Got a spare £9,000 knocking around the house? Why not spend it on a new telly?
LG’s 55-inch curved OLED affair, the snappily-named 55EA9800, will start shipping in the next few days, the company said in a press release. The set was first shown off at CES, then back in April LG announced it would start selling it. And that day is almost upon us.
The 55EA9800 is different to most big tellies because it’s curved. The idea is that it reduces distortion by keeping the whole display surface the same distance from your eyes. This is supposed to “maximise immersion”, according to the press release.
The set weighs just 17kg, which isn’t too hefty at all, considering its size, and has a frame made of carbon fibre reinforced plastic. It’s also just 4.3mm thick, which is about as ridiculously slim as the company’s flat OLED set.
That flat OLED set is 55 inches across as well, and also isn’t cheap at all, setting you back a whopping £10,000. Still, you can’t put a price on fun.
There’s no word on UK availability for the curved model — the press release is in Korean, after all — but us Brits have been well served by LG’s OLED offerings before. We were the second country to be able to pre-order the flat 55EM970V OLED model. Which I suppose is a privilege, if you think nothing of dropping 10 grand on a gogglebox.
OLED is still a relatively young technology, so it’s inevitable these large sets come with big price tags. They have much better black levels, because they’re not backlit. Instead, each pixel makes its own light, meaning blacks look truly black, rather than grey as on some sets.
Would you go for a 55-inch curved OLED set? How much is too much to spend on a telly? Let me know in the comments, or on Facebook.