A couple of weeks ago LG launched the 55EC9300 55" curved FHD OLED TV in the US, and now Best Buy announced that the 2nd-gen 55" curved Full-HD OLED TV will ship on August 24th, for $3,499. Amazon also lists the TV for the same price, and will probably ship it soon as well.
When LG launched their earlier model, the 55EA9800, in June 2013, the price was $14,999 and the TV was only available in a few flagship Best Buy stores in their Magnolia high-end home theater departments. But this time, Best Buy will offer the new OLED TVs through over 1,000 stores, and also with regional chains and A/V dealers.
Best Buy TV merchant director Luke Motschenbacher said - "I think OLED’s finally here and finally going to be a product that’s real for a lot more customers". The EC9300 features a faster refresh rate (240 Hz) compared to the 2013 model, the 55EA9800, and it's brighter, too, at 500 cd/m2. LG changed the TV's design and the TV is now based on LG's new smart TV platform (WebOS).
Comments
55"/2 = 27", with price 3400$/4 = 850$, in reality some 1000$
A 55" is over 7 times larger than a 20" monitor. So a 20" OLED panel should cost about $500 to produce for LG Display. That is - if we assume they actually make money on the 55" panels.
Of course - a smaller panel will have a much higher yield so it should be cheaper to produce. On the other hand, it has a much higher resolution (PPI) so that's more difficult to make. I agree with everyone who's been saying this for a long time - it's a real shame that current OLED producers (LGD and SDC) are not tackling the monitor market at this stage. I guess it is not prestigious enough and they want to claim the TV market first.
Oh. And I'll take a look regarding the rich-text comments, thanks.
Ron
Such display would have resolution of 960x540, while it's demanded for monitor to have resolution higher than that of TV set:
3840x2160 (4K) would be optimal for 24" OLED monitor for now.
Why stick with the old idea of sitting so close to a small monitor? I would much prefer a 55inch 3840x2160 display over a little one with the same resolution to use at a longer viewing distance. I actually look forward to using much larger displays than that eventually but a 55inch would still fit nicely if it could be mounted at the end of a big desk or perhaps wall mounted. The only reason i would still consider a monitor is because with tv panels we are likely to be stuck with 3840x2160 resolution which is quite frustrating as even tablets will pass this resolution very soon and i would like at least 5120x3200 soon but i do not think i will compromise with a small display to get it so for me the first really good large displays will be 7680x4320 tv panels which are likely many years away unfortunately.
Maybe I'm old as well, but I much prefer a smaller monitor up-close than a large one far-away when I'm working on the computer. Actually keeping smaller monitors closer is more efficient - a large TV that is far away is very wasteful in energy, so it's best if everyone adopted small panels up close ;-)
You are right about the energy use though 55inch monitors really do not use that much energy and oled displays can become much more efficient in the future. A larger display further away is better for your eyes both for focus distance and to avoid becoming cross eyed :) I also use my computer for viewing videos and pictures which just feels much more natural and 'impressive' on a larger display. People suggest paying $2000 for a 24inch monitor here, I think for that price we should get a 55inch ultra hd display very soon and I would not even consider spending that amount of money on such a little display.
Nice to see that a _new_ model has such price since this means that LG not just sells out some old stock for a price much lower than original costs of manufacture, but yields became really high and costs of manufacture has really come down greatly.
So we already have a Full-HD 55-inch OLED TV for $3500 (LG 55EC9300) and a 10.5-inch 2560x1600 OLED tablet for $500 (Samsung Galaxy Tab S). It’s now time to move on and release a _20-24-inch OLED monitor_ (4K resolution desirable) for, say, $2000. Not curved of course.
P.S. Cannot post Rich-Text comment — for some reason it triggers the spam filter. You should probably disable the filter for registered users.