Australians are set to be the first consumers able to purchase Kodak's world-first digital camera with an integrated OLED screen, according to a company announcement.

Kodak today announced its latest consumer digital camera, the EasyShare LS633, a camera with an integrated OLED (Organic Light-Emitting Diode) preview screen. The 3.1 megapixel LS633 will go on sale in Australia and New Zealand at the end of March at an estimated price of AU$899.

According to Penny Leith, Kodak Australia's local PR manager, the decision to launch the LS633 locally was due to buying patterns amongst digital camera consumers.

"Kodak's sales patterns from the smaller LS series cameras were strongest in the Asian region, whereas cameras with larger bodies sold better in the United States," said Leith.

It would likely be a number of months before the camera became available in the US, according to Leith, although she could not tie down an exact schedule for releasing the camera across the Asia-Pacific region. "It would likely be a matter of a few weeks between countries," she said.

Current digital cameras, including models from Kodak, use traditional LCD technology. The advantages with using OLEDs in digital camera displays comes primarily from the wider viewing angles available and lower power consumption of the non-backlit technology. Speaking via telephone from the Photo Marketing Association's trade show in Las Vegas, Willy Shih, President of Kodak's Digital & Applied Imaging group, said that the LS633 wouldn't be that much more battery efficient than existing models, primarily due to its larger display area.

Technology companies have recently been experimenting and developing OLED screens as a replacement for existing LCD (Liquid Crystal Display) technologies. OLED screens use an organic material that emits light when a charge is passed through it, removing the necessity for a separate backlight, as is needed in most conventional LCDs. The 2.2 inch OLED display in the LS633 comes about from SK Display Corporation--a joint venture between Kodak and Sanyo.

The LS633 uses a small molecule OLED technology. Small molecule OLEDs are developed by placing individual OLED molecules onto a screen in a vacuum, a time-consuming and costly process. Still in the process of development, is polymer-based OLED production, which would allow manufacturers to spray molecules onto a surface, rather than the single-molecule placement approach. Still, the camera is the first application of an active matrix OLED in a consumer product. It's expected that Sanyo will use the technology in a range of mobile phones in the Asian market.

Kodak also announced the EasyShare Printer Dock 6000, a combined camera dock and thermal-dye printer. The printer dock will be available in Australia in April at an RRP of AU$399. Kodak's announcement also included news of an update to its Easyshare computer software; version 3.0 of the software will be available for download in April.