Alex Kidman21 October 2008, 9:13 AM
Time to throw away that existing LCD or Plasma --- it's a chunky beast. Or at least, that seems to be Samsung, Sony and Philips are thinking.
Like any tech geeks, we can appreciate the trend towards miniaturisation in technology -- when it's applied sensibly. In TV terms over the past ten years, this has evolved as a push towards thinner and thinner TVs, and Samsung has claimed the lead in this particular race, showing off a 40" LCD TV that comes in at an astonishing 7.9mm thick, according to this
PC Advisor report. The race is particularly tight, with Philips already having demonstrated an 8mm thick panel earlier in the year. Then again, there's the chance we might see the Samsung panel in Australia at some point, while Philips has recently announced it's exiting the local TV market.
At the same time, Samsung also showed off another prototype screen. This one's 52 inches, and comes in at a relatively chubby 9.9mm, which makes it identical to Sony's ZX1 display, which was recently on display in Sydney. Unlike Sony's product, however, both of the Samsung screens are prototypes only; the ZX1 is a production model that Japanese consumers will be able to sink their teeth into in just a couple of weeks time. At 9.9mm thick, it's not even that beefy a sandwich, either.
With the average TV punter still firmly of the opinion that the innards of an LCD or Plasma TV may as well be powered by ground up particles of pixie dust, it's worth noting that all of these screens "cheat" in one significant technology fashion, by offsetting some of the internal functions (most notably the digital tuner) to a breakout box. Which is what flat panel TV manufacturers were doing just a couple of years ago before they integrated digital tuners. So while it's super-thin to hang on a wall or have on a stand, you're still going to need somewhere solid to run the cables to, which we feel somewhat defeats the purpose.
The race to a paper-thin TV does beg one simple question as well. While we've got nothing but plaudits for the technological wizardry that keeps on making panels thinner and thinner, we've got to ask -- who spends all day looking at the side of their TV, rather than the front?