Best of CES 2012, festival of screens

This year there was a surprisingly large crowd of television sets on display at CES. It was a festival of large and vibrant screens out there. OLED, LED, glasses-free 3D and many other technologies were showcased by several companies. We list here some of the best among them which caught everyone’s attention- LG’s 55EM9600- After leaking out the news of the unveiling of the OLED TV at CES, LG had caught some attention and it finally delivered the same at CES. The stunning piece of hardware has just 1 mm of bezel and is 4 mm thick at the thinnest point. It weighs 7.5 kg though it includes a separate control box to house connectivity ports; the screen itself is connected to the box by a proprietary cable. It will also include all the standard features of an LG TV such as smart TV with streaming and social media, the new Magic Motion remote including a built-in mic, and passive 3D. While other OLEDs feature RGB (red, green, and blue) pixels, this TV has added white pixels which are said to cuts costs and produce a brighter picture.     Samsung 55-inch Super OLED Prototype- Not to be left behind Samsung too showed off its 55-inch Super OLED Prototype which features self-emitting RGB sub-pixels and is faster than LED. It also features the new “Smart Interaction” technology based upon two unidirectional mics and an integrated webcam for motion and voice control. It is also capable of running any of the 1400 Smart TV Apps developed by Samsung. LG’s 84-inch 4K Prototype- The display is marked “84UD” and has 3840×2160 resolution with 8 million pixels. It boasts of LED edge lighting, FPR (passive) 3D and has a built-in Blu-ray to 4K upconversion technology with LG’s Smart TV platform. Needless to say this monster of a display was quite an attraction there! Panasonic’s UT50 line- Panasonic is perhaps the only company deeply interested in Plasma TVs and is still improving the technology for its lineup. The new models feature the addition of NeoPlasma Black 2550 FFD (Focused Field Drive) technology  which results in improved motion fluidity. The ST50 line features new 8-Train Speakers. The top-of-the-line V50 remains as is. Haier’s Transparent OLED- Haier displayed their transparent OLED prototype which features a 1680×1050 resolution display with 8-bit colour depth. The prototype is a 22-inch screen and the company aims to scale it up to 46 inches. It will be aimed at commercial applications. Sony’s 55-inch Crystal LED- Sony’s new offering provides excellent viewing angles with great colour quality even when viewed at nearly 90 degrees. The screen is vibrant and a bit warmer than its Bravia LCD versions though the colour-reproduction is better. Toshiba Regza QFHD- Toshiba announced its 55-inch Quad Full HD Display with glasses-free 3D capabilities. The picture quality is really great and the glasses-free 3D viewing is made possible by a tiny camera that tracks the viewer’s face and aligns the picture accordingly. Though the technology is still rudimentary and needs a lot of tweaking but it works for the record. Lenovo’s K91- Lenovo displayed one of the most advanced TVs at CES 2012. It is perhaps the only TV powered by a Qualcomm’s 1.5 GHz dual-core Snapdragon 8060 processor and running Android 4.0. The TV can be controlled by voice and through video interaction with facial recognition. A 5 MP webcam is integrated into the bezel for the purpose. The display itself is amazing thanks to  its 3D FPR technology, LED backlight and a full HD IPS panel with 240Hz refresh rate. Most of these TVs are scheduled to come out to markets by Q2 2012. Till then, pick your screen!