Lauren Goode

Recent Posts by Lauren Goode

Have $9K to Spare? Samsung’s Curved OLED, Multi-View TV Is Here.

At CES in January 2012, Samsung showed off a television that was notably both high-tech and dystopian: A brilliant OLED screen that offered viewers the ability to sit on the couch together and yet watch two completely separate programs.

Now you can finally have it — provided you’ve got $9,000 to spare.

Samsung today announced the availability of its first curved OLED TV in the U.S. market. It will be sold through specialty retailers.

The 55-inch TV has a frame with a curved shape for better viewing angles, and claims a sharp contrast in colors for a more cinematic experience.

The “multi-view” feature is enabled by Samsung 3D Active glasses, which have little personal speakers built into the frames. So, you’ll hear the audio feed for your preferred programming, while your couch partner watches and hears something else.

And, of course, it’s a “smart,” Internet-connected TV, running Samsung’s proprietary Smart Hub for media apps, and has 3-D capabilities (3-D having become an ancillary feature to most new TVs, since that whole 3-D-TV marketing push from a few years ago didn’t work out so well).

As I mentioned during CES 2012, Samsung competitors Sony and LG have also shown off dual-view TVs, although LG’s model is much more expensive. And Sony’s has been aimed at the gaming crowd rather than the target audience of content-conflicted spouses.

In all seriousness, the global TV market had a rough year last year, due to weak sales in Japan and declining demand in North America and parts of Europe, according to IHS iSuppli. Some analysts predict the market won’t bounce back until 2015. TV makers are hoping that new, brilliant displays, whether OLED or 4K, will help revive it.

And hey, at least this OLED beauty isn’t as expensive as some 4K TVs!

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