TVs introduced this year by the likes of Samsung and Panasonic; or the much-needed improvements in speed, responsiveness, and reliability of program streaming that are sure to come. The times they are a-changin’.

Ken Werner is Principal of Nutmeg Consultants, specializing in the display industry, display manufacturing, display technology, and display applications. You can reach him at ken@hdtvexpert.com.

Executives at both networks, having suffered two setbacks in court, have threatened to shut down their broadcasts completely and move to cable/satellite distribution exclusively if Aereo doesn’t relent and pay a retransmission fee to carry their New York City signals.

Kanojia was quoted in the article as saying, “The reality is, they want to get paid twice, and Aereo is just an excuse to articulate that business strategy. Good luck to them.” Practically speaking, CBS and Fox would face several logistical hurdles to pull this off, not the least of which would be answering to Congress if they did shut down their terrestrial transmitters, viewed by at least 15% of the American public.

Strangely enough, both network’s sugar daddy – the National Football League – has yet to be heard from in this kerfuffle. The NFL has repeatedly stated it does not want to sign rights deals that would restrict broadcasts of its games to pay TV channels, giving only Monday Night Football to ESPN. If CBS and Fox decided to pull their 8VSB power plugs, what would Roger Goodell say?

More importantly, how does Goodell feel about Aereo carrying NFL games for which they haven’t paid any rights? The NFL is scrupulous about enforcing so-called “public” performances of NFL games outside of bars, restaurants, and other places of public accommodation. They’ve even come after churches for hosting free Super Bowl parties in the past. So, where’s the indignation at Aereo?

I suppose if CBS and Fox went ahead with their threat, we could always fire up that ol’ Blu-ray player or smart TV function many of us don’t use. In a Home Media story also published on May 3, the Nielsen Company announced that Blu-ray Disc and transactional video-on-demand (VOD) “made significant gains as the primary means for consumers to acquire home entertainment movies and TV shows in 2012.”

According to Nielsen, 83.6% of consumers used a DVD or Blu-ray player to watch video at home, while 45.1% of the sample audience used video game console and 44.1% favored digital video recorders. The number of respondents who preferred streaming rental movies increased by 32% in the past six months of 2012 compared with the same time period in2011.

During the same interval, 29% more opted for transactional VOD to watch TV shows, 12% more preferred using Netflix to watch movies, and 24% more jumped on board subscription video-on-demand services to watch TV programs.

Intriguingly, 14% more survey respondents said they bought a Blu-ray movie over 2011, while 25% said they preferred Blu-ray for TV shows. (I assume that meant mostly boxed sets?)  And you may be surprised to learn that adult female respondents who use the Internet are more likely to buy movies or TV shows on optical disc than adult male respondents.

The rise in popularity of streaming and transactional VOD may be due to the fact that of 56% of all households with broadband Internet access now have at least one TV set connected to the Internet. So says The Diffusion Group in a recent report. Streaming media players lead in the connected category for accessing streaming services, followed by video game consoles like the Xbox and PlayStation platforms. Connected Blu-ray players came in third, followed by smart TVs.

The NPD Group sees that pecking order changing soon, stating that by next year, connections through dedicated streaming boxes (Apple TV, Roku) and smart TVs will eclipse connections via Blu-ray players — another sign of people moving away from movies on discs. They also found that 40% of households with Internet-connected TVs watch videos from Netflix, 17% watch YouTube videos, and 11% watch movies and TV shows via Hulu.

So, is streaming the hot ticket? Not necessarily, unless you have the patience of a saint, says a story on the Streaming Media Blog Web site. Conviva, a company heavily involved in research and development of more effective and reliable streaming solutions, analyzed over 22 billion (yes, BILLION) video streams in 2012 with an eye toward reliability. These streams included Netflix, ESPN, HBO, Viacom, VEVO, MLB, USA, NBC, and others, said the story.

The result? 60% of all streams experienced quality degradation. Re-buffering affected 20.6% of streams interrupting programs, while 19.5% of the streams were impacted by slow video startup and 40% were plagued by grainy or low-resolution picture quality caused by low bit rates. (Check your home broadband speed sometime between 9 and 10 PM, using CNET’s Broadband Speed test. You may be shocked by the results!)

Drilling down, 60% of views were impacted by stalls, low resolution or buffering. 39.3% of streams were impacted by buffering and 4% (900 million streams) never started at all. And while many consumers are watching on a screen capable of displaying high-quality (HQ) video, 63% are viewing below HQ resolution anyway. Hate waiting in line? Conviva said that in 2012, a staggering 124.8 billion minutes were spent in buffering.

You know what? I think I’ll just go read a book. (No, make that an e-book. Wait, I have to download it first! Buffering…buffering…buffering…)

If we ever get large OLEDs right — that is, if we learn how to print the front plane; use IGZO or graphene or carbon nanotubes for the backplane; develop flexible, reliable, and inexpensive moisture and oxygen barriers; and fabricate reliable displays via roll-to-roll processing with high manufacturing yield — there will no longer be much reason to bother with either LCDs or plasma display panels. That goal continues to inspire investment, but it also continues to be very, very elusive.

On the other hand, through excellent science and engineering, patience, and hard work, Samsung has made small OLEDs for cell phones a significant success. When we look at the absolutely beautiful OLED display in Samsung’s Galaxy S4, there is a great temptation to say, “Now all we have to do is make it a little bit bigger.” But that way, scaly (or, at least, scale-up) monsters lie.

There has been a flood of reports and announcements about OLED technologies and products over the last week. Some are comedic. Some are surprising. Some may even be accurate. Let’s sample.

