On Christmas day, LG Display had announced that it had successfully developed a 55″ OLED HDTV. That LG 55″ OLED TV will be demonstrated at the upcoming CES 2012 which starts in a bit more than a week from now. However, Tim Alessi from LG USA’s Home Electronic division has revealed that this would “likely” become a real product, in Q4 2012. This echos what LG Display CEO Kwon Young-soo said last July.
If that was true, LG would be the first company that puts a product of that kind on the market. Even if the supplies are limited and the price is somewhat expensive, this is no easy task, even for display experts like LG. Making OLED displays that can consistently reproduce the same color is very hard. Even OLED smartphone displays have to be extensively tweaked so that most handsets have similar colors out of the box.Also, building an OLED display with such a massive surface is extremely difficult, and LG would take some risks to put this on the market. It is a very edgy move, but one that can cost dearly as well. But the result would be worth it. It is clear that a 55″ OLED TV would have significant advantages in terms of contrast and weight when compared to the best LED LCD options out there. LG’s TV is said to be only 4mm thick and weigh only 16lbs.
However, LG does not mention the potential power consumption, which may be higher than LCD competitors. In any case, I doubt that HDTV enthusiast care that much about electricity bills, unless they are insane, which should not be the case. What do you like the most about OLED? The image quality, or the potential for amazing industrial designs?