TVs are getting so thin, it's like they're disappearing
LAS VEGAS -- Where's TV tech going next? If there's one place to find out, it's CES, the yearly Las Vegas show where nearly all the electronics manufacturers bring their wares. But for the last couple of years, TV manufacturers have looked a bit aimless, jumping from one new tech to another, but never quite managing to extend their enthusiasm about that new tech to consumers.
There is a clear trend, though, one that reached new heights this year: the TV itself is getting out of the way. The TVs we've seen have gotten so thin, the bezels so small, that it's possible to turn some TVs into wallpaper -- an almost-floating image that sits a few millimeters from the wall.
LG's new OLED, 4K TVs are thinner than an iPhone at their thinnest points, and its bezels, while not quite non-existent, are ridiculously small. Other companies, such as Philips and Samsung, have introduced TVs with similarly small footprints -- and we're not talking about small television sets, we're talking 70-inch (and larger) behemoths, which makes their tiny bezels all the more impressive.
And LG even went a step further, showing off a concept of a transparent TV. It might not be very practical -- after all, you rarely want to see what's behind the picture -- but it's another aspect of the TV being removed. We're moving towards the future when the TV will indeed just be an image floating in the air.
Of course, most of those devices, with all the tech they're packing, will cost upwards of $10,000. But Xiaomi has shown an ultra-thin smart TV that costs less than 2,000 bucks, meaning these nearly-invisible, super-thin TVs are becoming available to a lot more people.
The trend is not new; TVs have been getting thinner ever since the first one hit the market. And manufacturers will point out the incredible array of technologies built into these things -- super high resolutions, nano cells, HDR (which is probably the most important of the lot, as it really makes the viewing experience a lot better) and quantum dots.
But I still feel the most noticeable (and the most welcome) trend is the traditional TV set disappearing, leaving only the picture behind. I'm not very excited about the next three-letter TV tech acronym, but I can't wait to see the next trick manufacturers pull to make their screens thinner, and bezels smaller.
Stan is a Senior Editor at Mashable, where he has worked since 2007. He's got more battery-powered gadgets and band t-shirts than you. He writes about the next groundbreaking thing. Typically, this is a phone, a coin, or a car. His ultimate goal is to know something about everything.
