Gadgetory

- This might be the TV of CES 2019. This is LG's rollable 4K signature OLED TVR. I know it's a mouthful, but it's beautiful. Here in Las Vegas, we're seeing a lot of TVs with bigger and bigger screens, 75 inches, 88 inches, and above. And there's a ton of hype about 8K, even though there's not any 8K content to watch anywhere. But here's the thing. There are people who don't love having a big black rectangle be the centerpiece of their living room. Lots of folks don't have a TV at all. We've seen with our phones this desire to spend less time in front of screens. Now, that's translating to our TVs. Companies have been making TVs that blend better into our homes. You've seen this with Samsung and its Frame TV, which looks like a picture frame and shows museum artwork whenever you're not watching it. Samsung also has the Serif TV, which looks just like a piece of furniture and even has built-in shelves. In a way, this new rollable TV from LG is the pinnacle of that philosophy. When it ships this spring, for a lot of money, let's be clear, you can have a beautiful TV that just tucks away once you don't need it anymore. Now, since this is an OLED after all, you get all of LG's best technology. Perfect blacks, bright HDR highlights, and a wide range of vivid colors. It also runs webOS and has all the popular built-in apps that you need. If you're like me, you're probably wondering if there are trade-offs or sacrifices when you move to a rollable screen versus a rigid, standard OLED TV. I asked LG just that question, and they claim there are no major differences. You get their best picture quality in a screen that rolls up. Now is that true? We'll have to wait and see. Way back in 2016, LG first started teasing just this kind of bendable display. Two years later, LG Display had a prototype at CES 2018 that looks just like the OLED-R. But LG's consumer brand has made some changes. They've added a Dolby Atmos soundbar with virtual 5.1 surround sound, and polished up the enclosure so it looks a bit nicer. You don't actually see the roll as the 65-inch TV closes up into its base. As it rises and goes back down, you'll notice the bracing on the back sort of close in right up until the whole thing disappears inside that base station. So the whole point of this TV is that you don't have to have a big TV up all the time. There's this cool mode where it comes up just one-fourth of the way, you can play music or control your smart home gadgets without having the whole panel rise up. Even when the TV screen is down, you can still play music through its hundred-watt speaker. And for the first time, LG's adding support for Apple's AirPlay 2. The OLED-R is designed to be flexible wherever you put it, whether that's on a credenza, in your living room, or just freestanding on its own. Now I know not everyone's gonna be as captivated as I was by a roll-up TV. You can buy a great 4K HDR TV for $600. But once you do, it's always just kind of there, in a room. All you can really do is put it up on a wall and try and forget about it. Now we're seeing this trend where TVs are trying to become more and less, works of art, shelving units, and some that just disappear entirely. But let's be real. It's gonna be a few years before most folks can walk into a Best Buy and afford a roll-up 4K TV. LG tells me it's gonna be priced at a very premium level. For comparison's sake, its wallpaper TV started at $8,000. This is more impressive so it might be more expensive. But this is CES where we've heard about rolling, folding screens for years. This time, we see a real product, and it's almost ready for showtime. Hey everybody, thanks so much for watching. Now, stay tuned, because we've got an entire week of coverage here at CES 2019. All the latest gadgets that are here in Las Vegas.