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LG Signature OLED W7 Wallpaper TV.

Every once and a while a piece of technology just bowls me over. This time the tech is from LG and is the W7 "wallpaper" TV. It is just 2.5 millimetres thin and is bendable. It is so thin that it attaches to a wall using magnets, like a laminated poster.

Being this thin, I wondered how I'd connect a games console or Sky box?

The answer takes the form of a dedicated tuner/sound bar. It houses inputs along with a built in Freeview tuner. It also sees the W7 bucking my usual rule of thumb which is the thinner the TV, the thinner the audio delivered.

Not with the W7. A clever mid/woofer combo plus two front speakers delivered decent audio. The front facing speakers also have top mounted drivers that bounce audio off your lounge ceiling for an immersive soundstage. It can act as a pass-through box should you want use a home theatre setup.

OLED pixels emit their own light; no bulky backlighting is needed. Colours are vibrant too. The W7's Contrast ratio (the difference between the lightest and darkest elements of an on-screen image) is massive. To generate dark regions on-screen, pixels are switched off. Even the best LCD TVs can only deliver dark greys. Dark colours are pitch black on the W7. This makes things look crisp.

Another killer feature is HDR. Before HDR, shaded regions on TV screens consisted of dark blobs. With HDR, additional detail gets pulled out of dark or bright regions. The W7 also impressed with motion. Fast moving objects on LCD TVs often "judder". Not so with the W7. On screen motion is fluid which lends everything a cinematic quality.

Thanks to the magic remote, the W7 is intuitive to drive. It is motion sensitive and wrist movements drive an on-screen pointer. The user interface consists of a selection of small cards listing available content and inputs. Getting set up is bomb-proof thanks to a cartoon character called "bean bird" who guides users through get set up.

There were settings I switched off. By default the W7 uses a power save mode. It tweaks brightness levels depending on ambient light. With curtains drawn the image seemed dim. Then there was what LG have branded TruMotion. In theory, it smooths out on screen motion, but introduced image artefacts. The W7 didn't need it.

Although I didn't test it, the W7's impressive video should combine with silky smooth on screen motion and a 21ms video input latency to make it a hot option for gamers. It did a great job of upscaling HD video too.

Verdict

The W7 is a stunning TV. Its paper-thin design may be its headline feature, but picture quality is the real hero.

Video on the W7 is about as good as TV gets. If there's a downside it is cost. The W7 costs a cool $15,000 for 65" version and a whopping $39,000 for the 77" version. This makes it a TV for the 1 per cent.That said, prices will come down.

Sony and Panasonic plus several Chinese manufacturers are already producing OLED TVs and this should translate into economies of scale and competition which will eventually drive prices down.

 - Stuff