As has been widely and appropriately reported, our friend Ray Soneira — who has been something of an OLED apostate — did an exhaustive analysis of the OLED display in the Samsung S4 and gave it a rave review. Ray says the Full HD, 440 ppi, 5-inch display in the S4 is far superior to the one in the now two- (or maybe three-) generation-old Galaxy Nexus.

AMOLED Panel Shipments by Size (Source: Displaybank)

Displaybank issued the Q4 ’12 edition of its “OLED Displays Market Tracker,” which reports that in Q4 ’12, 65.1% of OLED displays sold were between 4 and 5 inches on the diagonal, and that 22.8% were 5 inches or more. That leaves only 11.6% at less than 4 inches. That’s a significant change from Q4 ’11, when, Displaybank reports, 59.9% were 4.x-inch, 45.2% were 3.x-inch, and only 4.4% were 5.x-inch.

Okay. The point has been made:  OLED displays for cell phones are real products with a real market and real profits. But things get wackier when we get to large displays for TV. At CES, both LG and Samsung showed curved 55-inch OLED-TVs, asserting that having the screen curve “around” the viewer would provide a more immersive, even IMAX-like, experience. That assertion remains to be proved, and many observers chalked up the curved OLED-TVs to the need to keep the buzz going while panel-makers figured out a way to produce flat OLED dsiplays with reasonable manufacturing yields and less-than-stratospheric prices. So, it was something of a surprise when LG announced it will soon launch the curved sets in Korea at a price in excess of $13,000. Pre-orders are being taken at over a thousand Korean retail locations.

Meanwhile, production of flat 55-inch OLED-TVs totals in the low 3 figures.

With the great OLED hope for large-screen TV stalled, TV manufacturers are looking to 4Kx2K LCD-TV to bring buyers into the showrooms. Ultra-HD LCD-TV also started out at stratospheric prices, but the very mature LCD panel industry has the the technology and manufacturing depth to bring those prices down much faster than many of us anticipated.

OLED TV isn’t dead. It’s just harder than comedy.

With the advent of LCD and then DLP projectors in the early to mid-1990s, the writing was on the wall for CRTs. The microdisplay projector category grew explosively in just fifteen years from a handful of video-resolution boxes at InfoComm 1993 to total domination of the category at all resolutions and brightness levels by 2008.

Indeed; it seemed like the good times would just roll on forever. But we all know that’s not usually the case (composite video and VGA notwithstanding). And in 2011, the specter of super-sized, inexpensive LCD TVs and monitors suddenly loomed over what once was the most energetic, anarchaic, and exhilarating AV thrill ride ever.

Two years later, projector manufacturers are watching with increasing concern as the traditional “hang and bang” conference room and classroom market yields to the siren song of Big LCDs. “No need to change lamps!” they cry out. “No need to dim lights! No need for a screen! Instant on and off! Set it and forget it!” The message is seductive, and for the most part, true.

A change is coming. Some manufacturers, refusing to become paralyzed with inaction, are speeding up development of lamp-free projectors, turning to light-emitting diodes, lasers, and a combination of the two in an attempt to slow the tides of change. You’ve no doubt seen some of these projectors at earlier InfoComm, CES, and SID get-togethers. Well, you’re about to see a lot more.

At the January Integrated Systems Europe show, BenQ, Sony, Mitsubishi, NEC, and Casio all exhibited lamp-free projectors with brightness levels ranging from a few hundred lumens to 2,000 lumens. Sony’s demo attracted great interest, as it was the first 3LCD-based imaging system and uses lasers. BenQ’s offerings are also 100% laser-engined, with the rest of the crowd using various combinations of LEDs and lasers.

Going lamp-free is seen as a successful parry against Big LCDs. First off, the lamp replacement issue goes away, once and for all. Lamp-free projectors are also essentially maintenance-free, just like today’s LCD TVs: Simply turn them on and use them for 15,000 to 20,000 hours. And they also offer instant on/off operation, something that’s been a challenge for designers of conventional short-arc lamp designs.

At present, lamp-free projectors can span three levels of brightness. The 100%-LED designs are usually good for a maximum of 1100 lumens, with 500 lumens being the norm. Above 1100 lumens and up to 4,000 lumens, the laser/LED hybrids take over. A gap then follows from 4,000 to 10,000 lumens, at which point the high-power laser light engines rule the roost, soaring as high as 70,000 lumens for digital cinema and large venue projection.

Christie Digital (owners of NECSEL), Laser Light Engines, Kodak, and NEC are all active in the large venue laser space. LLE’s innovative remote laser light heads with armored fiber optic bundles may be the key to wider adoption of the technology. Christie, who recently sponsored a two-week showcase run of GI JOE:RETALIATION in Burbank CA, using their 60,000+ lumens laser DLP Cinema projector, is now pondering the technical and financial logistics of offering more laser cinema screenings to kick up interest.

Make no mistake about it; this is a crucial time for projector manufacturers, of which there are still too many in my opinion. Super-sized 4K LCD panels are coming, 2K LCD glass cuts are going to get bigger and cheaper (Sharp’s 90-inch behemoth can be purchased by dealers for nearly $2,000 below the stated SRP from InfoComm 2013), and the only realistic way for projectors to hold any ground is to drop the lamp, once and for all.

At InfoComm, we’ll see just how many manufacturers have gotten the message – and how many are still waiting to hop on the bandwagon…

None of these stories were or are true.

It was one of the first questions I asked at the Panasonic line show held in New York last week. Far from avoiding the question, Satoshi Kitamura, Bill Schiller, and others gathered around to give me the clearest possible, “No, Panasonic is not exiting the plasma business.”

