At CES 2018, Samsung showed off “The Wall,” a 146-inch 4K TV that uses MicroLED display technology to make TVs larger than anything currently available. According to a report from The Korea Herald, Han Jong-hee, president of Samsung’s visual display business, claimed a consumer version of The Wall is on the way, and will be a little cheaper than someone who wants a 3.7m-wide TV might expect.
MicroLED display technology is currently found in a handful of cinemas, where it functions as an alternative to more traditional screen and projector combinations. It operates, in a very loose sense, like OLED displays, wherein it controls the image on a pixel by pixel basis. Also like OLEDs, it’s found more often in smaller displays (think smartwatches).
However MicroLEDs could be potentially cheaper, and the current technology allows makers to pair a number of MicroLED displays together to create larger displays — something traditional LED and OLED displays can’t do.
Big display makers such as Samsung and Sony have been pushing the product as an alternative to projectors and LEDs in the 80-inch and above realm of displays. Sony showed off a wall of MicroLEDs at CES in 2017 and Samsung showed off the Wall, a 146-inch display, at CES this year.
While The Wall is designed for commercial and luxury spaces such as hotels, mansions or shops, the upcoming household version will be bit more svelte. That version of The Wall should be 30mm thick, 5cm thinner than its 80mm commercial version scheduled to launch in September.
According to The Korea Herald, Samsung refers to The Wall not as a TV but as a screen or display, and a modular one at that. The Wall will allow for consumers to attach display pieces to it and construct a television as large or small as they’d like, though it’s unclear if that could mean you’ll be able to stick a few 3.7m televisions together.
As Engadget notes, the tech is not perfect currently. Visible seams can appear between the modular components of the display, leading to a checkerboard-like experience. But that’s still better than the enormous TVs available in stores now, and would take up less room in the home than a 4K projector set up of similar size. If Samsung can work out the kinks it could be gorgeous.
And probably super expensive.
[Korea Herald via Engadget]