Samsung’s 146-inch ‘The Wall’, the first TV based on microLED display technology, will arrive in August. That is according to Samsung’s president of Visual Display and a report by Yonhap.
Samsung The Wall
Samsung stunned CES attendees when it unveiled the massive 146-inch The Wall that is made up of smaller display modules. It is the first TV based on microLED, which is a self-emitting display technology, meaning that each pixel can generate its own light. It is also the first new display technology to emerge on the TV market since OLED.
Some spectators feared that The Wall was nothing more than a fancy show-off prototype but Samsung is reassuring the market that it will in fact launch the unique TV. Han Jong-hee, president of Samsung's Visual Display Business, told Korean media at an official event that Samsung will start selling the 146-inch TV in August 2018.
- "The company will push forward a two-track method," Han Jong-hee said referring to "QLED" LCD and microLED.
Dutch site LetsGoDigital has also discovered that Samsung has filed trademark applications for 'The Wall Luxury' and 'The Wall Professional'. The latter is intended for the B2B market whereas the former is a consumer-facing version. The same filings round includes references to a “Cinema TV”.
The company has not commented on price or detailed its launch schedule for various regions. We expect ‘The Wall’ to be very expensive and out of reach for the majority of consumers but it is certainly exciting to see Samsung finally introduce a novel display technology after having tried to pull the wool over consumers’ eyes by selling edge-lit LCD TVs as “QLED”.
The company will need to shrink the microLED pixels further in order to produce smaller versions. That is in some way the opposite of LCD and OLED where the challenge lies in producing large-size screens.
Also read: First look: Samsung The Wall (146" microLED TV)
Samsung said that the microLED technology in The Wall eliminates the need for color filters and backlight used in LCD, enabling brighter and more colorful pictures. Samsung is using RGB microLED pixels to achieve a claimed 1600 nits peak brightness and above DCI-P3 color space in The Wall.
With LCD slowly fading, the market needs a strong competitor to OLED to ensure healthy competition that can move display technology forward. It looks like that technology will, in the short to medium term, be microLED.
- Source: Yonhap, LetsGoDigital
