A handheld television is a portable device for watching

television Television (TV) is a telecommunication medium for transmitting moving images and sound. Additionally, the term can refer to a physical television set rather than the medium of transmission. Television is a mass medium for advertising, ...

that usually uses a TFT

LCD A liquid-crystal display (LCD) is a flat-panel display or other electronically modulated optical device that uses the light-modulating properties of liquid crystals combined with polarizers to display information. Liquid crystals do not em ...

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

and

CRT CRT or Crt most commonly refers to: * Cathode-ray tube, a display * Critical race theory, an academic framework of analysis CRT may also refer to: Law * Charitable remainder trust, United States * Civil Resolution Tribunal, Canada * Columbia ...

color Color (or colour in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English; American and British English spelling differences#-our, -or, see spelling differences) is the visual perception based on the electromagnetic spectrum. Though co ...

display. Many of these devices resemble handheld

transistor radio A transistor radio is a small portable radio receiver that uses transistor-based circuitry. Previous portable radios used vacuum tubes, which were bulky, fragile, had a limited lifetime, consumed excessive power and required large heavy batteri ...

History

In 1970,

Panasonic is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturer, headquartered in Kadoma, Osaka, Kadoma, Japan. It was founded in 1918 as in Fukushima-ku, Osaka, Fukushima by Kōnosuke Matsushita. The company was incorporated in 1935 and renamed and c ...

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

Sinclair Research Sinclair Research Ltd is a British consumer electronics company founded by Clive Sinclair in Cambridge in the 1970s. In 1980, the company entered the home computer market with the ZX80 at £99.95, at that time the cheapest personal computer ...

released the second pocket television, the MTV-1. Since

technology was not yet mature at the time, the TV used a minuscule

which set the record for being the smallest CRT on a commercially marketed product. Later in 1982,

Sony is a Japanese multinational conglomerate (company), conglomerate headquartered at Sony City in Minato, Tokyo, Japan. The Sony Group encompasses various businesses, including Sony Corporation (electronics), Sony Semiconductor Solutions (i ...

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 is a brand of Personal stereo, portable audio players manufactured by Sony since 1979. It was originally introduced as a portable Compact Cassette, cassette player and later expanded to include a range of portable audio products. Since 2011, ...

. It had grayscale video at first. Several years later, a color model with an active-matrix LCD was released. Some

smartphone A smartphone is a mobile phone with advanced computing capabilities. It typically has a touchscreen interface, allowing users to access a wide range of applications and services, such as web browsing, email, and social media, as well as multi ...

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 DVB-H (digital video broadcasting - handheld) is one of three prevalent mobile TV formats. It is a technical specification for bringing broadcast services to mobile handsets. DVB-H was formally adopted as ETSI standard EN 302 304 in November 2 ...

, although it didn't see much success.

Hardware

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

composite video Composite video, also known as CVBS (composite video baseband signal or color, video, blanking and sync), is an analog video format that combines image information—such as brightness (luminance), color (chrominance), and synchronization, int ...

-analog mono audio relay to serve them as

composite monitor A composite monitor or composite video monitor is any 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 conductor; a ...

s; also, some models have mono 3.5 mm jacks for the broadcast signal that is usually relayed via

F connector F, or f, is the sixth letter of the Latin alphabet and many modern alphabets influenced by it, including the modern English alphabet and the alphabets of all other modern western European languages. Its name in English is ''ef'' (pronounc ...

Belling-Lee connector The Belling-Lee connector (also type 9,52, but largely only in the context of its specification, '' IEC 61169, Part 2: Radio-frequency coaxial connector of type 9,52'') Radio-frequency connectors – Part 2: Sectional specification – Radio f ...

on standard television models. Some include

HDMI High-Definition Multimedia Interface (HDMI) is a proprietary digital interface used to transmit high-quality video and audio signals between devices. It is commonly used to connect devices such as televisions, computer monitors, projectors, gam ...

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard, developed by USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF), for digital data transmission and power delivery between many types of electronics. It specifies the architecture, in particular the physical ...

and SD ports. Screen sizes vary from . Some handheld televisions also double as portable

DVD player A DVD player is a machine that plays DVDs produced under both the DVD-Video and DVD-Audio technical standards, two different and incompatible standards. Some DVD players will also play audio CDs. DVD players are connected to a television to ...

s 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 Lighte ...

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

wristwatch A watch is a timepiece carried or worn by a person. It is designed to maintain a consistent movement despite the motions caused by the person's activities. A wristwatch is worn around the wrist, attached by a watch strap or another type of ...

Notable brands and models

RCA RCA Corporation was a major American electronics company, which was founded in 1919 as the Radio Corporation of America. It was initially a patent pool, patent trust owned by General Electric (GE), Westinghouse Electric Corporation, Westinghou ...

- DPTM70R *

- Watchman and Bravia *

Casio is a Japanese multinational electronics manufacturing corporation headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan. Its products include calculators, mobile phones, digital cameras, electronic musical instruments, and analogue and digital watches. It ...

Sanyo is a former Japanese electronics manufacturer founded in 1947 by Toshio Iue, the brother-in-law of Kōnosuke Matsushita, the founder of Matsushita Electric Industrial, now known as Panasonic. Iue left Matsushita Electric to start his own bu ...

- MTV-1 and TV80

References

{{Reflist

External links