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2019 could be the year LG finally rolls out its OLED TV

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LG has been teasing its flexible OLED technology for 10 years. That’s a lot of time to spend waiting, hoping, and even longing for something that we thought was just around the corner. But this time, it could be for real. LG will start selling a 65-inch roll-up OLED TV next year, reports Bloomberg, and we really hope it’s true.

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Unlike previous rumours surrounding the imminent sale of new tech, this one feels highly credible. After showing off hand-rolled prototypes for years, LG finally demonstrated a motorized version at this year’s CES. It’s also worth pointing out that the company’s current W-series OLED TV is basically a precursor to a fully rollable display — it exhibits an impressive amount of flexibility, and is remarkably thin.

Before you get all psyched at the idea of rolling up your OLED TV, sticking it in a poster tube, and setting it up at a friend’s house, it’s unlikely that LG sees this as a portability-based design. What’s more likely, is that TVs based on the roll-up tech will be marketed as an alternative to Samsung’s frame TV. Why pretend that your 65-inch TV is actually a piece of art, when it can just disappear completely? Doing so would give people way more choice over TV placement, traditionally a source of relationship strife. OLED technology, with its incredible brightness, contrast, and off-angle view-ability, is already the perfect candidate for spots where lesser TVs would be washed out by challenging lighting conditions. Adding the ability to roll it up would make it the Houdini of TVs. Now you see it … well, you get the idea.

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We suspect that interior designers will be as anxious to get their hands on the new TV as we are, given the virtually unlimited options the technology represents.

You want to know what this unicorn of a TV will cost, don’t you? So do we. Unfortunately, the rumour was not accompanied by a price tag, which means the wait is still not over. Still, CES is only weeks away; if LG were going to officially launch a roll-up OLED TV, this would be the obvious time for it to roll out its plans.

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Simon Cohen
Contributing Editor, A/V
Simon Cohen covers a variety of consumer technologies, but has a special interest in audio and video products, like spatial…
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