Schiller started by reminding me of an earlier statement from Panasonic President Kazuhiro Tsuga, who said (approximately): 1) there is no plan to exit plasma; 2) there are no plans to close an additional plasma panel fab; and 3) the sources for the stories were never substantiated.

Everybody in the industry knows that the market share of plasma TV is in the single digits and has trended downward over the last several years, and nobody predicts that plasma will last forever. Still, sales have not declined this year, and Panasonic’s plasma TV team would surely agree with Mark Twain’s, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.”

One indicator of commitment to a technology is how much the company is willing to invest in further development. In this, Panasonic is persuasive.

A company rep demonstrates a pen wand with the 50-inch model in Panasonic’s ST60 plasma TV series. The photocell pen technology works only with the company’s plasma – not LCD – sets. (Photo: Ken Werner)

The companies plasma TVs have a new red phosphor this year, and the premium models have more color gradations and faster image update. A touch pen is available for the premium plasma sets. The pen consists basically of a photocell, said Schiller. Because of the sequential pixel scanning of plasma panels, a signal from the pen indicates exactly when the scan has reached the pixel it is pointed at. With that information, the set can determine where the pen is pointed, and any of the usual pen and touch functions can be implemented, including writing on the screen. Schiller observed that the panel requires no modifications whatsoever to enable this feature.

Really impressive was a dark-room, side-by-side comparison of one of the last Pioneer Kuro plasma TVs and a model from Panasonic’s new top-of-the-line ZT Series. The Kuro, famous for its inky black level, remained just barely blacker than the ZT, but the ZT was dramatically superior in other major categories.

The company’s 3000Hz focused field drive (FFD) compares with last year’s high-end 2500Hz and the 600Hz sub-field drive (SFD) typical of plasma panels in recent years. The result is extremely fluid motion that was subjectively free of motion artifacts during the time I spend with the set. The Kuro, suffering from being designed in what was clearly a different era, showed serious motion artifacts.

The new subfield technology also allows the panel to express 30,720 gray levels, compared to the 6144 levels in conventional PDPs (such as the one in Panasonic’s own value-oriented S series). The comparison here between the ZT and the Kuro was dramatic. In a close-up of the fur of a black cat, complex patterns in the fur and individual strands were easily seen, although the entire image was in dark levels. The Kuro cat’s fur was largely undifferentiated. Both the 3000 FFD and 30,720 gray levels are also available on the VT – the next series down in the range.

A new red phosphor, combined with a front surface filter redesigned so that it would not interfere with the purer red, allows the ZT and VT to produce color gamut that covers 122% of the ITU standard and 98% of the DCI standard.

In the ZT only, the front picture filter is laminated to the plasma panel to further reduce reflections. The filter contains louvres that help the set produce good images even in moderate ambient light, which was not the case with early PDPs.

The day after the line-show, I received this “clarifying statement” from Panasonic’s press rep:
“This week in New York City, Panasonic demonstrated the latest development of our gapless Plasma panel technology in our 2013 Smart VIERA ZT Series Plasma HDTV. The technology incorporated into our ZT Series Studio Master Panel will be the basis for continued plasma display panel development and production. While the Smart VIERA ZT Series introduces a new level of Plasma picture quality, we believe there is still room for further improvement and intend to continue to research ways to take our Plasma technology to even higher levels where it also has the potential to be applied in our other Plasma series in the future.”  The statement was signed by Henry Hauser, Vice President, Merchandising Group, Panasonic Consumer Marketing Company of North America.

Panasonic calls the ZT a “reference monitor” and prices it accordingly. But, as Hauser hints, high-end technologies have a way of migrating down the model series structure, sometimes quite quickly.

Ken Werner is Principal of Nutmeg Consultants, specializing in the display industry, display manufacturing, display technology, and display applications. You can reach him at ken@hdtvexpert.com.

Windows 8, which got off to a terrible start, was running well behind the adoption curve for Microsoft’s ill-fated Vista OS as of late December. By early January, it was obvious that Windows 8 had not provided the expected push to desktop and laptop computer sales that major PC manufacturers (Samsung, Asus, HP, Dell, etc.) had hoped for during the holidays.

According to the Dealnews story, Microsoft has cut the licensing fee for Windows 8 to just $30 from $120 for computer manufacturers in an attempt to drive sales. Intel has also cut the price of Ivy Bridge CPUs, driving the costs of Windows 8 laptops down to record lows. As an example, Dealnews cited a laptop with Win 8 and 15” display for just $299 that was available earlier last month.

Finding anyone who uses or likes Windows 8 has been a difficult task. At the Hollywood Post Alliance Technology Retreat this past February, I asked the 550+ attendees – who work in movie production and post-production, broadcast, cable, telecom, and related industries – how many were running Win 8. I spotted maybe five raised hands at most, or less than 1%.

Colleagues have actually bought aftermarket programs to launch Windows 8 from a Windows 7 interface – that’s how silly things have become. But they’re not laughing these days at Dell Computers, which owner Michael Dell is trying to take private.

Running a touchscreen OS on a notebook isn’t the same thing as running it on a tablet…

In an SEC filing that was reported on earlier last week by The Verge, Dell cited several reasons why investors may not see expected returns in the future. Among the long laundry list of culprits was this one: “…the uncertain adoption of the Windows 8 operating system, unexpected slowdowns in enterprise Windows 7 upgrades and the increasing substitution of smartphones and tablets for PCs…”

Across the Pacific Ocean, Samsung’s Jung Dong-soo, director of the company’s flash memory business, likened Windows 8 to Vista, saying “The global PC industry is steadily shrinking despite the launch of Windows 8. I think the Windows 8 system is no better than the previous Windows Vista platform.”

