LG 55-inch OLED TV

You want your TV to look the business -- this massive rectangle is going to be taking up a sizable portion of your living room after all. So LG has really pushed the boat out when it comes to making its latest flagship OLED TV look good. The 55-inch EM9600 is thinner than any smart phone you'd care to name, with a bezel so narrow it may as well not exist at all.

We've been treated to an eyes-on with the EM9600 at the CES trade show in Las Vegas, and we're poised to deliver our first impressions. There's no precise word on availability or pricing yet, but expect this slender TV to arrive in the second half of the year -- and we can guarantee it will be extremely expensive.

OLED design
The EM9600's screen measures 55 inches on the diagonal, but by far its most impressive dimension is its depth. This TV is just 4mm thick, making it basically 2D. Combined with a bezel that's extremely narrow, the result is that the picture appears to hang in mid-air, like a futuristic projection.

Seeing the set up close doesn't diminish how impressive it looks. This is a very cool bit of kit, and brings new meaning to the concept of minimalism. Indeed, one practical sacrifice has been made in the pursuit of keeping this telly trim -- all the ports and connectivity gubbins are housed in a separate control box.

We wager that's a worthy sacrifice though, as this is one of the best looking TVs we've ever laid eyes on. The set weighs 7.5kg, which LG reckons is half as much as an LED telly.



The OLED display tech employed in the EM9600 is already common in phones, and has been put into some smaller TVs already. But this is the largest effort yet, and as well as boasting an extremely chic casing, it sports what looks to be highly impressive picture quality.

Picture
Our eyes-on time with this OLED behemoth was brief, and we don't want to make too many assertions about picture quality until we've got the EM9600 installed in our top-secret testing facility. But at first glance, we thought the picture looked very impressive.

Colours were rich, while the contrast impressed us with seriously deep blacks. The screen is very bright, with what seemed to be a very wide viewing angle. Being so used to seeing OLED displays on phones, it felt a little like we were looking at a massive mobile screen, but that's no bad thing.


At one point, when the demo reel playing on the TV was briefly not showing anything, we did spot our handsome mugs staring back at us, so we harbour some small concerns that this screen might be a tad reflective. Once the picture came back those reflections were quickly blasted away by the TV's brightness, but it's something we'll be looking for when it comes to the full review -- we wouldn't want that great picture being sullied by any annoying reflections.

Passive 3D
The EM9600 will be sporting LG's passive 3D technology. Passive means the glasses you wear to watch 3D video aren't battery powered, and as such they're a lot cheaper to buy in bulk -- best if you're trying to view a multi-dimensional movie with the whole family. It does mean the picture is less high-resolution, however, which is slightly at odds with the set's uber-premium feel.


A new feature LG was touting during its press conference was 3D depth control, which we suspect will be in place on the EM9600. That will let you control the depth of the 3D effect, so you can dial it down to a comfortable level if you don't like the way it looks. Of course, we'd rather not have to bother fiddling about with depth settings, but until 3D gets a little more refined it's a useful tool to have.

Smart TV and Magic Remote
Being a trendy modern telly, the EM9600 is jam-packed with Internet tech to put video on-demand inside your TV, as well as social features. Unfortunately it doesn't look like this model will be powered by Google's Android technology -- something LG has also unveiled.

You can control the EM9600 using LG's fancy Magic Remote, which functions a lot like a Wii Remote, with an on-screen cursor showing where you're pointing. A scroll wheel, gestures and voice recognition are all new features for LG's remotes, so again we're expecting one of these to be bundled with the EM9600. Voice recognition could be the most useful new feature, as it would seriously speed up text entry.

Outlook
We're dead impressed with LG's 55-inch OLED TV -- it simply looks stunning. Here's hoping the picture quality holds up in our full review, and that it's not so expensive that only the super-rich can afford to buy it.




Reviewed by Luke Westaway on 9 January 2012
http://reviews.cnet.co.uk/tvs/lg-55-inch-oled-tv-review-50006604/

Category: TV