Samsung hopes to launch OLED laptops next year

Samsung is hoping to launch OLED-equipped laptops by the third quarter of next year. According the company's head of worldwide sales and marketing, Kyu Uhm, Samsung is the largest OLED screen manufacturer. Uhm added that Samsung will adopt OLED displays as soon as they are commercially available for laptops.

Research firm Gartner believes that mainstream OLED notebooks will have an increasing presence over the next five years. Samsung is surely sold on the technology, having already shown off an AMOLED notebook prototype. Introducing an OLED laptop toward the end of 2010 would be about a year later than Samsung's previous forecast.

In October of 2007, the company said it planned to have 3.5" to 7" panels prepared for ultra-portable systems in 2008, which would be followed by 14", 15", and 21" displays for laptop and desktop computers in 2009. It predicted that it would have full 40" and 42" HD OLED panels by 2010 and Flexible OLED (FOLED) displays by 2012 at the latest.

Toshiba announces Blu-ray-equipped Satellite P500

Toshiba has announced its new media-centric notebook, the Satellite P500. The Satellite P500 features an 18.4" 16:9 (1680x945 or 1920x1080) LCD display, an Intel Core 2 Duo, up to 8GB of DDR2 RAM, an Nvidia GeForce G210M (512MB VRAM) or 230M GT (1GB VRAM), and two 500GB HDDs.

Equipped with a Blu-ray drive and focused on entertainment, the P500 ships with more than just the expected trimmings. Additional specs include a TV tuner card, VGA and HDMI-out, a remote control, 802.11a/b/g/n, an HD webcam, Bluetooth 2.1 + EDR, three USB 2.0 as well as Firewire and eSATA ports, S/PDIF digital audio interfacing, an Express Card slot, a 5-in-1 Bridge Media port, and Harmon Kardon speakers.

Toshiba boasts that the Satellite P500 is Energy Star 5.0 certified -- but that seems moot with an 18.4" display, an Nvidia G210/230M GT and dual HDDs. The P500 is expected to hit shelves in the fourth quarter of this year, which likely means you can expect to see Windows 7 installed. Pricing wasn't disclosed

Toshiba introduces its first Blu-ray player

Toshiba's battle against Blu-ray has come full circle, it seems. After they announced their decision to end HD DVD, there were many questions about what their future held. Some suggested they'd compete with another format; others said they'd drop out of the market. Instead, Toshiba sought access to the BDA earlier this year, and began working on a Blu-ray player of their own.

That work has come to fruition, with Toshiba officially announcing their first Blu-ray player. Toshiba's BDX2000 will feature true 1080p playback, the newest BD-Live 2.0 Profile, compatibility with Toshiba's REGZA-LINK, an SD card slot and more. The BDX2000's introductory price will be about $250, putting it somewhat in line with offerings like Sony's BDP-S350. That's still only $50 less than Sony's 120GB PlayStation 3 Slim, though. Toshiba expects their Blu-ray player to be available in retail starting November, hoping to capitalize on the holiday season.

Though it goes without saying, the BDX2000 will not support HD DVD playback.