A long-time friend from my grade school days has worked in the high-tech IT sector in Seattle (Amazon, Atlas Publishing, et al) for decades and is intimately familiar with the trials and tribulations of Microsoft. When I sent him the Dealnews story, he responded with these comments: “Yow. It really is going as so many of us thought. My head of IT/Ops got a laptop with (Windows 8) on (it), spent a weekend working on it, finally gave up and put (Windows) 7 on it.  One of my best engineers had to Google how to turn off a laptop with (Windows) 8 on it.”

I was one of those Luddites who refused to let go of Windows XP (Service Pack 3) for years. But XP has been cast adrift, so last fall, I upgraded both my desktop and my wife’s old desktop to Windows 7, which I have had running on a Toshiba laptop for three years with excellent results. And I see no reason to change that any time soon. Apparently, a vast majority of PC and laptop owners agree.

The real problem Microsoft has isn’t Windows 8. There are rumors that an upgrade called “Windows Blue” will be in stores in August, just in time for back-to-school sales. No, the issue is the market shift away from desktop and laptop PCs to tablets, a market where Microsoft is way behind and frantically playing a game of catch-up behind Apple and Android-equipped devices.

Intel’s aggressive push of ultrabooks, super-thin notebooks (no hard disk or optical drives, just flash memory) that run the Win 8 OS, has shown little in the way of results. Ultrabook shipments for 2012 were less than half of what was predicted earlier in the year.

In the meantime, tablet sales continue to skyrocket, with 190 million predicted to ship in 2013, blowing by PCs for the first time according to research firm IDC. Google’s Android OS is expected to take a 48.8% market share among tablets this year, with Apple’s iOS running right behind at 46%. That doesn’t leave a lot of room for the folks in Redmond, who will also see PC shipments drop by 4.3% Y/Y by December.

IDC forecasts that Windows 8 will appear on 7.4% of all tablets by 2017, up from 2.8% by the end of 2013. And Windows RT is expected to grow to 2.7% of the tablet OS market by 2017. Maybe there’s some good news in there if your glasses are rosy-colored, but Microsoft can’t be happy with the way things are trending with those miniscule numbers.

Perhaps Microsoft’s decision to drop International CES from its trade show schedule this year was a portent. Despite the hundreds of tablets and notebooks on display that were running Windows 8 and RT, they were hardly missed by attendees as there were plenty of other goodies to see in Las Vegas. It must be terrible to throw such a big party and see so many empty seats…

This article originally appeared on the Display Daily Web site.

Samsung’s New York Line Show was lavish and well produced. (Photo: Ken Werner)

Model Kate Upton and Samsung Electronics America EVP Joe Stinziano (Photo:  Ken Werner)

Despite the temptation, I kept my focus on the technology.

Although Samsung was emphasizing Smart TV, the biggest attention-grabber was the company’s new, very high-end, 85-inch UHD-TV. Apparently figuring that LG and Sony had underpriced their 84-inch UHD-TV offerings (at $20 thousand to $25 thousand), Samsung’s MSRP is $39,999. If you can get past the fact that this big TV costs as much as a small BMW, you will appreciate the beautiful image and the advanced technology.

Native 4Kx2K images on Samsung’s 85-inch Ultra High Def TV were beautiful. (Photo: Ken Werner)

A relatively small area of the UHD-TV screen. (Photo: Ken Werner)

Samsung National Trainer Jesse Rowe fielded overlapping questions from several press people, and did it knowledgeably and with good humor. The LCD panel for the set is made on one of Samsung’s Gen 8 panel-manufacturing lines. The finished TV “floats in its frame,” which is Samsung-speak for the user being able to move the screen vertically in its frame-like stand, as well as being able to tilt it.

As with all of the company’s premium smart TVs, this 9000 Series UHD-TV has all of the Smart TV bells and whistles, including voice control, gesture control, facial recognition (so the TV will present your preferences intstead of your significant other’s) and a touch panel on the remote control. When you first turn on the TV, you see the “Smart Hub” by default, which provides access to five different file folders of content, which Samsung calls “panels.” The five panels are Social (social media), Apps (such as Netflix, Pandora, TED, Fitness, etc.), On TV (live TV shows and movies), Movies & TV Shows (from streaming services), and Photos, Videos, & Music (your own media stored on your network). There are different ways of exploring each panel.

“S-Recommendation” learns your viewing habits over time and offers customized recommendations that span all the panels and present the choices independent of their source. With voice control, you can tell the set how to narrow down the options. ”Smart View” can push content to the TV from your tablet, smart phone, smart camera, etc.

All sets at the 7500 model level or above make use of the Evolution+ kit. Each set can be upgraded to the specifications of subsequent models for four years after manufacturing date by buying a $299 module that replaces the module on the back of the set. The module contains hardware as well as firmware updates. For instance, the module that updates 2012 sets to 2013 specifications contains the new quad-core processor. The kit also contains the latest touch remote control.

The 84-inch UHD-TV performs video processing in 720 different cells. Here are the cells and the local-area-dimming backlight. (Photo: Ken Werner)

Even in this drastically pixel-reduced version of the original photo, you can still some of the effects of Samsung’s video processing. (Photo: Ken Werner)

Let’s return to some of the specific features of the UHD-TV set. It has 2GB of memory for app storage and storing downloads, and, significantly, has a full-array backlight with local area dimming — which Samsung calls “Precision Black Dimming.” The UHD-TV set does three stages of video processing within 720 cells based on local color, contrast, and detail, and combines it with the local area dimming. (Smaller non-UHD sets use a smaller number of cells, with the cell size being roughly the same independent of screen size. With these other sets, the number of levels of video processing depends on where the set sits in the model line-up.

