LG Announces Ultra-thin 55-inch OLED TV

4mm thick? I can stack 25 of those to equal the same depth as my aging LCD tv.

looking past the marketting talk, add in the electronics to control it, it'll be much thicker.

I don't care too much about thickness. What I do care about is that this will probably cost about $25k, based on the tiny OLED TV's sold in the past for a fortune.

LG said this TV's were going to be out in 2011.... Guess what LG, we're in 2012!

I guess the price will be twice as that.

I bought a 55in LED tv back when LED tv's were starting to come on board. Needless to say, I paid around 2k for it, while better ones with WIFI are available now for about $1300.

Since LED TV's are still viewed as modern and the "newest" thing, and probably will be viewed this way for another year or two, I can see this OLED costing about 3-4k and not being worth it lol.

At this point, I don't see any reason for anyone to "upgrade" to something like this unless they have an old projection screen, and even then, it will cost too much to upgrade.

These will very expensive.Wait for 1 year after the oficial market launch and they will be 30% cheaper.

First off, not really concerned how "Thin" they can go, I watch TV's from the FRONT not the SIDE..you?

Second, I'll be more interested when they start upgrading the resolution above 1920x1080.

i am sure that the contrast will be much better....how will it compare with plasma? plasma does not suffer from pix-elation, LED TVs suffer from pix-elation big time....if OLED tvs will have the same issue then you can count me out

1080P is all you need....it's clear enough for me...what they need to do is acutally code the programing to take full advantage of 1080P...most movies and shows are scaled up but they are not full 1080P

I agree about the resolution.. Why is everyone so obsessed with increasing the resolution in TV's, when the content that is available isn't nearly using the highest resolution most of the times.... It's not like you are going to use this panel as a PC monitor anyway...

Hey I got a 40in non-LED LCD for about the same price a few years back.
If I had a huge pile of money just laying around, I'd get one of these for 50K, but as it is I think I'll wait a while.

And you just go see what a big Oled screen looks like and say it's no upgrade...

If your in a smaller room i guess i could see that thickness come into play when the tv with mount sits 10" off the wall with stand and 2-3" thick panel, falling back to around 6" could make those side seats have just a touch of a better viewing angle. I guess thickness has a direct correlation to the panels weight as well which could come into play as well. But this whole thickness is all marketing and bragging rights because once you have your HDMI or Component cables plugged in, those are going to stick out another couple of inches, even the right angle ones arent all that tight to begin with. Basically if the technology allows for thinner panels and if that thin panel means cheaper prices due to requiring less materials i'm all for the thin panel craze, otherwise get lost!

I'm still in the stone ages with my 46" Samsung LCD @ 60hz from 3 years10 months ago but i've got no reason to upgrade yet, i know the newer panels may look better or they're brighter but its not side by side with a new one and i've never herd anyone complain about the quality!

I'm stoked that OLED tech is finally getting somewhere! I'm still rocking my old 4:3 480P CRT TV (yes progressive, not Interlaced, and it makes a world of difference on my PS2! lol), and would love to upgrade, but when comparing LCD TVs to my LCD monitor there is little reason to upgrade the main TV as the computer is in a coffee table and couch configuration which works just fine for us most of the time.

I am with you! 2K and 4K have already made their debut on the ultra high end, and should start filtering down to the enthusiast end within in the next 2-3 years. Many say that it does not make a difference, but for those of us wanting a home theater setup with a 6' tall projector/screen 1080p simply does not cut it. 2K would be acceptable, and 4K would be preferred for such sizes.
And I completely agree, make it as thick as needed in order to have even and controlled back-lighting, and to house all the electronics behind the screen. We consumers are much more concerned about shrinking the bevel than shrinking the back that we never look at.
Obviously you know very little about TV tech. Plasma screens have pixels, just like anything else. They just do not have square pixels like LCDs do which generally makes for a more natural looking image, but makes things like text much harder to read and textures (where you would see most of what you are complaining about) much more blurred. They use the more organic shapes of their pixels to hide some of the artifacts that you would otherwise see in an LCD, and in the real world the only difference between a good LCD/LED vs a good Plasma is contrast, black level, and natural motion, not artifacting. The real issue is pixel density, and the space/lines between the pixels. Most modern LCD/LED/OLED panels do not suffer from the 'screen door effect' or pixelation problems, especially once you get away from the entry level models. Also, most pixelation is introduced through compression of the video, or a bad upscaler. Watching demos in a store generally is riddled with issues because they pump everything through a low quality distributer which messes everything up for most of the screens. Until you watch the TV in a room with a dedicated blue ray player, in a dim room after it has been calibrated then there is no way to really see what you are getting. I agree Plasma is the better tech, but not for the reasons you are citing. And lets keep in mind that plasma is unusable in some situations due to burn-in issues, and blowing out the contrast levels for some types of media where an LCD is a little more 'true to life'.

