Philips has previously said that Micro LED display technology belongs more in the lab than at home, but dispute those comments, the company still sees it as the flagship technology for TVs in the future.
In an interview with What-HiFi, Philips senior director of product strategy and planning Danny Tack revealed that the company sees MicroLED as a key part of its future strategy.
According to Tack, while most TV Brands have gone for a dual-flagship approach with separate, high-end OLED and Mini-LED models, Philips has opted for a clear hierarchy. In its case, OLED is clearly the flagship tech, while Mini-LED is used in its mid-range TV sets, and standard LCD displays are used with its most affordable models.
Philips doesn’t currently sell any MicroLED TVs. That’s because the technology is still nascent, despite the best efforts of Samsung to market it as being consumer-ready. MicroLED combines the pixel-level contrast control of OLED with the high brightness of Mini-LED. It’s kind of like an OLED TV, where the organic pixels are replaced with regular, albeit much smaller LEDs that can reach even higher brightness, with no chance of degradation or burn-in over time.
WhatHiFi asked Tack about the future of MiniLED, considering that the newest OLED TVs, such as the Philips OLED+959 and OLED+909 can now deliver 3,000 nits brightness.
Surprisingly, Tack said that in three or four years from now, the next-generation consumer displays will be based on MicroLED, which combines the strengths of OLED and Mini-LED.
Tack added that MicroLED is “something that in Taipei we are heavily experimenting with”, before admitting that the company has a number of “prototypes” based on the technology.
MicroLED has often been hailed as a “dream” display technology and Tack’s comments suggest that it is something that may one day become more affordable for the average consumer. Currently, Samsung is the sole vendor of consumer-focused MicroLED TVs (such as the one pictured), but they’re only available in enormous sizes and they come with a massive price tag.
If Philips ever does get around to producing a consumer-grade MicroLED TV, we can only hope that it will be much more attainable than it is currently.