FHD premium sets have edge backlighting (or edge-lighting) and do local dimming of the LEDs in the edge-light. The F8000 level is the only FHD LCD-TV with all three levels of dimming.  Note: Samsung was not stating the number of cells used in the video processing, but had no objection to my taking a photo and counting. Regardless, the video processing was demonstrated in detail on the UHD-TV set, and it does its job very well. Native 4K static images were beautiful, and 2K to 4K up-conversion was impressive. Pre-orders for the set are being taken now, and the set will be in 30 specially selected retail locations by the end May.  A 110-inch version will be available late this year, Rowe said.

Samsung is still making plasma TVs, and the premium F8500 uses a “Deep Black Algorithm” to deliver impressive black levels. The set contains a quad-core processer, native support for HEVC-encoded content, and all of the Smart TV features. The set produces excellent images.

I’m a great fan of plasma television technology, but the handwriting is on the wall. Plasma TV market share is in the single digits and falling. It is just a matter of time before manufacturers will not be able to sell enough units to justify the cost of running their factories. But that time is not yet, at least as far as Samsung is concerned. A company rep told me, “Samsung does not see any end to plasma at this time.” Samsung, he said, sees two robust markets for plasma: 1) videophiles, and 2) people looking for the largest screen they can get for their dollar.

Samsung’s HT-F6500W 1000-watt, 5.1-channel home theater system with vacuum-tube pre-amp. (Photo: Ken Werner)

Samsung was also showing some high-end audio products. A wireless audio system and dock (for both iOS and Galaxy devices); a 2.1-channel, 310-watt soundbar; and a 5.1-channel, 1000-watt home-theater system (with access to Samsung’s smart TV system through the integrated Blu-ray player) were interesting primarily for their vacuum-tube pre-amps. The tubes were used as a prominent feature of the industrial design, as well as for their purported improvements to the audio quality. (The tube-vs.-transistor debate has been going on for decades and is not likely to stop anytime soon.)

The vacuum tubes in the pre-amp are used as a prominent component of the industrial design. (Photo: Ken Werner)

Finally, there was the MX-FS9000, 2560-watt Giga Speaker system with dual 15-inch sub-woofers and lighting effects suitable for the Starship Enterprise entering warp drive — or maybe for DJs. (Promoting the speakers was Flo Rida’s part of the program.) The system has Bluetooth connectivity. The idea of 2560 watts from a teenager’s iPhone is truly frightening.

 
Ken Werner is Principal of Nutmeg Consultants, specializing in the display industry, display manufacturing, display technology, and display applications. You can reach him at ken@hdtvexpert.com.

That’s the motivation for this round of tests, which included some previously-tested models and a few newcomers. It’s taken me a few months to schedule this test and round up all of the review models, but the good news is that every one of these antennas is currently offered for sale; some from multiple online retail outlets.

WHY INDOOR TV?

If you subscribe to pay TV services (as I do), you’ve surely noticed two things. (1) The monthly cost of your channel services has gone up over the past decade at a rate far in excess of ordinary inflation, and (2) you probably don’t watch more than 10 to 15 channels anyway on a regular basis.

Now, couple those observations with the expanding universe of Web-based (“over the top”) video channels, including the ever-popular YouTube, Hulu and Hulu Plus, Netflix, Vudu, Amazon Prime, and assorted network-based streaming sites. Add a Roku box, Apple TV, Boxee, or any of a number of OTT receiving solutions; drop the TV channel bundle from your pay TV subscription, and you’ve probably cut your monthly cost by 50%. (This assumes you’re keeping broadband service.)

Good thing for the gang at Turner Engineering that I don’t test indoor antennas on a regular basis. They’d never get any work done!

All well and good, except that streaming video services are very much dependent on available bandwidth. Watching Modern Family or The Avengers at 2 PM when Internet traffic is light is a completely different experience at 10 PM, when it seems that everyone and their brother is hogging bandwidth.

While there’s not much you or I can do about that problem (except perhaps subscribe to FiOS), you can watch HD broadcast network channels for free all over the U.S.A. And if you live near an urban area, you may have multiple channels you can pull in, using that little “F” connector on the back of your LCD or plasma flat screen.

The “mighty mite” – a Radio Shack $4 UHF bow tie.

NorthVu’s NV20 Pro, firmly attached (we hoped) to the window. Don’t try this at home…

All you need to watch these channels is some sort of antenna. While outdoor antennas always work best, you may live in an apartment or condo where going that route is problematic for cosmetic or legal reasons (even though you do have the right to install an outdoor antenna on property that is yours exclusively, but I won’t get into that now).

The fact is; indoor TV reception has actually gotten easier and better. Yes, I remember the early days of digital TV reception, which involved more luck and prayer than anything else. But we’ve come way past those trial-and-error exercises, and it’s now much easier to pull in local digital TV signals indoors.

All you need is a TV antenna that meets the following criteria: It is resonant or close to resonant at the desired frequencies of reception; can be installed easily on a wall, window, or some other surface suitable for mounting, and is a true plug-and-play design. You just screw on the antenna cable to your TV, go into the appropriate set-up and channel menus, and scan for active channels.

It’s a little bit easier to attach Winegard’s FlatWave with masking tape…

…as it is to attach the Mohu Leaf. Maybe transparent tape would look nicer?

ANYTHING GOOD ON TONIGHT?

