MacBook Air grows LED LCDs

The MacBook Air, with its use of an LED-lit display, is supposedly spurring adoption of the technology all throughout the industry, due to its energy conservation and even lighting. According to Macworld, Apple's slender ultraportable – due to its aesthetic appeal – is spurring an almost exponential rise in LED use in devices ranging from laptops and desktop LCD monitors, to LCD televisions.

Overall, the market should see a four-fold increase this year, with approximately 16.7 million devices to use the technology, from 4 million in 2007. LED laptops with screen sizes smaller than 14-inches would more than double – an estimated 7.2-percent would carry the new displays versus 3.4-percent last year.

Laptops with larger than 14-inch screens would increase LED use from 0.1-percent last year to 4.6-percent this year, with an estimated 19.9-percent in 2009, a figure almost doubling to 38.8-percent by 2010.

Luke Yao, an analyst for DisplaySearch, says that the largest inhibiting factor today is the cost. While taking up half the space of a traditional CCFL backlight, the displays tend to cost twice as much, sometimes more. As production increases, however, costs will fall.

by MacNN Staff