Usually with TVs we think of $3,000 or so as being the point where the high-end, premium segment of the market kicks in. Luxury brand C SEED, though, takes an ever-so-slightly grander view, having just unveiled a new TV with a starting price of $190,000 (or 180,000 Euros). And no, I haven’t accidentally added an extra zero (or two!) to those figures.
Given how good some TVs are nowadays for just 1-2% the price of even the entry-level C SEED N1s, the Austrian brand clearly has its work cut out in trying to explain just how its new TV - or any TV, come to that - can possibly be worth so much.
The C SEED N1s are 103-inch, 137-inch or 165-inch MicroLED TVs that fold mechanically down into cool ... [+] base aluminium base units when you're not watching them.
Shockingly, though, it actually doesn’t take too long looking at the N1’s spec sheet and ogling photos and videos of its design to start getting at least some understanding of how a $190,000 TV really might be more than just a high-tech honey trap for people with more money than sense.
For starters, all three models in the N1 range are huge. The smallest boasts a 103-inch 4K screen, with the other two stepping up to 137 inches and a monumental 165 inches. The really cool thing about their largesse, though, is that they don’t always look that big. When you’re not watching them they can literally fold themselves away into their bases, making them - reckons C SEED - less like regular TVs, and more like ‘minimalist sculptures’, or ‘kinetic works of art’.
The C SEED N1 can grow smoothly from small piece of furniture into a huge, high quality display.
In its ‘off’ condition, the C SEED N1 looks like a stylish piece of premium modern furniture, hewn out of aerospace grade aluminium. Turn it on, though, and the piece of furniture magically rises up to a vertical position, like Nosferatu emerging from his coffin, before the screen folds out in a series of smooth automated movements.
Followers of display technology might be starting to suspect at this point where we’re talking about folding screens that there must be something beyond the norm about the C SEED N1s’ screen technology - and they’d be right. Their unique design is built around the modular design capabilities of MicroLED technology, where small panels of self-emissive, ultra-high brightness, ultra-wide colour gamut pixels can be joined together to form screens of pretty much any size and shape.
C SEED stresses that the joins between the different MicroLED panels that have gone into forming the N1’s finished, fully unfolded screen are rendered essentially invisible thanks to its own patented Adaptive Gap Calibration technology.
Another angle on the C SEED N1's motorised folding process.
Essentially C SEED has turned the many demonstrations of mechanically shape-shifting MicroLED screens we’ve seen at technology shows for the past few years into a living, breathing, genuinely useful product that consumers can actually buy. Provided they have that small matter of at least $190,000 to spare.
Surprisingly given the highly motorised nature of their design, the N1s are all equipped with twin 100W wide range speakers, meaning that at least you won’t have to add the cost of an external sound system to your colossal outlay. The 4K screens also - of course - support HDR, including the HDR10+ format, but excluding Dolby Vision.
C SEED hasn’t revealed the prices for the 137 and 165 inch N1 models yet, but clearly with those bigger models we’ll be even more into ‘if you need to ask how much they cost, you can’t afford them’ territory than we are with the 103-inch model.
The N1 isn’t actually C SEED’s first foldable MicroLED screen rodeo. Back in 2013 it launched a monster, ultra-bright fold-out 201-inch display for outdoor use designed in conjunction with Porsche, no less. The C SEED N1, though, is the brand’s first screen to target the living room, and I don’t mind saying that I’ve already added buying one to my ‘to do’ list. Right below winning the lottery and finding a seam of gold under my lawn.