LG Electronics says that its new, still-to-be-announced OLED TVs for 2021 have landed a Consumer Electronics Show “Best of Innovation” Award thanks to their perfect blacks, realistic colours and infinite contrast.
LG hasn’t said which TVs actually won the award, and that’s not really a surprise as it’s keeping them under wraps until the CES 2021 show, which takes place virtually, kicks off. The company is planning to hold a press conference on January 11 when we can expect to learn a lot more, but in the meantime we can make a few guesses.
While LG has said very little about what it has in store for 2021, the model name “LG C1” has already been spotted in regulatory filings in South Korea, according to FlatPanels HD. That TV is most likely the successor to LG’s popular mid-range CX OLED TV that was widely viewed as one of the best OLED TVs to go on sale this year.
It’s fair to assume that if LG is going to launch an LG C1 OLED TV next year there will be other versions too, perhaps a new LG B1 OLED, which would follow this year’s LG BX model. There might also be an LG G1, which would be an update to the LG GX, and probably a very expensive LG Z1 8K OLED TV to succeed the LG ZX model.
Those model names make sense because for the past few years LG’s naming convention has been based on the year the TV is release, so the LG C8 released in 2018 matched with that year, while the LG C9 came in 2019. LG didn’t say why, but this year’s “X” models were probably chosen to represent 2020 because a “0” didn’t look cool enough, or may have confused some buyers.
We’re unlikely to see any significant advances in OLED display quality this year, as LG seems to have hit a plateau on its development. There should be some advances in picture processing and the webOS platform will probably get a few updates too. What we’d really like to see though is an improvement in brightness, which is one area where LCD TVs still have the upper hand. If LG does find a way to boost the brightness on its OLED TVs that would increase the range of contrast and help to avoid the picture looking washed out in sunny rooms.
It’s not clear yet if LG has managed to make any improvements in that area, but one thing it might be able to do is reduce the price of its products. That’s because the company’s new OLED display panel factor in Guangzhou, China, finally got up and running earlier this year, and it’s believed the next-generation manufacturing processes it uses there will help to reduce the cost of making 48-inch and 77-inch panels.
LG said that next year’s NanoCell and NEXTGEN TVs, as well as its soundbars also won innovation awards at CES. The company also won awards for some of its home appliances, smartphones and IT solutions, it said.
