You hear it all the time about anything high end or high tech - the instant you buy it, it's already been replaced by something better. Drive a new car off the lot and see it depreciate the instant the rubber hits the road.

Purchase a new computer and before you get it out of the box, it's already been replaced with a new and more powerful model.

And then there are your HDTVs, which have come way down in price while going way up in quality. Surely they haven't come up with something to replace those plasma or LCD screens with such beautiful pictures? Actually, they have. They're called OLEDs, short for organic light-emitting diodes.

What's that? It's a flat panel TV made out of organic material. The picture quality is incredible, with a colour contrast ratio of a million to one. But that's not all. The pixels actually emit their own light - and that means the set is no thicker than the width of three credit cards. With something that thin, it could let you take the Jetson's-like step of hanging the entire set on the wall like a picture.

And it comes with one other bonus - because it puts out its own light, it draws a lot less electricity. "It consumes as little as 34 watts, which is less than a conventional light bulb," explains Patrick Lapointe of Sony Canada.

Many of those who've seen it have been blown away by the quality of the picture. "Looking at it, you know, from pictures and specs and seeing it in real life, it's just unbelievable," marvels Glenn, an I.T. technician.

But every new product has some kind of drawback to it and this one is no different. Where plasma and LCD screens measure 40 or 50 inches or more, the first OLED for sale is only 11 measly inches and costs $2,500. It lasts for 30,000 hours although Sony is looking at escalating it to a 27 inch screen - still not close to its competitors, but a major step up.

Still, not everyone is ready to step out on a ledge for OLED. "New technologies, usually you've got to wait and see if there's anything wrong with them," cautions Toomaj Haghshenas. "The price is high and all that, but eventually, yeah."

The 11-inch model is available now but Sony won't say when the larger one might appear at your electronics store. Your best bet: wait. If the history of this explosive industry is any indication, the screens will get bigger and the prices will almost certainly get smaller.