If you haven’t tried indoor TV reception yet, you may be surprised just how many channels you can pull in. For many folks living in the Los Angeles basin who have a clear shot toward Mt. Wilson, that could mean as many as 27 major DTV channels with over 130 total sub-channels of programming. Heck, that’s a mini cable system into itself!

I live in the Philadelphia metro market, and can consistently receive 15 major DTV channels with over 30 sub-channels of programming. That’s using a modest dual-band yagi mounted at the base of my chimney, along with a similar antenna installed in my attic. And my dual-band UHF/VHF yagi antennas that sit atop a rotor and 5’ of mast on my roof can pull in another 8-10 DTV stations from New York City, which is about 65 miles distant.

These antenna systems supplement my Comcast cable service, which was cut off during Hurricane Sandy for the better part of a week by a 100-year-old oak tree that chopped the cable and telephone lines in half. Using an inverter (since replaced by a generator), I could still watch local news and weather from all of the locations just mentioned.

I’m a little too far away from the Philly TV towers in Roxborough to depend on indoor antennas, which is why I went the rooftop/attic route. But your location may be closer; in which case one of the models tested in this review could be right for you.

Here’s the Leaf Ultimate with inline preamp (near bottom of photo) percolating nicely.

Yes, we actually got a ClearStream Micron XG to stay attached to the test window! (Special formulation for the masking tape?)

As a general rule of thumb, homes and apartments as far away as ten miles from a TV station should be able to pull in the signal with an unamplified antenna. If the TV tower is located at a high altitude, as is the case in Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Portland (mountains) and New York City and Chicago (skyscrapers), that indoor reception distance can increase by 50% or more.

However, there are locations where indoor DTV reception is borderline reliable or problematic. In those cases, an amplified antenna may be a better choice, as digital signals require a minimum threshold above background noise to be received correctly. For the ATSC system used in this country, the “laboratory” threshold is about 15 dB. In real life with signal echoes and fading, it’s more like 20 dB.

There are caveats with amplified antennas. First, not all amplifiers are created equal! Your particular amplifier may have lots of gain, but strong, nearby out-of-band signals can overload it and create more problems than it is fixing.

Second, amplifiers are noisy, and some more noisy than others. It does you no good to add an amplifier if it increases background noise (or as some call it, the noise floor) along with the signal. So a poorly-designed amplifier can actually make difficult TV reception worse.

Here’s what the UHF TV spectrum looks like on the bow tie antenna…

…and here’s what it looks like on the NorthVu NV20 Pro. RF carriers from channels 18, 29, and 51 are anywhere from 3 dB to 9 dB weaker than on the bow tie, while channels 33 and 40 are barely there.

THE COMPETITORS – PASSIVE DIVISION

I selected nine different antennas for this latest round. Five were unamplified, and four had some sort of internal or external amplification. One of the amplified antennas (Mohu’s Sky) is actually intended for outdoor use, but I figured I’d see just how well it performed by a window anyway. (The Sky will be part of an outdoor antenna test soon.)

To kick things off, I needed a reference indoor antenna. What better choice than the classic UHF bow tie, which Radio Shack used to sell for all of $4.00? Although The Shack has since dropped this antenna from its catalog, you can still find them online. Summit Source has one made by Steren for all of $2.49.

Next up is the NorthVu NV20 Pro, a VHF/UHF panel antenna that claims to use a fractal-based design to improve resonance and performance. NorthVu is a Canadian company and its Web site promotes the use of free digital TV to cut costs of cable. A number of retailers carry it (including Amazon) and it will set you back about $60, plus shipping.

Batting in the #3 spot is the WallTenna, which I’ve tested previously. This flexible, super-flat antenna is intended for UHF reception only, although it might pull in VHF stations if the transmitter is close by.  At present, WallTenna is sold direct through the company’s Web site for $35.

Winegard’s FlatWave flexible panel antenna was another solid performer from previous tests, so it deserved another go-around. You can find it at numerous online sites and also in Costco, but prices are all over the place, ranging from $20 to $36. Shop carefully!

No test of indoor antennas would be complete without Greenwave Scientific’s Mohu Leaf, a strong performer in previous antenna tests. You can find it at numerous online and brick-and-mortar retailers (Sears, B&H, Amazon, Sam’s Club, J&R) for$40. You can also buy it direct from Greenwave.

Here’s what WMBC-18 looks like with the WallTenna.

And here’s what WMBC-18 looks like as received by the bow tie. Not much difference!

WNJM-51, as received on the FlatWave antenna…

…and the same station, as received by the NorthVu NV20 Pro.

THE COMPETITORS – AMPLIFIED DIVISION

Four more antennas rounded out the test, and all of them use active electronics to boost signal levels. NorthVu sent along the NV20 Pro Amplified, which looks exactly like the NV20 Pro except that it has a built-in power supply with AC cord. It’s currently selling for about $90, and Amazon has it.

Antennas Direct’s ClearStream Micron XG antenna is a panel design that comes in several flavors – (1) bare bones, (2) with a variable multi-step inline amplifier, (3) with a separate reflector panel, and (4) with both options together. Figure $80 for the basic panel with amplifier and $130 for the loaded system (which I tested). Oddly, the AT Web site currently lists a lower price for the basic panel antenna and amplifier ($79.99) than for the antenna alone ($89.99)!

The Mohu Leaf Ultimate is basically a Leaf antenna with an outboard preamplifier. Otherwise, it looks identical to the passive Leaf antennas, and you can find it at the same retail outlets for $90. (Sam’s Club had it for $55 at the time I wrote this.)

