A handheld television is a portable device for watching

television Television, sometimes shortened to TV, is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. The term can refer to a television set, or the medium of television transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertisin ...

that usually uses a TFT LCD or

OLED An organic light-emitting diode (OLED or organic LED), also known as organic electroluminescent (organic EL) diode, is a light-emitting diode (LED) in which the emissive electroluminescent layer is a film of organic compound that emits light i ...

and CRT

color Color (American English) or colour (British English) is the visual perceptual property deriving from the spectrum of light interacting with the photoreceptor cells of the eyes. Color categories and physical specifications of color are assoc ...

display. Many of these devices resemble

handheld A mobile device (or handheld computer) is a computer small enough to hold and operate in the hand. Mobile devices typically have a flat LCD or OLED screen, a touchscreen interface, and digital or physical buttons. They may also have a physical ...

transistor radio A transistor radio is a small portable radio receiver that uses transistor-based circuitry. Following the invention of the transistor in 1947—which revolutionized the field of consumer electronics by introducing small but powerful, convenient ...

History

In the 1970s and early 1980s,

Panasonic formerly between 1935 and 2008 and the first incarnation of between 2008 and 2022, is a major Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka. It was founded by Kōnosuke Matsushita in 1918 as a lightbulb ...

and

Sinclair Research Sinclair Research Ltd is a British consumer electronics company founded by Clive Sinclair in Cambridge. It was originally incorporated in 1973 as Westminster Mail Order Ltd, renamed Sinclair Instrument Ltd, then Science of Cambridge Ltd, then ...

released the first TVs which were small enough to fit in a large pocket; called the Panasonic IC TV MODEL TR-001 and

MTV-1 The MTV-1 Micro TV was the second model of a near pocket-sized television. The first was the Panasonic IC model TR-001 introduced in 1970. The MTV-1 was developed by Clive Sinclair ( Sinclair Radionics Ltd). It was shown to the public at trade ...

. Since LCD technology was not yet mature at the time, the TV used a minuscule CRT which set the record for being the smallest CRT on a commercially marketed product. Later in 1982,

Sony , commonly stylized as SONY, is a Japanese multinational conglomerate corporation headquartered in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. As a major technology company, it operates as one of the world's largest manufacturers of consumer and professiona ...

released their first model - the FD-200, which was introduced as “Flat TV” later renamed after the nickname Watchman, a play on the word Walkman. It had grayscale video at first. Several years later, a color model with an

active-matrix Active matrix is a type of addressing scheme used in flat panel displays. In this method of switching individual elements (pixels), each pixel is attached to a transistor and capacitor ''actively'' maintaining the pixel state while other pixels are ...

LCD was released. Some

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

s integrate a television receiver, although Internet broadband video is far more common. Since the switch-over to digital broadcasting, handheld TVs have reduced in size and improved in quality. Portable TV was eventually brought to digital TV with DVB-H, although it didn't see much success. The major current manufacturers of DVB-T standard (common throughout Europe) handheld TVs are August International, ODYS and Xoro.

Hardware

These devices often have stereo 1⁄8 inch (3.5 mm)

phono plug The RCA connector is a type of electrical connector commonly used to carry audio and video signals. The name ''RCA'' derives from the company Radio Corporation of America, which introduced the design in the 1930s. The connectors male plug and ...

s for composite video-analog mono audio relay to serve them as

composite monitor A composite monitor or composite video monitor is any analog signal, analog video display that receives input in the form of an analog composite video signal to a defined specification. A composite video signal encodes all information on a single ...

s; also, some models have mono 3.5 mm jacks for the broadcast signal that is usually relayed via F connector or Belling-Lee connector on standard television models. Some include

HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary audio/video interface for transmitting uncompressed video data and compressed or uncompressed digital audio data from an HDMI-compliant source device, such as a display controlle ...

, USB and SD ports. Screen sizes vary from . Some handheld televisions also double as portable DVD players and USB personal video recorders.

Size

Portable televisions cannot fit in a pocket, but often run on batteries and include a

cigarette lighter receptacle An automobile auxiliary power outlet (also known as car cigarette lighter or auxiliary power outlet) in an automobile was initially designed to power an electrically heated cigarette lighter,LifeWire.com article''“From Car Cigarette Lighter ...

plug. Pocket televisions fit in a pocket. Wearable televisions sometimes are made in the form of a wristwatch.

Notable brands and models

* August International - DA100C * ODYS - LIVE * Xoro - HSD7790 *

RCA The RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded as the Radio Corporation of America in 1919. It was initially a patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse, AT&T Corporation and United Fruit Comp ...

- DPTM70R *

- Watchman * Casio *

Sanyo , stylized as SANYO, is a Japanese electronics company and formerly a member of the ''Fortune'' Global 500 whose headquarters was located in Moriguchi, Osaka prefecture, Japan. Sanyo had over 230 subsidiaries and affiliates, and was founded by ...

and

TV80 The Sinclair TV80, also known as the Flat Screen Pocket TV or FTV1, was a pocket television released by Sinclair Research in September 1983. Unlike Sinclair's earlier attempts at a portable television, the TV80 used a flat CRT with a side-mount ...

References

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External links