Samsung, LG Reveal Newest Display Tech Ahead Of This Week’s CES Show

January 6, 2025 by Dave Haynes

The annual Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas starts tomorrow but some of the larger player in the sector – notably Samsung and rival LG – have as is custom already held their big press conferences and provided sneak peeks and showcases for trade press and VIPs. Companies like Sony, Hisense and TCL have big press events today, as does Nvidia.

I had about a two minute argument with myself before deciding there was no way I was getting back on a plane to Las Vegas after a pile of travel in Q4 2024 and ISE coming up in just four weeks. So I am observing and analyzing from afar.

CES is aimed at the B2C market so digital signage and pro AV stuff is not front and center, but CES reveals can be interesting because what gets designed for the mass scale marketplace can have implications and applications for B2B jobs.

There are, of course, giant TVs. Samsung, for example, is touting a 115-inch QLED TV. At that kind of scale, it is in the low range of all-in-one LED displays, though with big boosts in visual quality (not that fine pitch LED looks bad, but QLEDs are stunning). There is a “smaller” 100-inch version, as well.

That is the 115 at the top. I am eternally fascinated by these kinds of posed photos the Korean companies, in particular, are big on.

LG has big, too, but at CES the focus in more on brightness. Its CES 2025 headline feature for displays is what is called Brightness Booster Ultimate technology, which drivers three times higher brightness compared to conventional OLED models. If you know much about OLEDs, one of the big hang-ups with the large format version is limited brightness from the screens. This new tech – guessing quantum dots OLED – boosts brightness but not at the expense of perfect blacks and color accuracy. There is some pre-show buzz that LG is moving away from its microlens arrays for OLED TVs, which mechanically amplified brightness but, we can assume, were costly and fussy to manufacture.

Like Samsung, LG is leveraging AI to enhance low-rez content and amplify HDR performance.

I don’t really think about either company being much of a player in projection, but both are showcasing interesting products this week.

Samsung’s The Premiere 5 is touted as the industry’s first interactive ultra-short-throw projector with triple laser technology. The system allows direct touch interaction with projected images, presumably using some sort of camera/sensor that picks up interactions.

LG’s new projector is wildly different – a PF600U LED projector integrated into a fancy floor lamp. The idea is that that lamp fits into the decor but can be tilted and pointed at a wall to take the place of a TV. That might actually have some application in residential settings or even some offices where TV watching is not a habit, but the units are significantly limited by brightness. At 300 lumens, the lights are going to need to be off – which dramatically reduces the chances of these things being used for B2B pro AV projects.

The product that would seemingly have some real possibilities in interactive display for speciality retail is a beauty mirror that Samsung has developed in collaboration with Amorepacific, one of the largest cosmetics companies worldwide. The mirror is said to use true microLED display tech that is married with a  countertop tablet-sized mirror.

The Beauty Mirror’s AI Skin Analysis & Care Solution can analyze individual skin types and provide tailored product recommendations, nudging users to try and ideally buy their high-margin product. The global skin care market is worth roughly $125 billion, so you can see why Samsung would go after this.

Mirrors and AR applications for make-up have been around for several years, but microLED’s self-emissive nature and brightness make it more effective than LCDs that need to be back or edge-lit. The trade-off is cost, but microLED at these smaller form factor would maybe not cause sticker shock.

LG’s smaller form factor display is, again, wildly different – a 2nd gen version of its portable LG StanbyME product. You may recall a couple of years back how LG unveiled a small display that could just travel in a large briefcase, and be opened up, ready to use. I couldn’t figure out if this was an LG photo or something cobble together by a tech blog, so it is appropriated, sorry!

LG now has a portable version that has four hours, instead of three, of battery life. It can also run off conventional power.

What’s new are “Smart Folio” versions for the StanByMe 2 that allow the screens to be set in stands, as well as one that has a harness that makes for an easy way for users to hang a StanByMe 2 on a wall without a proper mount. The hang-up, pun unintended, is that four hours of battery life that limits the digital signage possibilities.

The other interesting thing coming out of LG was a list of incubated start-ups it is helping promote at CES, similar to what Samsung does. Most have no ties to signage and pro AV, but this one is interesting:

Roll AI is an AI-powered platform that allows marketing teams to use just an iPhone to create what look like production-grade videos, with AI-simulated effects like pan and dolly camera moves that normally involve equipment and operators.