Pocket TV
A pocket TVs , mini TV or portable TV ( English pocket TV , portable TV , handheld TV ) is a device for mobile television , one with battery -operated TV with a screen size to about 7 inches .
history
Early development from the 1960s
As early as the late 1960s, Sinclair Radionics in Great Britain and Motorola in the USA were developing portable televisions for the handbag or jacket pocket . But it wasn't until 1970 that the Japanese Matsushita group presented the first model ready for series production: the Panasonic TR-001, alias Mica 1 . The visible screen diagonal of the cathode ray tube (in black and white) was around 35 mm, the weight of the device (including the battery pack) was around 890 grams. The TR-001EU was launched for the European market , the few surviving copies are considered a real rarity. In the country of origin Japan , the device was marketed as National TR-101B . The selling price was 99,000 yen , which was the equivalent of a little over 1,000 DM .
In January 1977 the first pocket television made in Europe came onto the market: The Sinclair MTV1 , a rather expensive multi-standard television with conventional black and white picture tube from AEG-Telefunken for the "prestige market". Cost: 200 pounds or 400 US dollars . Three years later, in 1980, Matsushita is back. The group is now calling its mini TVs with 1.5 inch (35 mm) screen diagonal Travelvision . The TR-1000 marks the start of this series, followed by five other models. In 1984 the TR-1030 and the CT-101 (with color screen!) End the tradition of "tube devices" at Panasonic .
Not only Sir Clive Sinclair has in the meantime recognized that "pocket-sized" televisions with an attractive screen diagonal are difficult to achieve with a picture tube of conventional design - a flat-screen tube is needed. This is a specially constructed picture tube in which the picture information is viewed on the inside of the tube.
In the spring of 1982, the Japanese electronics company Sony was the first to bring a device ready for series production on the market: the SONY Watchman FD-210 . However, the first Watchman was anything but compact: almost 20 cm high and around 9 cm wide. A good year later, in September 1983, Sinclair also had the flat screen TV under control: The Sinclair FTV1 should finally bring the pocket TV into every household. But the ambitious project failed, the FTV1 (aka TV-80) was unsuccessful. One of the reasons: A special lithium battery was required for mains-independent operation, which, according to the manufacturer, was sufficient for around 15 hours of television viewing. A three-pack of these energy dispensers cost 10 pounds after all (1983 equivalent to 38 DM). Selling price of the device: just under £ 80.
First devices with liquid crystal displays (LCD), 1980s
In June of the same year, the Japanese heralded the end of the cathode ray tube in pocket TVs : the CASIO TV-10 is the first portable series device with a liquid crystal screen . The contrast of the astonishingly large black and white display (67 mm diagonal) is extremely modest, but the cornerstone of market leadership in the field of LCD pocket TVs has been laid. Just one year later, in August 1984, competitor Epson presented the first color pocket television. Dr. Shinji Morozumi is one of the pioneers in the research field of active matrix liquid crystal displays. This is the basis for the EPSON ET-10 (aka SEIKO T102 ), the first mass-produced pocket TV with a color display.
In May 1985, the CASIO TV-1000 was launched in Japan , the first television with color LCD from Casio - only with "passive" technology, but therefore considerably cheaper than the ET-10 from Epson. A month later, it also works for the competitor Citizen : The CITIZEN 05TA alias Bookvision entered the race for buyers' favor in June 1985. Somewhat more forward-looking in design, but also with a passive color LCD and foldable background lighting. SONY had also noticed that customers were demanding mobile color TVs. The Watchman FDL-310 was the first model of its kind from SONY in 1990. Apparently they didn't even try it with a color flat-screen tube, instead opting for LCD technology straight away.
At the beginning of the 1990s, both function and design became an important selling point. The Dutch Philips group is at the forefront in this regard. The year after its market launch, the Philips 3LC2050 received a corresponding award: Best of Category at the renowned iF Product Design Award 1991 in the entertainment electronics category. A little later, the end of an era was announced: Despite its somewhat contemporary equipment (e.g. station search), the SONY Watchman FD-280 from 1993 was one of the last "Watchmen" with a cathode ray tube.
Technical innovations were rare in the years that followed, with devices with a passive LC color display in the lower price segment and models with TFT displays in the upper segment.
Before the triumphant advance of cell phones and palmtops, there were also isolated attempts to integrate mobile televisions into wristwatches .
New techniques of the 2000s
Several technical developments have influenced the future of miniature televisions since 2000:
- The first mini TVs with OLED displays have been on the market since mid-2005
- Analog transmission technology is gradually giving way to digitization throughout Europe. The first mini-TVs for DVB-T 'everywhere TV' have been available in Germany since January 2006. Other mobile television standards such as DVB-H handheld television are being developed.
Today's small televisions (2009) have a screen diagonal of 2.3 inches ( mobile phone format ), digital picture frames suitable for DVB-T , up to 11 inches with an integrated DVD player on the edge of the non-portable compact device, or close to the portable DVD / TV concept -DVD combi in the style of a subnotebook, and are also 16: 9 -suitable in stores.
Modern research is moving in the direction of electronic paper (thin, flexible screens) and wearables (implementation in clothing).
Cell phones and tablet computers as modern competitors of pocket TVs
With the advent of digital transmission methods for television stations such as DVB-T and DMB as well as LTE , UMTS , IP-TV via WLAN , it is now also possible to receive television programs on cell phones and tablet computers .
Nevertheless, pocket televisions for DVB-T can still be bought in 2014.