Industry sources claim Samsung will start shipping 16" notebook LCD displays that support Full HD in the third quarter of this year. More competition in this market will arrive in 2009 from AUO and LG.Philips.
As some notebook vendors already have plans to launch 16-inch FHD notebooks in the first half of the year, Samsung will ship some 16-inch FHD panels to these vendors, including Acer and Hewlett-Packard (HP), before the Korean maker formally starts volume production for the segment, the sources said, adding Samsung is expected to ship 16-inch FHD panels to Acer in April.
Samsung can produce its 16-inch FHD panels, which have a 16:9 aspect ratio and a resolution of 1920×1080, at its 5G line, with each substrate producing 18 panels of the size.
The 16-inch FHD panels are expected to be US$60-70 more expensive than 15-inch WUXGA panels. As notebooks featuring these panels will also come with blue-ray DVD optical disk drives (ODDs), these notebooks are meant for the top segment of the market.
System vendors estimate that currently 15.4-inch WUXGA notebooks account for 4-6% of the worldwide notebook market, and the 16-inch FHD notebooks is likely to account for less than that, the sources said.
The sources said AUO and Chi Mei Optoelectronics (CMO) also plan to launch 15.6-inch HD notebook panels in June, while Asustek Computer will launch its 15.6-inch HD notebooks in the second half of the year.
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