Finally, Mohu’s Leaf Sky antenna isn’t really an indoor design, but it’s small enough that I thought it would be fun to include it in this test. You may recall some of the bar-style VHF/UHF antennas that were popular a number of years back at the start of the digital TV transition: These could be installed on a roof or mounted on inside or outside walls. I figured it was worth seeing how well the Sky did on a very large window with minimal amounts of metal nearby to de-tune its pattern.

I think we reached the practical load limit for 1″-wide masking tape during this test!

They may be hard to see, but there are two 8VSB carriers in there – WABC-7 (left) and WNJB-8 (right). There’s just too much noise and not enough carrier-to-noise separation to pull in these signals with the ClearStream Micron.

The Leaf Ultimate couldn’t do anything to help WABC’s signal, but it did pull in WNJB-8 nicely (that hill just to the right of screen center).

THE TEST

For consistency, I decided to head back to the scene of my early DTV converter box and antenna tests – Turner Engineering, in Mountain Lakes, NJ. The Turner building is located on a bit of a rise with a decent view to the east, northeast, and southeast; good enough to pull in numerous DTV stations from the Empire State Building in New York City, as well as various DTV stations in northern New Jersey.

John Turner, president of the company and a life-long “tinkerer,” has always been a willing and eager accomplice in these tests, so we set up an area in his front office where we could attach each antenna to a window using copious amounts of masking tape (non-inductive!).

I was also able to find some space to set up the test gear, which included an AVCOM PSA-2500C spectrum analyzer, my Toshiba laptop, Hauppauge’s Aero-M USB stick DTV receiver, and Turner’s in-house DTV receiver system (a Samsung DTB-H260F ATSC set-top box, no longer available, and the legendary Princeton AF3.0HD 28-inch HD CRT monitor that was quite popular in the late 1990s.

The test was simple. After each antenna was attached to the window (not an easy task with some of the heavier models), I recorded the spectral views of various DTV channels from 7 (WABC-DT) through 51 (WNJM-DT). I also recorded wide views of the UHF TV spectrum from channels 14 through 51, and selected views of other high-band VHF DTV stations.

The final part of the test involved verifying reception without any dropouts or “hits” for at least 30 a minute. I also recorded MPEG transport streams from various stations to verify the bit error rate (BER) was indeed low.

If I didn’t see any hits and recorded a clean MPEG stream, the test antenna was rated OK for that channel. If the signal locked up even briefly or I saw too many dropped bits in the MPEG stream, it received an INT grade. If the station’s PSIP (Program and System Information Protocol) was detected by the Samsung and Hauppauge receivers, but the receiver couldn’t tune it in, the antenna received a NO grade for that channel.

Here’s a view of the UHF TV spectrum as “seen” by the NorthVu NV20 Pro with amplifier.

Here’s a view of the same channels from the Leaf Ultimate. WNJM-51 (far right) is quite a bit stronger through the NV20 Pro, but the Leaf Ultimate is grabbing a much stronger signal from WMBC-18 (left).

THE RESULTS

Table 1 shows how each antenna fared for 11 different channels. One (WNJB) was on channel 8 in the Warren Hills of New Jersey, while the remaining ten channels  were all UHF and came from Empire and selected locations in New Jersey. The two strongest were WMBC-18 (Montclair NJ) and WNJM-51 (also Montclair), less than 11 miles away.

In addition to the channels listed, I also scanned for WABC-7 (previously received in tests at this location), WPIX-11, WNET-13, WNYE-25, and WNJU-36. However, none of the antennas were able to successfully pull in these stations aside from an intermittent signal here and there, so I dropped them from the test results.

The “No Amplifier” tests were surprisingly competitive, although I didn’t expect the cheapest antenna to be the best performer. But that’s how it played out as the UHF bow tie earned nine YES scores, one INT, and one NO. It was the only antenna to pull in WNYW’s signal on channel 44, a notoriously tough catch at this indoor location.

The WallTenna, Winegard’s FlatWave, and the Mohu Leaf all tied for second place with seven YES tallies, but the WallTenna and Leaf edged ahead by pulling in WNBC’s signal on channel 28 somewhat cleanly whereas the FlatWave couldn’t lock it up.

NorthVu’s NV20 Pro was the biggest disappointment in this test. It only garnered four YES scores against seven NO tallies. I would have expected a lot better, based on the preliminary specifications and information I received from NorthVu’s product management folks.

Table 1 – comparison of passive (top) and amplified (bottom) indoor antenna performance.

Intriguingly, the NV20 Pro is also about the same size as the late, lamented Kowatec CS102; one of the best indoor UHF antennas I’ve ever tested. (Hey, antenna manufacturers! Maybe one of you can scoop up the rights to the CS-102 and resurrect it?)

Things were a bit more exciting in the amplified antenna competition. Mohu clearly had the upper hand here with their Leaf Ultimate product, as it gathered up ten solid YES scores and a solitary INT (for WNYW, of course!) The new Sky product acquitted itself well as an indoor antenna, also bagging ten YES scores and a single NO (from guess who?).

The ClearStream Micron XG (without the reflector, which no other antenna offered or used) came in behind these two with seven YES and three NO tallies, plus a single INT from our friends on channel 44. Once again, NorthVu brought up the rear with their NV20 Pro Amplified, which fared only slightly better than the basic NV20. It scored five YES, three INT, and three NO tallies.

We checked for reception through all antennas using this vintage Princeton AF3.0HD CRT monitor. Remember CRT monitors?

This is what the ClearStream Micron XG preamp looks like. Notice the four operating modes, selectable with a small tactile pushbutton.

