LG’s announcement at the beginning of 2021 that they were looking to launch 42-inch OLEDs this year took pretty much everyone by surprise. But recent news out of South Korea indicates that launch is unlikely to happen.
A report from The Korea Economic Daily asserts that LG has decided to postpone the launch of the smaller OLED models not because there’s a problem , but according to an industry source who spoke to the KED, it wants to “maximise its marketing efforts” for 2022 instead.
We suppose it would make sense from LG’s viewpoint to delay and have a full year for the TVs to be on sale. But we also can’t help but feel that this smaller OLED model – which apparently is optimised for gaming – may have missed a trick by not releasing in the run-up to Christmas with gamers potentially looking to purchase a new OLED-based display for their PC and gaming consoles.
LG made a breakthrough in 2020 by producing the first 48-inch OLED display, bringing the screen technology to previously unheard of sizes (well, from a commercial, mass market stand point).
Over the years LG has emerged as the market leader in the gaming TV market. It officially supports all major forms of the VRR technology, with the C1 OLED supporting 4K/120fps gameplay across all of its HDMI inputs.
It’s also the first TV brand to support 4K/120fps Dolby Vision for Gaming (on Xbox Series consoles), with Google Stadia slated to arrive later in 2021. Whatever you want from a gaming perspective, LG is likely to have it.
And given that it was LG Display – the biggest panel manufacturer of OLED displays for TV – who announced it would be making an 42-inch OLED, you can expect the likes of Panasonic and Sony to adopt the screens as both have launched a 48-inch OLED, although out of the two only Panasonic has really jumped on the gaming angle.
And what about the price? That remains an unknown. Could it be cheaper than LG’s already affordable A1 OLED series? We’ll have to wait – likely until CES 2022- to find out more information on the 42-inch OLED.
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Editorial independence
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
