Around $60,000: that is roughly what LG’s rollable OLED television will cost, the retail price CNET quoted from the floor of CES 2020 in Las Vegas. It disappears into a cabinet when switched off. Nobody expects many to be sold.
Still, the rollable set and its stranger cousins took the headlines. The show’s biggest TV stories came from Samsung’s giant The Wall, its rotating Sero, two rolling OLEDs from LG and LG Display, and 8K models from almost every large maker. CNET’s TV reviewer called them innovative and cool-looking, then added that none was a set he would send readers out to buy soon.
The Sero and the phone generation
Samsung’s Sero is a 43-inch screen that swings into portrait mode, aimed at what the company calls the mobile generation: viewers who watch vertical video from YouTube and TikTok and want it bigger. In Korea the price is 1.95 million won, about $1,600. Samsung had not confirmed a US price. The reviewer did the sums: a standard 43-inch TV can be found for less than $250, and a standard 75-inch for $1,400.
The Wall, Samsung’s MicroLED set, got an update too. The company said larger-scale production of fixed sizes had become possible, including versions of 88, 93, 110 and 150 inches. No prices were given, and CNET’s view was that new display technology takes years to reach a sensible price.
8K, with caveats
Three 8K series are coming from Samsung in 2020, with LG, Sony, TCL and others close behind. FlatpanelsHD, which also covered the show, put 8K and TV gaming as the two big trends. Pricing for the new 8K sets was still awaited, and the harder questions concerned content and distribution. One step forward: the AV1 codec for video debuted in TVs at the show, which lets 8K sets stream 8K video from YouTube. Each of Sony, Samsung, LG and TCL said AV1 would arrive in their 8K sets during early 2020 or shortly afterwards.
Samsung gave its flagship Q950TS a very thin bezel and lifted picture quality across all three 8K series. The entry model, the Q800TS, will be priced about like its premium 4K sets of 2019. The best of those, the 65-inch QN65Q90R, sells for $2,600 and dropped to $2,200 around Black Friday. CNET adds that experts expect weak 8K sales for the next few years, since the sets are costly and hard to tell apart from 4K.
OLED is the quieter story
The sets CNET thought most likely to top its best-of list drew less attention. OLED is moving toward the mass market: According to NPD, OLED sales rose 20% in 2019, helped by low prices at Black Friday, and this when just LG and Sony sold OLED sets in the US. Vizio, which ranks behind only Samsung and TCL among US sellers, is adding an OLED model in 2020. Skyworth, Konka and Philips are bringing OLED sets to the US as well, and LG’s cheapest 4K OLED, the B9, dropped as low as $1,800 on Black Friday.
