After a number of problems, Samsung wants to finally sell its new LED screen technology to end customers from October. For just under 150,000 euros, you can purchase the 110-inch “Micro LED” from selected specialist dealers. We could watch the mega television live. You can see the presentation of the prototype from 2019 in the video.
We were able to get a first impression of the qualities of the self-illuminating micro-LED technology – more on this below – in Samsung’s flagship store on the Zeil shopping street in Frankfurt.
Surrounded by slim 65-inch devices, the size and brightness alone are impressive, and even the in-house QLED competition looks a bit pale. You shouldn’t get closer than a meter to the screen, otherwise the pixel structure of the 4K image will be recognizable on the 110 inch. A higher resolution will only be possible if Samsung can build the LEDs on the individual tiles smaller.
Apart from the color orgies of the usual demo videos, it is mainly games that make an impression on this screen. Fighting your way through the course in life-size in a first-person shooter or heating your way over the Nürburgring in a truck – that’s a lot of fun. As long as the content is colorful and format-filling, nothing spoils the good image impression.
However, the individual LED tiles are clearly visible in large, homogeneous areas, such as the blue-gray background of the system menu. This structure may also be seen in the black bars of Cinemascope films and other formats that are not 16: 9. As an early adopter, you not only have to bring a lot of money with the Micro-LED, but also a good deal of enthusiasm for technology.
Only selected dealers get it
At the moment you will be looking in vain for the “Micro LED” in the large area of the relevant electronics stores. For the time being, it will only be delivered to a handpicked group of six to seven specialist dealers in Germany. We aim to sell 100 pieces within a year. The manufacturer is aiming to sell 200 devices across the EU. Later in the year, a 99-inch version is planned for 130,000 euros.
Micro LED: that’s behind it
In contrast to its Korean competitor LG, Samsung said goodbye to self-illuminating OLED screens for televisions a long time ago. Samsung is currently using backlit LCD panels in its TV sets, which use a special layer of nanocrystals to achieve a special color brilliance. At the same time, however, work continued on self-illuminating screens with inorganic light-emitting diodes, as they are in principle also found in the successors of the light bulb.
In the meantime, it has been possible to reduce these LEDs to such an extent that the distance between the red, green and blue subpixels has shrunk to 0.63 millimeters. Samsung is using it to create a 110-inch screen in 4K resolution from just under 25 million pieces and prosaically calls it “Micro LED”. The previous prototype listened even more impressively to “The Wall”.
Modular construction
The screen consists of a matrix of 16 by 12 tiles, with a total of almost 2.5 million LEDs.
In order to keep scrap under control during production, the screen is not made in one piece but is made up of 192 tiles. In principle, the size is unlimited, but the resolution is linked to the number of tiles. Originally, it was even considered that the tiles would only be put together at the customer’s site to create an individually shaped screen. This original idea has now been abandoned.
The Micro LED is delivered as a whole in the conventional 16: 9 format. A team of four specialists will set it up on-site or mount it on the wall. In the event of a defect, these specialists can also replace individual tiles later. Therefore, a number of tiles from each batch are retained as spare parts. The One Connect Box, already known from Samsung’s top models, serves as the player.
