There’s been a lot of buzz around LG’s new M3 OLED TV since it was announced at this year’s CES. And rightly so, because it is a very smart package: a two-part television with a transmitter box that sends all video and sound signals wirelessly to the screen, up to a resolution of 4K and a refresh rate of 120 Hz. That’s impressive. Our own Becky Roberts has also seen the new TV in action and describes the picture quality in her hands-on LG M3 as “gorgeous”.
And yet, as impressive and downright cool as the M3 is, it’s not the TV for me.
In fact, I’d argue that the LG M3 isn’t much of a TV for modern homes either, as so many people rely entirely on a TV’s built-in streaming apps and don’t use any external sources at all. But that’s another story, because I still have plenty of external sources.
No, my personal issue with the M3 has nothing to do with what it is. It’s all about what it isn’t, which is a W3 ‘Wallpaper’ TV. In other words, my dream television.
For those new to LG’s W-series TVs, prepare to be amazed. First introduced in 2017 as the W7, the ‘Wallpaper’ TVs were so named because they had a screen section just 2.57mm thick. It was also flexible and so light that it could be hung on the wall with magnets.
This ultra-thinness clearly meant that the screen was just a screen – all processing, connections and speakers were housed in a separate unit much like a soundbar, with the two components connected by a wide but flat and largely transparent cable.
It was, and I’m not exaggerating, an amazing product that surprised me when I first saw it, especially when a couple of LG engineers held it between them and bent it like a Rolf Harris wobble board before they sort of put it on. banged on the wall.
It wasn’t even Which expensive. At £7999/$8000 (about AU$14,000) for the 65-inch model, it was clearly a premium proposition, but a five-figure price tag wouldn’t have been outrageous for such an envelope-pushing TV, especially as the 65-inch inch version of that year’s entry-level B7 and C7 OLEDs (which were basically the same TV at the time) that launched for £4999/$4500 (about AU$7000).
LG finally canned the W series in 2020, with the WX being the last in line. My assumption is that there weren’t enough people willing to pay the extra money, but my problem has always been with that soundbar section – if I’m going to spend all that money on what is arguably the most spectacular television money can buy, I want a sound system to match, and a soundbar just won’t cut it. And even if you could handle the idea of paying for a supposedly price-increasing sound system you don’t want, you wouldn’t be able to easily hide the soundbar part, because it was huge.
In short, I always yearned for a version of the W OLED without speakers – which instead of a soundbar had a simple box for the processing hardware and connections, including an output for an AV receiver – but unfortunately that was not to be.
Over time I got over it and the memory of LG’s Wallpaper models faded, but then the M3 was wheeled onto the podium at CES 2023. Here was a two-component television with a streamlined screen section and a separate box for handling the connections . The problem with the M3, however, is that it’s not a Wallpaper model, largely because speakers are built into the screen portion. Design-wise it’s much like a G3, only with a separate box so you don’t need any cables (other than power) running to the TV.
Wouldn’t it be better if LG used this concept to resurrect the W series from the dead? I think so. Combine the wireless transmitter of the M3 with the wafer-thin, light and flexible display of the W and you have something extraordinary. Produce it in the smaller sizes that OLED TVs are now made in and you’ll have a TV that you can simply pull off the wall in one room of the house and slap onto another. The M3’s Zero Connect box apparently has a wireless range of 100 feet, so you can leave it and your sources in one place and only move the screen. One screen for the whole house? That seems pretty neat to me.
I realize, of course, that a wafer-thin OLED can’t match the best-performing OLEDs out there. For starters, there wouldn’t be room for a heatsink, and I’m honestly not sure the Micro Lens Array technology on LG’s new G3 is thin or flexible enough for this sort of application. But the C-series models don’t have those features anyway and the 2022 C2 is still a brilliant TV.
Imagine a wafer-thin C2-grade TV that just sticks to the wall with magnets and has no source cables running to it thanks to the Zero Connect box. I’m sure I’m not the only one who thinks that would be a dream TV.
Come on, LG, make it happen, eh? If you can calculate wireless power while you’re at it, that’ll be great.
LAKE:
Read the full LG M3 Wireless OLED TV hands on review
Relive the past with our LG W7 review
Time to upgrade? Here’s ours LG G3 vs G2 comparison