Do you have a Wall for The Wall?

Roberto Saracco August 5, 2018 Blog 381 Views

The Samsung Wall. Could it become part of your home? Image credit: Samsung

Last CES (Las Vegas January 2018) Samsung showcased a wall display with a diagonal of 146′ (that’s 3.7 m) made of microLED module. They called that display, aptly, The Wall. The resolution was 4k (meaning that the individual microLED were quite big, since you get the same resolution in a 40′ diagonal screen …

Samsung decided few years ago to evolve displays using QLED technology, whilst LG and Sony adopted the OLED technology. Both are pretty good, with very high contrast (because they no longer need an illuminated backplane) but OLED is, according to some, a tad better.

Samsung is now moving to microLED technology which promises to be as good as OLED and it is modular, making it possible to create very large displays. Notice, however, that you will need a computer to up-scale/down-scale the native signal resolution to the display resolution.

What was just a showcase of a new technology is now going to become a mass market product. Samsung has announced plans to create a slimmer version of The Wall (30mm vs the 80mm displayed at CES 2018) and bring it to the market in September, in time for the Christmas shopping season.

Interestingly, they are not calling it a Television but a Display. It is a wall that doubles back as a screen. It may be used in different ways like to create a changing perception of space and ambient, for virtual gatherings, to have full immersion (it is so big that you will feel as part of the image). And yes, it can be a television.

The price has not been announced yet, although it is not going to be cheap. The present target is for malls, shops, theatres and luxury homes.

For my part I should say that I don’t have a wall fitting The Wall at home. However Samsung indicated that the modular structure of The Wall is such that it will be up to the user to choose the dimension fitting her space and Samsung will create a customised display. It is not clear how this will actually be done. Are we going to pay by square metre? Will the assembly take place at Samsung in Korea and if so how long time will it take to get our personalised display? As I mentioned before there will be a need for a computer (a graphic processor) to adapt the incoming signal to the actual screen resolution but I guess that will be part of the package.