On Sunday night, Samsung held its annual first look event at CES 2024, where the company teased the world's first transparent microLED display. While there's no word yet on how much it will cost or when the technology will find its way into retail devices, Samsung showcased its transparent microLED display side-by-side next to transparent OLED and transparent LCD models. Compared to the others, the MicroLED panel was not only noticeably brighter, but also featured a completely frameless design and a highly transparent glass panel that made it easy to see things behind it.
Personally, it's hard to describe the effect Samsung's transparent micro OLED displays have, as the content appears almost hologram-like as it floats in the air. The demo unit was freestanding and measured just one centimeter thick, further enhancing the illusion of a floating screen. Additionally, due to the high pixel density of micro LEDs, images look incredibly sharp. So far Samsung has only uploaded one vertical video full of EDM, but this should give you some idea of what we saw:
According to a Samsung spokesperson, since transparent MicroLED displays have a higher brightness compared to transparent OLED panels, they are also less affected by ambient light.
The bad news is that Samsung's current crop of non-transparent micro LED TVs are priced right now $150,000 for the 110-inch model; It will be a long time until these new displays become anything close to affordable.
Incidentally, Samsung isn't the only Korean company showing off a big transparent display at this year's CES. Its archrival LG launched the OLED T, which, unlike Samsung's model, actually goes on sale this year. OLED T is the first wireless transparent OLED TV with 4K resolution and LG's wireless transmission technology for audio and video. It builds on the company's (undisclosed) M3 model, which debuted at CES last year at least. The OLED T also has a contrast screen that rolls into a box at the bottom that you can raise or lower with the push of a button.
Update, January 9, 2PM ET: This story was updated after publication to include details about the LG OLED T.
We're reporting live from CES 2024 in Las Vegas, January 6-12. Keep up to date with all the latest news from the show Here.
