The two main things I learned during the pandemic being stuck at home during the MCO is that having a good chair to work in is important for long-term comfort. The second thing learned is that the 55″ TV that has been used so far no longer meets personal needs for watching movies at home.
It's a little strange to say that a 55″ screen is no longer enough because I grew up in a house with a 21″ Sony Trinitron TV for decades. This is because the need while growing up to watch Space Cop Gavan, Kesatria Baja Black and G.I Joe after going back to religious school is different from the need now where streaming movies is a cheaper option than watching them in the cinema.
One of the first things I did when the MCO relaxation was granted was to upgrade the TV to a 65″ screen so that not only would watching movies feel more enjoyable but the PlayStation 5's 4K resolution could be fully utilized.
But there are a few users who feel that even 65" or even 100" does not satisfy the need to have a theater like Tanjung Golden Village (TGV) or Golden Screen Cinema (GSC) in their home. For this 1% group, Samsung The Wall has been offered in Malaysia since mid-September 2022.
Is He Samsung The Wall?
The Wall has been offered to industrial and commercial users since 2018. It is marketed for use in exhibition centers, offices, and advertising purposes. What sets The Wall apart from Samsung's commercial TV and screen offerings is that it's modular. Customers can customize the size, and screen ratio according to space requirements. The modular blocks of The Wall are then assembled like a Lego game in any size and shape.
But with the giant OLED screen, Samsung began to receive inquiries from customers whether The Wall could be purchased for home use. It is for this reason that The Wall IWB and The Wall IAB were launched by Samsung this year with several improvements made after receiving input from their customers.
I was given the chance to try The Wall IWB for myself with a 146″ screen? in Bangkok last month and what I can say is that it is a dream come true for those who want to have a personal Micro LED screen cinema at home.
TV to Billboard?
This is a question I had time to ask the Samsung representative in Bangkok. Is this The Wall a TV or billboard for commercial use? The answer is that it's two in one. Although it was originally developed for commercial use (this is why you can't buy The Wall from Samsung or Seng Heng's online store), they offer The Wall to customers who are "high personal value individuals". In some cases customers who use The Wall for commercial use then buy it for home use.
What Samsung realizes is that smart TVs on the market now have size limits because.
Not easy to carry to the destination because the size is too big.
Difficult to bring into the house again due to the large size.
Size limitations because elevators in most buildings are only big enough for TVs up to 86″ only.
The Wall does not have this problem because as we said above it is a modular panel. For example The Wall IAB which can reach a size of 146″ consists of four elongated modular panels. It can be transported to the installation destination in a van instead of a 2-ton truck. The risk of broken panels is also reduced. Four smaller modular panels are not easy to bend or require a giant box to lift. When connected, the connection line between the panels is not noticeable to the naked eye. I only noticed a faint white line between the connections when about 5 inches from the screen.
The Wall IAB and The Wall IWB also now have a built-in processor and audio system unlike the first generation The Wall. After being hung on the wall (no site can accommodate the size of The Wall at this time) it operates the same as all Samsung Tizen televisions on the market today.
Tizen OS
The Tizen OS operating system is used on all of The Wall. This means that the user experience is the same as other Samsung smart televisions on the market right now. Various major applications such as YouTube, Netflix and Prime Video can be downloaded along with Apple AirPlay 2 support as well as Samsung DeX.
Another additional feature is the Ambient Mode that exists on The Frame televisions that transforms the screen into a wall painting when not in use. The television is controlled with the same standard controls as Samsung smart televisions and smart monitors. The TV settings are also the same where users can change the picture mode, HDR display, accessory connections, audio settings, visual settings and more.
Movie theater at home?
The 146″ Micro LED screen we tested supports 4K 120Hz resolution and also an HDR10+ display with a peak brightness of 1400 nits. The Dolby Vision format is still not supported by Samsung because they want to popularize the open source format HDR10+ which is their joint venture with Amazon. There is a Micro AI processing chip on each unit to ensure that non-native 4K content can still be displayed well. Color processing is up to 20-bit to avoid color banding issues that are often seen on cheaper TV panels.
Watching the movie Spider Man Far Away From Home on The Wall is quite an immersive experience. It may not be as big as an IMAX screen or a real movie theater but it's still immersive. The screening room used is about twice the size of a normal TV viewing room in Malaysia. Spider Man's fast movements look clear and the action can be watched without significant ghosting issues.
Next I tested the movie Pacific Rim which is only in HD on Netflix. With a screen size of 146″, I initially doubted that this movie could be watched without significant noise issues and broken visuals. But this impression is misplaced as the film still looks solid on the screen. Visuals are still not as good as native 4K because even the best upscaling chip in the world is not yet able to provide an image as good as real 4K resolution.
The movie has a lot of neon scenes at night with the Kaiju fighting Jaeger robots. The bright neon part burns the retina and the dark part is opaque black without any of the light bleeding issues I experienced on LED TVs at home.
The final test is watching videos using YouTube. Will semi-professional non-Hollywood studio level content also look good on this screen? The answer is yes because our videos are indeed published in 4K resolution. Classic YouTube content with SD resolution however not all are so lucky.
There is a limit to how much Samsung's artificial intelligence can improve the quality of the video being watched. Content with VCD quality still looks broken with colors that don't stand out. 1080P content for the most part does not hurt the eyes on this giant screen as long as you are sitting about 8-10 feet from the screen.
With The Wall, the dream of having a personal movie theater at home can become a reality. The bad news for me is that after trying The Wall, other TVs that don't use giant Micro LED panels feel small. But the good news is that Samsung has not revealed the selling price of The Wall in Malaysia. Usually when this happens it falls into the category "if you have to ask the price it means you can't afford it".
If you are a reader who falls into the group of "individuals with high personal values" and want to buy The Wall. You can contact Samsung Business Display Malaysia to get a price quote in person. Then after The Wall is installed don't forget to invite me to come home to enjoy the beauty of the giant TV screen again because it's a rare experience even though I'm immersed in the world of technology.