remember when the first 42" plasma hit Circuit City / Futureshops? It was 480i resolution only, and costed 14,000$ It dropped to half price 9 months later. Now they're $399 for a 1080p Sharp (60Hz)

I am happy that OLED is finally hitting the scene, I cannot stand the current state of LCD, well mine anyways, it is bleeding through edges and making my eyes sore. I never had this problem with old tube TV's

DUH! you think Cable companies were flooding their cable lines with 1080i/p content when those technologies first came out? UD is the next step and those initial TV's will cost what those early LCD's cost, the wealthy will be purchasing these, manufacturing volumes will go up these panels will be produced in higher quantities and the processes will evolve, they will then become more standard as prices fall below $4,000, more and more content will be mass produced, Currently i am capable of playing HD channels on 4 of my TV's simultaneously, So the bandwidth is already there and if watching a UDTV broadcast means the other TV's cannot watch 1080p content immediately, so be it. Eventually the technology will catch up etc etc. We saw this with the first HD TVs at 720p/1080i and then 1080p so what makes you think that this same process will not happen again? Over and over again people talk about how they could never imagine needing more of this technology or that technology. I would love to see Blu-Ray discs used to their full potential and utilize multiple layers for 4x resolutions.

And also just like we saw with DVD players, we will be able to "up-convert" the quality of our current 1080p content in the interim, i know its not as good but it does make a difference

The thickness is a lie, as there's always other shit there taking space. But from what I've understood, OLEDs don't really last more than 3 years?

actually they are SO worth it. i was holding off on a monitor till sed took off, but due to law suits and such, that never happened, because it would cost double for an sed which would feature the best parts of a lcd with the best parts of a crt.

even back than, oled was seen as better than sed, and sed already was able to put and current lcd to shame, and this was years ago. imagine what about 5 years of research and development did to the... hell we may actually have a tv with true 2ms response time, and actual blacks, not a dark shade of gray.

i wish i could trust that contrast ratio though, its sad that every number on a monitor of any kind besides how bit it is, and its aspect ratio are meaningless.

No marketing talk here. The electronics are in the base. The display area is 4 mm thick. More details here and here.

And no, I don't work for LG. I've been following next generation TV tech like this for years.

Rumored to be $8K US at launch.

What? Who else has anything like this? Complaints, complaints, but you will not find a better TV anywhere.

3-4k? Are you having a laugh??? LEG have a 15.6" OLED TV on the market right now that costs £2,000 (approx. $3,100) so even at a proportional cost this will be £7,500 ($11,000) BUT, expect it to cost significantly more than this.

Incidently, as far as not worth it, check out the reviews for the 15.6" OLED - described as the best picture, ever, period. So if youve got the money and want the best, this could well be the way to go.

Contrast ration of 100,000,000:1

Does anyone know what the limit for human vision is?
Can we actually 'see' that much contrast detail ?

There is no baseline for measuring "Dynamic Contrast Ratio" but these numbers are determined by each manufacture based on exatly what, varies between each mfg. Great put the big number to help sell your TV but please include the Static Contrast Ratio as well. Dynamic refers to the brightest the TV could be compared to the darkest, but these 2 extremes cannot be achieved simultaneously whereas static is exactly that. Very misleading but why would someone buy a 100,000:1 advertised contrast ratio when the cheaper tv next to it has 10,000,000:1. Read about what this means for yourself: http://www.practical-home-theater- [...] ratio.html

Hmm.. Your calculations are a bit off.. if you're going with proportional cost, the 55" has about 15 times more screen area than the 15.6" OLD.. so $3100 X 15 would be around $46,500

This article HAS misquoted the spec. The spec is 100,000:1 and is likely a true measure of black (off) to white (on), rather than some random measure of contrast or "dynamic" contrast like most display manufacturers use in their marketing blather.

Going to be so very expensive. An analyst stated from another site that will be well over $5,000...hell an 11" from Sony couple years back or so was $2,500. Will need the typical better manufacturing and competition in general to bring these babies down in price.

I think it will take a couple of years for prices to drop down to an acceptable level.

It is not as well publicized, however, Samsung is rumored to also be showing a 55" OLED TV at CES 2012 next week.
The competition may be there from the start. If so, price may come down quickly.

In the grand scheme of things, if the rumors of $8K price are true, this is much less than when plasma and LCD screens of that size first started appearing on the market. That is not comforting to those of us who would like this to be in the $2K range, however, I do not think that $2K for an OLED of this size is that far off. There has been a lot of research into OLED and OLED manufacturing, and both are producing results which are soon to be commercialized. One of the most exciting technologies and perhaps the one with the highest potential price-reducing impact is a technology from Dupont that allows printing OLED displays with an inkjet printer.

You will have to stack much more of them to match the thickness of your wallet if you want to buy one.
At least in first few years....

I

It's a good thing I have no interest in buying one!