The Sony XEL-1 OLED TV. Some of you may have heard or read about it on the likes of Engadget, others amongst you perhaps heard elsewhere of the super-thin OLED TVs… The XEL-1 from Sony, weighing in at two kilograms and strutting its stuff at just 3mm thin, takes the size 0 debate to a whole new level, on geeky grounds of course. Whilst only 11″ wide, the screen packs in a not too shabby contrast ratio of 1,000,000 to 1, and features a resolution of 940×540.

The XEL-1 measures an impressive 287×253×140mm and ships as-is on a pedestal with a flexible arm. Whilst certainly not something that’d fit nice ‘n’ swish in my living room (Heck! Where’s my 52-incher!?!?), the size and portability of the XEL-1 allow for it to be used in a wide range of situations. A desktop auxillary display, or a side-along RSS reader. Perhaps a weather reporting tool, or a place for me to drag my extra desktop widgets (whether they be Mac OS X, Vista, Yahoo or Google powered) and run all manner of fancy gadgets without cluttering up my workspace. Perhaps even just a display for me to run iTunes in… Touchscreen ‘n’ I’m sold!

Shipping on December 1st, early adopters are left with sore-behinds, being forced to shell out 200,000 Yen ($1,740) for the tiny 11″ display. With Sony refusing to promise anything more than 30,000 hours - even on the longetivity span, adopters are getting the raw end of the stick, with Sony’s current (much, MUCH cheaper) LCD screens promising twice as much display time. All that said, if you’re looking for an HDMI, USB and headphone port equppied TV, with S-Force sound, a nice shiny Lan interface, and a whole load of bragging rights - the XEL-1 works out quite nicely.

And, yeah… This is a sponsored review for Sony. Makes a change from YouTube videos.