CES in Las Vegas 2025, LCD "Highlander" technology££££ Second surprise, the return to the forefront of LCD technology. We still have to wait to see the Hisense Mini LED RGB TV again (with the 100UX and 116UX, see our news (UPDATE) CES 25 > Hisense 116UX (295 cm): TriChroma LED TV (Mini LED RGB) and CES 25 > Hisense TriChroma LED TV (Mini LED RGB), a 100" also on the program), TCL Mini LED RGB prototype and Samsung Micro LED RGB prototype presented, to find out if it is really in old pots that we make the best soups.
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CES 2025 Review: AI Everywhere, the Return of TV Tech, and the (Yet Again) Revival of LCD
14.01.2025 • 12h51
There you have it, it's over... After the good 2024 vintage, the doors of the CES show in Las Vegas 2025 have closed on an edition that is undoubtedly even more interesting. Even if, more than ever, the great mass of consumer electronics is now used by brands and manufacturers in the audio-video sector to highlight a technical advance, a concept in the making, at best a few new models, and no longer to unveil the bulk of their product range to the world, as was still the case at the end of the 2010s.
As you will have understood, in terms of audiovisual, the CES show in Las Vegas no longer has the appeal of the big shows of the late 90s or the 2000s, where all the stands were overflowing with new technologies, crazy concepts and especially the entirety (or almost) of the brands' product ranges. It was then possible during the four days of the show to discover at once, in one go, several hundred references physically with a lot of technical data sheets and to photograph them. The CES in Las Vegas, more dispensable than before for brands££££ Now, brands and manufacturers want to completely control their communication, for example to not reveal their design too early and avoid copying. They also no longer want to be forced to "put on a show" on a fixed date, every year in Las Vegas (or Berlin). To the point where some of them no longer put on a show at all, either by no longer even going to the gaming capital (for example Philips which, without being present at the show, previously provided presentations to resellers/distributors and some media in a private suite of a hotel), or by completely ignoring their audio-video division (for example Sony which, since the 2023 edition, no longer presents audio and/or video equipment at the CES show in Las Vegas). The health crisis has indeed shown the brand that major international trade fairs are no longer essential events for existing with consumers, the media and resellers/distributors. And for the others, those present, as already mentioned, the emphasis is on a specific message, a specific technology or for a couple of years on technical "almost previews", i.e. products already presented the previous year at dedicated events organized by the brands (for example TCL with its DTC2024 conference held in Shenzhen, China last November, unveiling many of the technological innovations presented by the brand on its stand at CES: 21.6" and 27" Ink-Jet Printing Oled panels, among others, see our news TCL Ink-Jet Printing Oled Panel, production is underway). Fortunately, the 2025 edition of CES in Las Vegas still saw real technological advances in audio-video, particularly for OLED and LCD, and avoided the usual hum of "simple" range renewals, modulo the expected incremental improvements. CES in Las Vegas 2025, conversational AI at the heart of Smart TVs££££ Agnostic in terms of display technology, one of the main innovations of CES in Las Vegas 2025 attracted the integration of conversational AIs Copilot by Microsoft (LG and Samsung) or Gemini by Google (TCL) into Smart TVs. The voice assistants on our screens will soon abandon their village idiot status to truly interact with consumers, their interests and their activities right into their real lives (linking a travel project with content viewed for example and suggesting places to visit and/or restaurants to book). The most interesting thing about this feature? New possibilities will emerge regularly as [abc]Firmware[/abc] updates to Smart TVs. CES in Las Vegas 2025, new Oled technology££££ Last week was the occasion, in terms of displays, for two surprises. The first concerns [abc]Oled[/abc] with the abandonment by LG Display (and therefore its customers LG Electronics, Panasonic and most certainly Philips, Sony…) of its Meta/MLA process associated with an Oled panel composed of three layers of emitting materials (blue, green/yellow-green/red, blue) in favor of a new four-layer Oled panel composed solely of RGB materials (blue, green, blue, red, see illustration below), hence the name Tandem Oled RGB, see. our news CES 25 > LG G5 Evo/M5 Evo, new Tandem Oled RGB panel (brightness +40% for 100% APL) and (UPDATE) CES 25 > Panasonic Z95B TV: new Tandem Oled RGB panel in 55", 65" and 77"). Where we can see in light of this development the weaknesses of the "simple" Meta/MLA process, LG Display announcing a significantly increased peak brightness (around 4,000 nits) in addition to colorimetric performances finally up to par (thanks to the additive RGB process) with LCD and QD Oled TVs (Editor's note: we can't help but wonder about a four-layer Oled panel with an MLA coating...). Samsung Display is not far behind with a new QD Oled panel 2025 five layers compared to four last year. We are moving from a "blue, blue, green, blue" structure to "blue, blue, green, blue, green" (see illustration below). This addition of a layer of green materials boosts the peak light output to more than 4,000 nits (see our news (UPDATE) CES 25 > 4th generation QD Oled TV: peak light output at 4,000 nits confirmed). Note that while our information mentioned a fourth generation of QD Oled panels before the CES 25 show, Samsung Display representatives used the term optimized 3rd generation during the CES 25 show. Indeed, RGB LED technology was initially unveiled in 2008 by Sharp with its XS1 television and Sony with its 46X4500 reference (we were then present during the presentations of these broadcasters by their creator) and quickly abandoned for questions of cost and performance. More than fifteen years have passed since then, the time for this technology to mature, supported by the Mini LED process (in this case ultra-small specimens) or Micro LED, and to return for incredible performances, for example with a Rec.2020 gamut coverage of 97/98%. In short, once again, after the transition from the CCFL tube (Cold Cathode Fluorescent Lamp) to LEDs, from LED [abc]Edge[/abc] and Full LED [abc]Local Dimming[/abc] then from LEDs to Mini LEDs, with the Mini RGB LEDs the transmissive LCD technology that some have repeatedly announced dead and buried compared to the self-emissive Oled/Micro LED processes is reborn for the umpteenth time. Better still, with Mini LED/Micro LED RGB, LCD could once again become a technology of the future… CES in Las Vegas, media decline££££ There is another trend, less rosy, for CES in Las Vegas 2025, media coverage that is still in decline. Fewer stories in the national media (the news practically skipped the show, or with almost anecdotal angles), fewer tweets, fewer car manufacturers present, an audio section that is still as poor… In short, CES is still struggling to fully relaunch after the health crisis. Come on, see you in January 2026. To not miss any of our publications, and to immediately find out about the new products from the brands and manufacturers presented at the Las Vegas 2025 show, click on the following link: CES 2025, discover all the new products live from Las Vegas