LG Display’s giant rollable OLED TV is indistinguishable from magic

LG Display managed to showcase a hand-rollable OLED screen a few years ago at CES, but it was clearly in its early prototype stages. Sure, exciting but also distant. Now, the world’s first rollable 65-inch 4K OLED display offers a more realistic (yet still kinda crazy) use for OLED tech that’s flexible — something that we’ll probably see in a few — probably premium — TV models in the next few years.

Now, 65 inches isn’t the biggest TV at CES, or even at LG Displays showroom. (In fact we got to stare lovingly at a monstrous 88-inch 8K OLED in the same room). It is however, the only one that can roll itself into a box a fraction of the size.

Like smartphones in the last few year, the bigger our TVs get, the more unwieldy they become: Many of these huge screens are a hassle to install / get delivered / move — rollable OLEDs are one way to keep our screens huge and our door frames intact.

Yep, it’s still a prototype, but LG Display explained that this particular tech demo is closer to real consumer devices than the aforementioned 88-inch 8K OLED.

Even at this prototype stage the screen subsidiary of LG is showcasing multiple modes for the rollable. Beside the typical, full 65-inch screen, it’s got a more cinematic 21:9 ratio option and a slender notification panel that can house weather info and act as a music player when you don’t need the screen up front and center. Naturally, there’s the viewing angle benefits, deep contrasty blacks and rich color gamut: It’s business as usual as far as OLED quality goes. Once unfurled and upright, you wouldn’t think this was any different to LG’s on-sale OLED TVs.

Getting to this size from the smaller prototype shown in 2015 meant ensuring the screen itself was hardier and tougher, while still maintaining the flexibility needed to roll up. There’s a lot more tension acted on the screen as you add inches to its size, so the company had to figure out ways to strengthen the slender layers that make up an OLED screen. This new disappearing screen is the fruits of that labor.

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