By: Bryan Tropeano
2019 will go down as the year of the fold. We’ve already reported on the Royole FlexiPai, the foldable tablet/smartphone unveiled at CES, and Samsung is rumored to be releasing their foldable phone in February. LG, never to be outdone, went even further with the concept with their CES reveal of a premium 65-inch foldable TV.
Ok, so it’s not technically foldable, but the back frame does fold in so that the TV can roll into its box. A rollable TV is impressive, no matter how you look at it. The LG 65-inch OLED display is a vast improvement on the prototype we saw last year at CES. This one is ready for market.
The setup consists of a slick, yet discreet box that houses the rolled-up screen. Whenever you’re ready to watch content, the screen rises out of the box like a magic trick. There’s no way that 65-inch crystal clear screen fits in such a small box? Yet it does, thanks to LG’s proprietary roll-up screen that they’ve been teasing for years.
Despite its flexibility, LG claims there’s no significant difference between a rigid OLED TV and what they’re calling the Signature OLED TV R. And from the looks of it, I don’t think they’re blowing smoke for PR reasons. The colors are vivid, and the images are crisp. What more can you ask for?
It also works as any other smart TV should. Operating on WebOS, you can access apps, music and tons of other content. They even included a cool feature where you can raise the screen out of its box 1/4th of the way in order to access some of its features like music, settings, etc. That way you don’t have to bring the monstrous TV out every time you want to perform a simple task.
Unfortunately, if you’re already planning out your living room and where exactly you’re going to put your new shiny rollable TV, you may want to put on the brakes. You’ve probably got some numbers to crunch first. LG says they’re planning to slap it with a premium price. My guess is it will be around the $10,000 mark, maybe higher. Though we won’t know for sure until LG announces it.
We should expect to see the Signature OLED TV R on retail shelves this spring.
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