It has been known for months that LG would start selling an OLED TV this year, but only now has the name of the panel, as well as the price, made its way to the Internet.
LED (organic light-emitting diodes) is a display technology usually employed in phones and other small gadgets.
Its power draw is low enough to make life easy on the battery, and while energy efficiency would normally offset cost drawbacks, the price becomes too high when going for larger screen sizes.
LG wants to finally surpass that limitation though, just like Samsung.
In fact, LG has formally introduced its 55-inch OLED TV, even though it didn't make it perfectly clear when sales will begin.
It is possible that shipments will start as early as July, but the higher likelihood is for the August-September time frame.
That said, the name of the OLED TV is 55EM9600, but most other details have been kept under wraps, except for the price. Opinion is divided between ?8,000 ($10,063) and ?9,000 ($11,313), with the former currying more favor so far.
"In the history of television, there have been very few innovations as impactful as the coming of OLED TV," said Havis Kwon, president and CEO of LG's Home Entertainment Company.
"We say THE ULTIMATE DISPLAY because LG OLED TV is truly above all expectations and beyond everyone's imagination with uncompromising picture quality and beautiful design. This year, we plan to make OLED synonymous with LG."
The LG 55EM9600 has a pretty large base and a back made of carbon fiber, which allows for a thickness of just 4mm (0.16 inches). All in all, it definitely looks good, even when not in use. The bezel is barely visible too, which is another plus.
Check out the video embedded below for the advertisement. It's strange that the screen size mentioned there is 60 inches, but the press release says 55, so we'll go with that.