If you've been looking for the best OLED TVs but finding that they're prohibitively expensive, well, join the club.
While there are some options for anyone on a budget – the LG A1 OLED springs to mind – they are still not what most people would consider to be cheap.
Indeed, the typical price for OLED TVs is is in the thousands if not multiple thousands. For example, LG's 65-inch flagship LG G2 OLED costs $2,999/€3,599. That's big bucks.
But things could be looking up, according to a new industry report from a Korean media outlet (via FlatPanelsHD), which suggests that work has begun by manufacturer BOE on making a cheaper OLED panel for TVs.
BOE has struck a deal to produce five panels, ranging from 55-inches to 95-inches, with around 300,000 units arriving in the first year. As TechRadar notes, that would be around 5% of the entire current OLED market.
The news represents a shift for the entire industry. LG currently dominates the production of OLED panels – which is one of the reasons that two of the cheaper options are made by LG – and adding more supply will drive down prices across the board, a good thing for consumers.
Samsung has been stepping up its efforts in recent times, offering a version of some of its TVs with OLED panels, but these are mostly limited to the most high-end and expensive models.
The chip shortage, and associated shortages of other essential components, have not helped with the production of cheaper OLED panels.
BOE getting into the game represents an interesting opportunity and the Chinese company, which has deals to produce displays for Apple, could be the change that is necessary to finally make an OLED TV that doesn't cost the earth.
We'll have to wait and see – and there will surely be hiccups along the way – but it's a positive development for the TV industry at large and specifically anyone that wants to get the very best TV for their home within the next 12 months.
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