Over the course of 2009 there were several things HDTV manufacturers weren’t so forthcoming about.
First, TV makers started calling televisions “class” sizes to make sure people knew that it was almost a certain size but not quite. This move allowed them to save on glass but still charge the same amount of money for their products. Most people didn’t realize or care about this change so it’s still in practice today.
The second line was a little more deliberate. Samsung was the first to come out and market their Luxia LED HDTV line as LED HDTVs. This made it seem as though it was an OLED television when it fact it was just an LCD television with LED backlighting. Lots of people started making a fuss and then TV makers pulled back on how aggressively they market the feature and how they communicate it to prospective shoppers.
In 2010, it looks like screen thickness is set to become the marketing scam of 2010.
With there still being very little for companies to promote being able to talk about having the thinnest this or slimmest that will help them grab a few moments in the spots and hopefully drum up some sales. LG has started the hype with a recent announcement that they’ve created a LED backlit screen which is only 2.6mm thick. This trounces their previous “slimmest” screen that measure 5.9mm in thickness. When you read that you start to get really excited about the idea of a television on 2.6mm in thickness. The problem is that a television isn’t only a screen. The boards and tuners and inputs all need to go somewhere and all of those things inevitably add to the thickness of the television.
Currently, televisions are very light already especially when compared to the older CRT television which were popular previously. Hanging them on the wall is very commonplace. As these screens get thinner and thinner my concern goes to the durability to the glass. There is always a price to pay for advancements in technology and worrying about the screen breaking just because you looked at it funny is too high a price just to be able to brag about having the most emaciated television screen available.
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