There's a rumor going around the tech finance pubs about Sony using Sharp panels in its future Large LCDs.

Seems to make sense, considering that Sharp's had the lead in big LCD making, based on the 108-inch champ from last year's CES. This affects you in a few ways: Sony LCDs have long worked with Samsung on their LCD panels. By comparison, Samsung has traditionally been behind in response times, contrast and black levels. But in the past lots of Sharp LCDs in bigger sizes have blotchy backlighting. Maybe the 10th generation factory Sharp is working on, reported to be the biggest in the world, will have eliminated all of these issues by the time it goes online in 2010. [Reuters]