LG CES Preview 2012 | LG OLED TV largest ever at 55"
LG attempts to reduce cost, lower price, and increase accessibility of OLED TVs
by Phil Conner, contributor
LG released the largest ever OLED TV panel at CES 2012 but do not hold your breath waiting to purchase one. It's a prototype to claim "biggest" honors. "We see this stunt regularly for the CES show," 13 year veteran television reviewer Robert Wiley. "Panasonic will come out with a 103 inch plasma TV or Sharp with an 80" LED Television. Sometimes they make it to market, but I would not think this OLED will. It would cost $50,000 at this stage of development."
Last year CEAG editors rated the Sony OLED the best 3D TV and best picture of the entire CES show. Of course, this television was never produced for resale. Often these prototypes are there as the big WOW advertisement for their respective manufacturers. The prototypes cost a lot to produce, and give back in branding awareness as consumers and the media associate the prototype quality with the brand name on the product.
OLED (organic light emitting diode) technology is an awesome display technology technology – probably the best currently produced. It has better contrast and resolution capabilities while consisting of individually lit pixel cells and diodes which eliminate some of the problems with LED TVs like screen uniformity and side angle viewing. See our article on OLED TV vs LED TV for a thorough comparison.
For example the 55 inch LG OLED TV at the CES 2012 show has LG specificaitons of a contrast ratio of 100,000:1, and a very wide color gamut. This is due to the fact that the pixels generate the light via a self reaction to impulse signals. The technology is also faster than LCD (twisting crystals) technology in response so there should be none of the negative effects of motion lag.
Now, as if these super thin 1 inch LED televisions were not thin enough, this new LG OLED TV is 5mm – or converted .196850 inches in depth. OK let's dub this "Super Super Thin" rather than just Super thin. This is again possible because the organic light emitting diode material emits light without the need for a backlight.
Two new mysterious new display techniques are employed in this OLED Television. First, the use of Oxide TFT technology for the backplane (also known as the back panel). This is the power source which lights the OLEDs. The Oxide TFT is different from previous OLED backplane technology in that it replaces Amorphous Silicon with Oxide material. This new material should bring down the cost of manufacturing the OLED technology significantly. At least that is LGs aim. The second new technology is WOLED a term that perhaps LG came up with which describes the OLED display producing white color emitting from the diodes, then displaying colors from the TFT base panel located underneath. The WOLED technology is also designed to help reduce energy consumption.
This is not only the largest OLED television produced, it's larger by 24" over the 31" LG OLED we saw last year. The largest OLED ever sold in the marketplace in the U.S. Is currently a Sony 15' screen size.
Some questions remaining: What will be the price? What is the resolution? When will it really be available?
