LG has been talking about a huge rollable TV for more than two years now – and it’s finally about to hit the market. The LG Signature OLED R has a screen that can be rolled into a box when not needed, plus all the visual bells and whistles you’d expect from a TV that costs as much as a Tesla.
First unveiled at CES 2018, the LG Signature OLED R measures 65 in and sports an 8K resolution and 120 Hz refresh rate. The OLED display means that each of its 100 million pixels are self-lit, allowing for brighter colors and deeper blacks. And to top it all off, the HDMI 2.1 port on the back and Variable Refresh Rate (VRR) mode can make for silky smooth 4K video – features that more high-end devices, including the upcoming PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X consoles, can take full advantage of.
But of course the main show starts when the viewing stops.The Signature OLED R can roll up into its base, like a projector screen, which stops you having a big black rectangle taking up space when you aren’t using it as a TV. Between the fully-extended and folded away modes, there’s also a setting LG calls “Line View,” where just the top section of the screen peeks out to display a clock, music, dashboard menu or just some mood lighting.
That kind of tech doesn’t come cheap though: LG says the Signature OLED R will be available for around US$87,000. It sounds like the company is making them to order, so only the Bezoses of the world are likely to bother. As for the rest of us, maybe we’ll encounter them in hotels or on business class flights someday in the not-too-near future.
The LG Signature OLED R will be available first at seven stores in South Korea.
This is a huge price to pay for hiding the screen. OLED is good, but does it have burn-out problems?