Samsung vs TCL: A tale of two screens

Barcelona: Here, at the world’s largest technology show, in one corner of Hall 2 sit leading manufacturers TCL and Samsung, vying for the attention of devices across brands. Known widely for the large screens in living rooms, these manufacturers are betting on a vastly different future. Those bets, however, are confusingly divergent. While TCL believes the future lies in bringing the screen close to the eyes, Samsung is convinced the defining difference of future devices will be the unfolding screen.

TCL’s biggest future bet is the wearable screen. The company has just launched a pair of opaque glasses that project what seems like a 55-inch screen in front of the eyes. “Maybe you don't have the space for such a screen at home. Or maybe sometimes you want to watch a blockbuster movie on the plane,” said Stefan Streit, general manager, global marketing, TCL, explaining the use cases.

Of course for this pair of glasses, it means viewing from a stationary position. Still the cinematic experience is pretty close to the real thing. They simply plug into the mobile phone or gaming console over a c-port or lightning cable and voila, the wearer sees a 3D image of a large screen at a living room distance. The device doesn’t have any external power source. It can include an attachment for corrective lenses for spectacle wearers, which would need to be fitted by an optician.

How it works

A chip in the frame of the glasses calibrates the image the left and right eye should see for a 3D image to form, but the actual display within this 3D image is a 2D screen. The technology used is called ‘optical wave guide’ technology, which in its simplest form is used on optical fibre cables to channel data over light signals.

The company is trying to expand this to augmented reality glasses that are separately powered, have a tap-able button on one side, and can be used to display information at the bottom while its wearer can continue to see the surroundings. The functionality the company is demonstrating is live translation. Admittedly, this pair is still a work in progress; TCL will decide whether it will retain the tech or white label it for other brands only after it has honed the product some more, said Streit.

Executives at the Samsung demo were more media shy, but spoke with conviction about their very flexible and paper thin display screens, which hung off helium balloons to convince device makers of their versatility.

Bent or slid, these bright screens offer a variety of options for small devices to unpack into large ones. From ideal photo displays in the living room to tablets that can stretch out into television screens, Samsung’s display arm is emphatic that this is the path devices in the future will take. Of course, sister concern Samsung Electronics has already adopted the technology in its foldable Samsung Galaxy Z device, but other Chinese manufacturers are lining up to buy the product, said the team at Samsung Display’s booth.

It wasn’t that long ago that consumers questioned the viability of a touch screen. A little over a decade later, it isn’t unusual to find youngsters tapping laptop screens, incredulous that they don’t respond to touch. Similarly, it won’t be long until customers decide which one of these will mark the future of the screen. Perhaps, it will boil down to a mix of the two? Or did the executive that exclaimed: “You can’t compare the two,” mean something else?