CONCLUSIONS

It says a lot that the least-expensive and simplest unamplified antenna design took on all comers and won. It also implies that the particular location where the antennas were mounted just seemed to favor the bow tie this time around (we didn’t test it with an amplifier). These tests were conducted in March with no foliage on nearby trees, whereas my last test was in late July of last year with trees fully leafed out. Even so, the bow tie did pull in WNYW-44 solid as a rock for as long as we chose to watch, something no other passive or amplified antenna could do.

All of the antennas performed equally well at the low end of the UHF band (channel 18) as they did at the high end (channel 51). Five of them were able to haul in channel 8 (about 180 MHz) reliably, which is an impressive feat for such small antennas that expect to work a lot better at UHF frequencies.

Ironically, only two amplified antennas could pull in WWOR on channel 38, something the bow tie did with relative ease. On channel 30 (WFUT), the NorthVu NV20 Pro was the only antenna that couldn’t hook up to the signal. A similar situation occurred with ION-31, not receivable on any of the passive antennas, but plenty strong with the Leaf Sky, Leaf Ultimate, and ClearStream Micron XG. Once again, the NV20 Pro Amplified just couldn’t pull it off.

I should mention that the ClearStream Micron XG’s preamplifier was set to a maximum of 15. Any higher, and the noise floor was degraded, something I could easily see on the spectrum analyzer. In general, I like to keep amplifiers at about 10 dB maximum to guard against this problem – too much gain creates all kinds of reception issues, and you only need to boost the signals up high enough to maintain the required carrier-to-noise ratio (CNR) for reliable digital TV reception.

The separate preamp supplied with Leaf’s Sky and Ultimate antennas is a good design, adding minimal noise while providing sufficient gain to pull signals out of the mud. I can’t say anything about the quality of the NV20 Pro’s amplifier as it is mounted internally, but in my tests it did not appear to add much noise to any of the received signals.

Based on these and previous tests, I’d give the WallTenna, FlatWave, and Leaf a thumbs-up. If you can find one, the bow tie is cheap enough to play around with and may fit the bill. (Hey, Starbucks coffee costs more and the thrill doesn’t last as long). I can’t recommend the NV20 Pro, though.

In the amplified crowd, the Leaf Ultimate and Sky both deliver solid performance. It is a testament to the design of the Sky that it worked so well indoors, but if you opt to use it this way, make sure you have a large window and keep it at least 2-3 feet away from any metal objects.

Antenna Direct’s ClearStream Micron XG is a decent performer, but expensive. I can tell you from a previous test that the reflector made little difference, but if that’s your cup of tea, position the antenna on a non-metallic surface (bookshelf, window ledge, etc.), aim it towards the TV transmitters when using the reflector assembly, and don’t run the preamp higher than the ‘15’ setting.

Most importantly, keep in mind that you don’t need to spend a lot of money to get reliable indoor TV reception. My best performers in the passive category were all under $50, and some were under $40. Check TV reception sites first (TVFool.com is one of the best) to get an idea of how strong signals may be at your location before you buy.

The 5-inch, Full HD (1920×1080) AMOLED display has a pixel density of 441 pixels per inch (ppi), which makes the 326 ppi of Apple’s newest, the iPhone 5, look decidedly unimpressive. You may appreciate the irony: With its “Retina Display,” Apple established high pixel density as a marketable specification, and it now trails its primary rival in ppi as well as screen diagonal. By the way, several panel-makers have shown 5-inch, 440-ppi LCDs for smart phones, so look for more display-related sand to be kicked in Apple’s direction.

Samsung’s new Galaxy S4 smartphone with Full HD 5-inch AMOLED display.

It was widely predicted that the S4 would use eye-tracking to scroll the screen, but Samsung execs said the technology wasn’t ready yet. Instead, scrolling is controlled by tilting the phone (“Smart Scroll”), and the phone decides whether to dim or not to dim based on whether you are looking at the screen or away from it, which is a carry-over from the S3. In addition, a video will pause if you look away from it, a feature called, rather unimaginatively, “Smart Pause.” The phone will also respond to voice and to non-contact gestures.

There are new sensors for temperature and humidity – as well geomagnetic and proximity sensors, accelerometer, gyroscope, and barometer carried over from the S3. A new infrared (IR) gesture sensor has been added to support the non-contact gesture interface. The phone also contains an IR LED so the phone can be used as a TV remote control. (All TV brands are supported.)

The phone has a 13-megapixel rear-facing camera and a 2-megapixel front-facing camera. I know it’s a waste of time, but I can’t resist saying the obvious: That 13 (or 10 or 8) megapixels on a tiny cell-phone camera chip is nonsensical since the microscopic receptor sites that result are necessarily noisier than larger ones would be. What is clever, though, is that the two cameras can be fired simultaneously and their images combined in various ways. One is that the front-facing image of the photographer can be embedded within the photograph he or she has just taken.

All of this is supported by an octo-core processor (in some markets) and an impressively large 2600mAh (9.9 Wh) battery.

The OS is Android 4.2.2 Jelly Bean. That’s the latest Android version, but the phone is upgradable to Key Lime Pie, the next Android version, which should be introduced mid-year.

The Galaxy S4 is an impressive phone with an impressive display. We’ll have to see if Apple’s forthcoming iPhone 5S upgrade shifts the balance, but Apple’s ability to produce exciting new products seems to have died with its founder. Or perhaps that product-development imagination is just buried in the lower echelons, where it has not yet been recognized.

Ken Werner is Principal of Nutmeg Consultants, specializing in the display industry, display manufacturing, display technology, and display applications. You can reach him at ken@hdtvexpert.com.