Samsung's New Display Tech: Micro RGB TV. Maximum Color, Near Maximum Price
Samsung recently launched a new type of TV: micro RGB. Due to the sheer size (115”) and cost ($30,000) of the new micro RGB TV sets, Samsung isn’t sending out review units, so I headed over to the company’s new U.S. headquarters in Northern New Jersey to get eyes on. Samsung didn’t allow me to calibrate the set or even watch content I’m already familiar with, so this is not a review, but I was able to get a good idea of what this technology is capable of and where it fits in the market.
Micro RGB is yet another backlighting technology that "uses red, green, and blue Micro-LEDs to unlock hyper-real color and contrast." Samsung is claiming an industry-first 100% color coverage of BT.2020 and Pantone Validated colors. This is credible, as the colors I saw at Samsung were extraordinary. My camera’s image sensor and the display you’re viewing this report on are not capable of capturing and recreating what your eyes see when you look at a micro RGB set, so don’t place too much weight on the photos attached here. In real life, colors were super-saturated, with stunning, sumptuous greens, reds, and yellows. Off-axis the color and brightness appeared fairly consistent until I got to extreme angles.
I was blown away by the demo but could not forget that it was just that – a demo. Samsung did itself no favors with this deliberate b-roll footage of flower beds and candy-colored scenery, because it was hard to tell how the deep colors will translate to real content. Samsung could have easily used real content that still tilted the field in its favor by showing Pixar clips or extreme sports.
The technology supports 144Hz refresh rates for gaming and "Micro RGB HDR+" but Samsung would not say how bright micro RGB can get overall or for HDR. It was certainly bright enough for the demo content in Samsung’s corporate environment with the lights on, but CEDIA installers are going to want to know whether it can be used in rooms with sunlight, and without specs, the answer is probably not. Samsung also refuses to pay Dolby a licensing fee for Dolby Vision, so Samsung buyers miss out on getting the most out of the displays that they bought. That’s a complaint across all Samsung TVs, not just uber-pricey next-gen tech, but it’s a significant drawback higher on the price curve. The built-in speakers do support Dolby Atmos, though I would hope that anyone installing this set will include dedicated speakers and amplification in their budget.
Samsung is applying its best glare-free coating to its micro RGB set, and I found that it significantly increased viewing comfort and apparent contrast under the showroom lights. Samsung uses its own silicon for 4K AI upscaling and Bixby AI for its visual search and voice interface. Initially, Micro RGB is only available on a single 115" TV and is available in the U.S. and Korea for $30,000.
Where micro RGB Fits
If you want the best TV under 85", OLED is your best bet. However, making OLED panels larger than that with good yields has not been economical (LG offers a 98” OLED for $25,000). Front projectors can also hit very large sizes, with some even offering limited HDR, but they really only look their best in rooms with light control. If you want a very large screen with excellent color and contrast that you can watch with the lights on, you are choosing between three different backlighting technologies: mini LED, micro RGB — that's the new one — and microLED.
As your TV grows in size, you need more backlighting zones unless you want light fringing around bright objects, black areas of the screen to look gray, and shadowed areas to be a muddy mess. Large Mini LED sets can be quite affordable — Costco sells a 100" from TCL for $2,400. That said, Mini LED TVs vary in how many mini LEDs/zones they have but even the best use white LEDs and color filters, so color accuracy and saturation is just OK.
That's where Samsung's new microRGB comes in: it swaps out each white LED for three color LEDs, and when I got eyes-on with Samsung's version at their U.S. headquarters, the difference in color fidelity and saturation was not subtle. Reds could be a deep crimson red; greens and yellows practically exploded off the screen. Of course, the price tag could explode your wallet: $30,000 for a 115" set.
MicroRGB is still not a per-pixel solution; it's still just a whole bunch of small zones. If cost is truly no object, then microLED has you covered. That technology was developed for commercial movie theaters, it's per-pixel lighting so blacks are truly black, and it can get both incredibly bright and colorful. But... Samsung doesn't even provide prices for standard sized microLED sets, because its microLED system called The Wall is modular and requires professional installation. I have seen configurations as low as $100,000 and as high as $1-2 million. microLED sets are always the highlight of CES booth displays, with their near 3D depth of field and recent holographic variants.
Will It Become Affordable?
At launch, micro RGB fits well above mini-LED on the price scale, but also well below microLED. It isn't clear to me whether micro RGB will rapidly ride the technology price curve down; microLED has stubbornly remained the venue of professional athletes and tech billionaires. Samsung is also three times more expensive than the $10,000 that the earliest adopters were willing to pay for bleeding edge display technologies like plasma in the past.
For Techsponential clients, a report is a springboard to personalized discussions and strategic advice. To discuss the implications of this report on your business, product, or investment strategies, contact Techsponential at avi@techsponential.com.