Samsung reveals groundbreaking new modular Micro LED TVs at CES 2019

Rewind the clock a couple of years back. Your TV is about as square as your dad in the coolness department, it has what can only be described as a generous amount of junk in the trunk and the low definition broadcast helps Hollywood stars hide the fact that they’re also susceptible to the ravages of age. A couple of years later, TVs are flatter and slimmer, boasting a better picture as bewildered sales reps on the floor do their very best to convince you that they actually know the difference between Full HD and HD Ready TV sets.

These days? The LCD and Plasma TVs of yesterday have been succeeded by more high tech devices, 4K TVs which come equipped with online access and a middle finger to traditional network stations as the likes of Netflix and YouTube make for more gripping entertainment. What’s the next evolution of TV though? With LED sets being the tech of choice in the 4K market, where do television sets go from here?

If you’re Samsung, the future is looking a lot more…modular. Revealed in further detail at CES 2019, Samsung’s new take on Micro LED hardware at CES 2019 is bold stuff: Panels which can be customised to meet particular needs, like some sort of ludicrously expensive game of real-life Tetris that also doubles as a viewing screen for E-TV’s three trillionth repeat of the Oscar-winning cinematic masterpiece Anaconda (Editors’s note: Citation needed).

Here’s how it works: Each Micro LED module connects to a back plate, instantly synching to other plates to create a cohesive picture. What that means, is that consumers can choose to upgrade the size of their TVs if they so wish to do so, taking the experience from a lush 75 inch 4K TV to an absolutely bonkers oil sheik-priced 219 inch monster that can also double as a spare wall. Samsung says that the “Micro LED technology also optimises the content no matter the size and shape of the screen.

Even when adding more modules, Samsung Micro LED displays can scale to increase the resolution — all while keeping the pixel density constant. Additionally, Micro LED can support everything from the standard 16:9 content, to 21:9 widescreen films, to unconventional aspect ratios like 32:9, or even 1:1 – without having to make any compromises in its picture quality.

It’s worth noting that it’s still early days here, with Samsung working out the kinks and sizing of these modules while still making solid headway with QLED LCD TVs, but if this is a step towards the future then I’m liking what I’m seeing. Why is Micro LED this important? As always, it comes down to picture quality, with Micro LEDs having the best clarity, brightness and blacks that are blacker than the blackest black times infinity.

Even after Samsung has managed to make this concept more consumer-friendly, don’t expect to be able to afford more than one panel per year, as MicroLED and its absolutely zero margin for production error still makes for a pricy piece of technology.

Last Updated: January 8, 2019