LG’s impossibly-thin W7 Wallpaper OLED TV earned lots of buzz at CES earlier this year, stunning attendees and garnering itself a long list of awards. The only way this next-generation TV could be any bigger a deal is if it actually got, well, bigger. And so it has. Today, LG announced a monstrous 77-inch version of the TV, dubbed the 77W7, and priced at a cool $20,000.
It might be an pricey purchase, but … just look at it. The 77W7 measures in at just 1/10 of an inch in thickness. It’s mounted to the wall with magnets for a flush, gapless presentation that literally looks like a window into another world. The on-wall design coupled with the clarity of 4K UHD-resolution and brilliance of HDR successfully creates a window-like effect. That impression is enhanced by LG’s OLED technology, which can achieve perfect black levels, better than any LED TV available today. What’s more, the W7 is compatible with every HDR format out there — HDR 10, YouTube’s VP9, and Dolby Vision, Hybrid Log Gamma — and it will support Technicolor’s Advanced HDR format once it’s out in the wild. These specs culminate in pristine picture quality that dropped our jaws when we reviewed the 65-inch version of the W7 Wallpaper OLED TV earlier this year, earning a perfect 10/10 score.
The first question when presented with those specs and dimensions is: How does LG pull it off? After all, even the slimmest TV’s still have plenty of hardware inside. The answer is that none of the hardware resides with the display panel, but is instead housed within an included Dolby Atmos soundbar that sits below the TV. The soundbar and TV are connected by a single ribbon cable that provides the wafer-thin OLED screen with power and video signal. This flat, inconspicuous wire can be easily covered up or installed in-wall to complete the window-like illusion.
The rub here is that you can’t use the TV without the soundbar. This would be a potentially limiting factor in other cases, but the W7’s soundbar is an impressive device in its own right. The bar features two up-firing speakers packed with seven drivers each, while around the bar are several more that fire forward and to the sides, resulting in a detailed and encompassing soundstage. The soundbar’s subwoofer is built into the bottom of the soundbar, providing substantial bass. When we got our hands on the 65W7, the soundbar’s sound was just as noteworthy as the TV’s picture quality, delivering one of the more convincing Atmos experiences we’ve had the pleasure of testing. We expect the 77W7 to be just as impressive.
If you’ve got the dough to spare, the 77-inch W7 Wallpaper OLED is available now from select retailers, or at LG’s online store.
