At CES last year, Samsung showed off its new Micro LED display technology in the form of The Wall, a modular 146-in TV. This year the company has taken the tech both bigger and smaller. There's a more consumer-ready, 75-inch version that won't look like a billboard in a regular living room – or if 146 inches wasn't big enough, The Wall has now also been stretched to a ridiculous 219 inches.
Micro LED displays work on the same principle as arena scoreboards, where each pixel is made up of tiny red, green and blue light-emitting diode chips that light up individually. Since those LEDs are just micrometers wide, more can be crammed into each display to give better resolution, brightness, contrast and color – at least, according to Samsung. Keep in mind too that this is very different to the common "LED TVs" – these just use an LED backlight to illuminate an LCD screen.
So far, The Wall has been the only Micro LED display out there, but 146 inches is a tad too big for most living rooms. Samsung says that technical improvements over the last year mean that the LED chips can be squeezed closer together, allowing the company to scale the tech down to a 75-in TV with a 4K resolution. That's still on the large side of consumer TVs, but at least it won't look like you've stolen the scoreboard from a stadium.
As if to drive home the point of how practical this home model is, Samsung has doubled down and scaled up The Wall to a monster 219 inches. That's up there with the biggest TVs we've ever seen, although amazingly it's still dwarfed by C Seed's eye-watering 262-inch beast. It's not made for consumers though – The Wall is more for advertising and displays in public places or businesses.
Although the size is a selling factor, the most interesting thing about these TVs is the fact that they aren't locked to those numbers. Samsung says the technology means that extra Micro LED modules can be clipped to the edges to expand the display area, with apparently no seams to give that grid look. The TVs can support aspect ratios from the old 4:3 to the standard 16:9, widescreen 21:9, or ultra-widescreen 32:9.
And that's without thinking too creatively: Samsung suggests stacking the modules together to create a 9 x 3 rectangle, a 1 x 7 tower, or basically any other shape you like. While those might not be the most comfortable ways to watch Game of Thrones at home, they could make for eye-catching billboard ads or intriguing museum displays.
Samsung hasn't released any specifics on pricing or availability just yet, but it will be showing off these Micro LED displays at CES this week.
Source: Samsung
