Johannesburg - A curved television – which has been described as the future of the appliance by its manufacturer – will soon go on sale in South Africa.
But to be one of the first people to own an LG curved organic light-emitting diode (OLED) TV locally will set you back R200 000 when it goes on sale on November 1.
OLED technology is different from current TV sets – which mostly use plasma or LED-lit liquid crystal displays (LCDs) – in that it doesn’t require a backlight to emit the colours required to create an image on the screen.
Rather, the different organic materials emit certain colours themselves when an electrical current is passed through them, or can be switched off entirely to create a true black colour. Because the organic materials are flexible, screens can be curved.
With no backlight, the 140cm screen is just 4.3mm in width and weighs 17kg.
“This is the next generation. Hopefully in the near future all TVs will use this technology,” said Antonio Pereira, home entertainment product specialist for LG.
He said the curved design helped to bring every centimetre of the screen into the eye’s field of vision. - The Star