Although many people have fought to get smartphone videographers to shoot everything in landscape mode (horizontally), it appears that the battle has been lost. The proof? Samsung has unveiled a QLED TV designed for Millennials, that has a vertical screen.
Possibly the same model that the company teased back in 2013, the new TV is known as the Sero, which is Japanese for “cello.” It was created mainly as a means of displaying visuals streamed by NFC (near field communication) from the user’s smartphone. Those visuals could include videos shot by the user, or things such as vertically-oriented games and mobile websites – really, anything that appears in portrait format on a phone’s screen.
That said, the Sero’s 43-inch screen can be rotated sideways for viewing of more traditional landscape-format content. There’s no word on video resolution, although the TV does incorporate a 4.1-channel, 60-watt “high-end” speaker, which can be used to play streamed or downloaded music transmitted from the phone.
When not in use, the Sero displays images such as a clock face, photos, or other nice-to-look-at pictures. Once it’s go-time, users can control it using either an included remote, or by using voice commands that are interpreted by the TV’s Samsung-specific Bixby AI system.
If you’re interested in getting a Sero, you’ll have to go to South Korea to get one. It will be released there at the end of May, priced at 1.9 million won (about US$1,630).
Samsung, incidentally, is no stranger to the world of unusual TV technology. Previous examples have included the piece-of-art-like Serif TV, along with Ambient Mode, which allows the company’s wall-mounted QLED TVs to blend in with their background.