At a press event in Seoul this week, Samsung unveiled its latest slate of lifestyle TVs and the surprise was that the firm is set to release the world’s first vertical television designed for social media-addicted millennials.
Samsung’s new TV named Sero is a 43″ flat screen with a rotating display and a pivoting screen. The screen pivots from a horizontal to a vertical mode, allowing viewers to watch content on their TV in same way as they do on smartphone apps. Sero’s screen is meant to show off Instagram and Snapchat stories, or TikTok videos for that matter, vertically.
According to Samsung, this makes it easier for users to sync their smartphones to the TV and play games, scroll through social media or watch videos on the big screen via an NFC connection. Sero TV was also pitched as a solution for big-screen mobile gaming and group shopping.
Rotated back horizontally, the Sero TV can be used as a regular 43-inch TV screen. It also features a 4.1-channel, 60-watt speaker, and an integrated far-field microphone for access to Samsung’s Bixby smart assistant.
This isn’t the first time that the South Korean tech giant has come up with experimental and unusual TV designs. In 2017, it showed off a TV with a wooden frame that is designed to display artwork and look more like a painting when not in use.
And in January this year at the CES tech trade show in Las Vegas, the firm unveiled a 75in (190cm) television, “The Wall” made of modular micro LED panels that can be locked together to expand or reduce the size of the screen.
There’s no word on whether Samsung plans to bring the Sero to African markets, but the TV is going to be available in South Korea at the end of May for a price of about $1600. Now that the TV is aimed at millennials, $1600 is quite a hefty price-tag that is likely to put many consumers off.