LG’s roll-up OLED TV is every bit as magical as you’ve imagined

Finally, it’s here. At CES 2019, LG unveiled the production version of its first flexible OLED television, and it might be the most exciting TV we’ve seen at the show in years. From the moment white-gloved engineers rolled it out, the energy in the room was palpable.

It’s beautifully implemented: LG has installed its flexible OLED panel into a base that it can retract into. And it’s not just there to hold the panel; it has a whole speaker system integrated into it as well. It spans 65 inches, does 4K, HDR, and full connectivity, and it looks gorgeous. It’s straight out of the future.

We saw a prototype of it last year at LG’s booth, and the internet went crazy for it. The good news is, this year you can actually buy one. How much? LG isn’t talking numbers yet, but you can bet it will be outrageously expensive. And that’s OK, because that’s what you pay for a piece of the future.

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But even if you won’t be getting one in 2019, this is a sign of where things are going with televisions. We’re not using them in the same way. They’re not the same imposition on our households that they used to be. You’re definitely not mounting this monstrosity over your fireplace, which is a good thing, because that’s a bad idea.

Th e TV has LG’s new A9 Generation 2 processor built in, which gives it A.I. for sound and A.I. for video. What does that mean? A.I. for sound basically expands the sound signature, so instead of it sounding like the audio is coming from the speakers themselves, it opens up the sound plane. And it give it a much more spacious sound.

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A.I. for video is a little bit different. It’s going to take a reading on your room’s lighting, and adjust the HDR curve on this TV based on the ambient lighting. If you’re in a perfectly black room, it’s going to allow you to get those perfectly deep blacks. If it’s in a really bright room, it’s going to adjust the curve so that it looks better in that room. We don’t always watch in a completely black room, after all.

Also, there’s Alexa built in, Google Assistant is still built in, and it all works with LG’s ThinQ A.I., which helps make searching for the content you want to watch must easier. And it can do all sort of smart home stuff as well.

We look forward to hearing more about this TV in the coming months, and reviewing it later this year. But for now, just drink it in. This is the future, folks. And it looks really great.