Beautiful LG OLED TV Hits UK Stores For a Modest £10K

LG’s been wheeling out its giant, gorgeous 55-inch OLED TV at tradeshows for years, but now at long last, it’s going on sale in the UK. Want one? You’ll need to smash open more than a few piggy banks.

The South Korean gadget giant is bringing its brand new set exclusively to Harrods it’s available for customers to pre-order for delivery in July for a cool £9,999. OLED TVs use similar tech to the dazzling screens on Samsung’s Galaxy S phones – they don’t need a backlight, and pixels can be turned on and off individually, meaning you can get stunning contrast on screen at once, with true blacks and bright whites. But they’re also vastly more difficult to produce at large sizes, which is why LG’s facing little competition in the OLED telly area right now.

At just 4.5 millimetres thin and weighing in at less than 10kg, LG has stuffed in a massive 55-inch OLED panel that screams picture quality along with its web-connected smart TV tech and built-in 3D skills.

Of course, the only thing to consider when plonking down cash for LG’s new TV is whether or not to splurge out on LG’s other world’s first TV set at Harrods: the massive 84” Ultra HD TV that LG showed off in November.

Is this your next TV or are you waiting for a smaller OLED set to hit the high street? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below. [GadgetShow]

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$655 Million Investment From LG Display For OLED Expansion Ready For Mass Production in 2014

Sure, LG's current 55-inch OLED HDTV is pretty pricey with a US MSRP of $12K, but that may start to change next year when panel supplier LG Display kicks its new 8G production line into full gear. LG Electronics holds a 38 percent stake in the company and although it supplies screens to many others as well, the next generation of 55EM9700s will likely be a large segment of the displays produced. Although LCD manufacturers ramped up 8G facilities capable of producing six 55-inch displays from one piece of glass in the late 2000s, oversupply caused prices to drop and manufacturing to slow down, including at LG Display.

Now, new display technology is ramping up investment again, which will see this new line installed at its P9 plant in Paju, South Korea at a cost of 706 billion won ($655 million). Based on LG's WRGB OLED evaporation process, it should be capable of working with as many as 26,000 input sheets per month once it's up to full speed in the first half of 2014. Chief competitor Samsung showed off "production" OLED HDTVs last year and plenty of demo units at CES with a mid-year release planned, we'll see if it manages to keep up before / if the tech goes mainstream. [Engadget]

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Quantum Physics Are Powering The New 4K Sony TV

While Sony might currently be spoken about in TV circles for its blazing 4K sets, the future could hold something quite different. In fact, Sony's Next Big Thing—Triluminous displays—will be powered by quantum physics.

The new range of TVs will be the first consumer devices to make use of quantum dots: a previously lab-based semiconductor technology, which uses "tuned" nanocrystals so small—around 10 nano­metres in diameter— that they exhibit quantum properties. As a result, they emit light at highly specific and predetermined wavelengths, allowing them to offer a 50 percent increase in the range of colors that screens can produce.

It's that promise which has Sony excited over the technology. But what's different about the new sets, other than a bunch of tiny dots? Nature explains:

"The contrast with today's flat screens begins with the light source. Conventional LCDs use a high-intensity blue LED backlight whose glow is converted by a phosphor coating to create a broadband, white light used to make the moving TV images. The new Triluminos tele­visions instead pair an uncoated blue LED with a thin glass tube filled with quantum dots. Two kinds of quantum dots in the tube absorb some of the blue light from the backlight and re-emit it as pure red and green light. The resulting white light is more intense at the wavelengths of these three specific colours than the white light made by a phosphor-coated LED, so that more colour comes through in the images."

While pushing the bounds of technological capability with cutting edge science is something we heartily support, it remains to be seen how the use of quantum dots will directly benefit consumers. These TVs may offer up improvements that the everyday viewer doesn't really appreciate—but we'll have to wait and see how the sets perform in real life before we know what they can truly offer. Unsurprisingly, there's no timeline for the release of the Triluminous displays. [Engadget]

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