- 115 inches to begin with, but more sizes are planned to arrive soon
- Available first in South Korea and then the US before a global rollout
- Approximately $32,000 / £24,000 / €28,000 / AU$49,750
Let’s start with the bad news: Samsung‘s first micro-RGB TV is outrageously expensive. But the tech will quickly make its way to more affordable models, and could be a significant rival to OLED.
The newly announced 115-inch micro-RGB TV uses Samsung’s exceptionally small LEDs to deliver what Samsung says is “a new benchmark for color accuracy, contrast and immersive viewing in the ultra-premium TV segment.”
It’s launching in South Korea first with a price tag of 44.9 million KRW; that works out as roughly $32,000 / £24,000 / €28,000 / AU$49,750. The USA will get the TV next, and it’ll roll out to more markets after that.
What’s so great about micro-RGB?
The display uses a micro-scale RGB LED backlight comprising individually controlled red, green and blue micro RGB LEDs, each of which is less than 100µm in size. That means the TV can deliver much more precise lighting than a traditionally backlit LED TV, and that in turn means more precise and accurate color reproduction.
The display is powered by Samsung’s Micro RGB AI Engine, which analyzes each frame in real time and optimizes the color output; it can also enhance dull color tones and intelligently enhance them to make them more vivid and immersive – hopefully less dramatically than the color optimization on my Samsung QLED, which does terrifying things to people’s complexions.
The color output meets 100% of BT.2020, the global standard, and has been certified as “Micro RGB Precision Color” by the German electrical engineering institute VDE (Verband der Elektrotechnik).
Although the TV will only be available as a 115-inch model at launch, Samsung intends to expand the range quickly: it promises “a global rollout featuring a variety of sizes to meet customer needs” after the US launch.
