The world’s largest foldable screen could give Samsung some hints on its next Fold
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Display specialist Viewsonic has pulled back the curtain on its massive LDS-135-151 foldable (but not rollable) LCD screen.
Given its price, $85,000 in the US (opens in new tab) (about £78,000, AU$130,000), and the deliberate lack of advanced AV features, the main target will be corporate events, presentations and exhibitions where large format displays are the norm.
Viewsonic says the screen comes pre-assembled, ready to be used literally out of the box (it comes with a movable flight case design), folding two wings across the center of the screen like a restaurant menu.
Super big
As expected, it is a bit of a monster in terms of dimensions, with a net weight of 225 kg and a gross weight of 330 kg. When fully extended, the screen measures 3m x 1.69m, larger than some rooms in central London and almost the size of nine 50-inch TVs assembled in 3 x 3 matrix.
The screen is designed to be used 24/7 and has a lifespan of 100,000 hours (that’s over 11 years of constant use) and should there be a problem, Viewsonic has come up with a smart solution. While the LDS-135-151 has a frameless display with no stitched edges, users can remove one of the 20 hot-swappable LED modules on the front by themselves using a bundled electric vacuum suction tool.
A visual powerhouse
The rest of the spec is equally spectacular: six HDMI ports, four USB ports (including a Type-C port that can be used for display) and a LAN connector.
Audio is handled by a pair of 20W speaker systems from Samsung’s Harman Kardon, but users can plug in their own speakers, or there’s an SPDIF connector too.
There’s no memory card reader, and while there’s a built-in thin client, it only has 64GB of onboard storage and runs the outdated Android 9.0 OS (launched August 2018).
For those who want to use it as a show stopping business monitor, as a huge trading screen or to display videos, keep in mind that it has a rather coarse pixel pitch of 1.5mm, which means it’s easier to watch from a distance. That explains why the native resolution is only 1920 x 1080 pixels. Too bad it’s not a touchscreen nor can it be used as a Surface Hub 2SMicrosoft’s own collaboration platformlike it doesn’t have a webcam or microphones.
The display is compatible with Crestron, Extron, AMX and Viewsonic’s proprietary AV operating system, myViewBoard Manager. That means users can wirelessly cast content from up to four different devices simultaneously, as the LDS-135-151 supports Picture-in-Picture and Picture-By-Picture.
However, there are no details yet on availability outside the US, or what the warranty will be, so stay tuned for more details.