If you have more money than God and you’re still resistant to the huge chorus singing the songs on the benefits of laser TVs, we’ve got some news for you. It seems the biggest players in the consumer electronics space are digging in their heels and holding steadfast to their dominant positions in the flat panel television market. At this year’s CES 2023, the biggest players in consumer electronics – the Samsungs, LGs, and Sonys of the world – unveiled some of the biggest flat panel televisions ever created (along with their massive price tags). As we saw recently in our review of LG’s laser TV lineup, these large players are unwilling to fully embrace the laser TV trend, as it would likely chip away at their dominant positions in the market and eat into their margins (why pay 10s or 100s of thousands of dollars for massive flat screens when you can buy a laser TV at a fraction of the price?). Still, no matter how impractical, these massive flat screen TVs are, they’re still modern marvels worth gawking at, so let’s take a look at some of them.
LG’s 97-inch Wireless Signature OLED M TV – retail $80,000
Making a splash at this years CES, is LG’s Signature OLED M, marketed as the world’s first 4K wireless OLED TV. Honestly, it feels a little desperate when the talk of the town of the biggest innovation in flat panel televisions is “wireless” technology. To know that one of the largest producers in consumer televisions has put its resources (and PR budget) behind touting a new screen with fewer wires, seems a little gimmicky. Afterall, visible wires are something that can easily be cleaned up with a few hundred bucks. I’m skeptical to think someone spending the price of a Range Rover on a home theater television, wouldn’t put the minimal effort it takes to make a wireless aesthetic already. The novelty that is provided with the Signature OLED M is a new AV box that can be placed anywhere within a 30 foot distance and any additional consoles (and their unsightly wires) can be plugged into this AV box and be placed outside the line of sight of the screen. The AV box then “beams” the television viewing contents to the OLED screen (sound familiare at all?). What’s even more disingenuous is that the screen itself still needs to be powered via an electrical outlet, leaving at least one wire still in place. Also, no mention on the weight of the OLED screen itself (I can assure you it’s much heavier than an ALR screen). Nonetheless, OLED is still the gold standard in terms of viewing quality. So if you’re willing to sacrifice on the convenience and price benefits of laser TVs, you can pick up a 97″ Signature OLED M TV for a cool $80,000 when it becomes available at retail.
Samsung’s 292-Inch “The Wall” TV
If 97-inches is still not big enough for you (and for whatever crazy reason you’re hesitant to get a laser projector TV instead), then Samsung’s aptly named, The Wall TV, may be right for you. First unveiled at CES 2019, The Wall was at the time the largest flat-panel television reaching up to 292 inches. I say “reaching” here because The Wall was actually a modular design that could be expanded to various sizes from 146 inches to the full 292 inches. The Wall was also the product of Samsung’s innovative MicroLED technology with a full resolution up to 8K.
LG’s Massive 325 Inch TV that costs $1.7MM
Still not enough? Well LG incomprehensibly stepped up the competition further in 2020 when they unveiled the absolutely mind blowingly massive 325 inch DVLED (“Direct View LED”) television to the consumer market. With 33 million LED diodes and weighing a massive 2222 pounds and dimensions of 23.6 feet by 13.3 feet, this beast is massive. This 325-inch TV isn’t something you purchase at Best Buy and hang up on your wall over the weekend. An installation of this magnitude requires a team of LG’s professional installers that part of the service of each customer ordered TV. The price? The most feature rich model will set you back a cool $1.7 MILLION dollars!
Samsungs 2023 The Wall TV – The One to Win Them All
Not to be outdone, Samsung came back in 2021 with an even bigger version of their signature The Wall TV. And “bigger” here is a serious understatement. Samsung, not only wanted to win the size competition, they wanted to end the one-upmanship once and for all. The Wall TV 2.0, as we’ll refer to it henceforth, is an absolute behemoth of a television set measuring in at a unconscionable 1000+ inches. It provides 8k resolution over and unconscionable pixel count of 15,360 by 2,160. However, it’s not really fair to call this a home television set as its clearly designed with commercial use cases in mind. Still, if you have the money (and a massive amount of space), who’s to say you couldn’t hang this in your living room? One can only dream