Panasonic's initial CES press conference wasn't exactly a resounding success. For while the brand seemed to be doing fine with normal, day to day products, it lacked the sort of chest-thumping next-gen products shouted about so loudly by most of its rivals. In particular, there wasn't even the slightest sniff of either an OLED or 4K/Ultra HD product.
Cut to the following morning, though, and that all changed in an instant. For at his keynote CES speech, Panasonic president Kazuhiro Tsuga suddenly unveiled a 56in screen that combined both OLED and 4K technology in one cool package.
Not surprisingly this prototype screen takes pride of place on Panasonic's booth on the main CES floor, greeting you as soon as you enter the hall. Also unsurprisingly, it produces some seriously mesmerising picture quality.
For starters, moving around it reveals practically no loss of contrast or colour even from fairly extreme viewing angles. This sort of inspection also reveals it to be a seriously attractive bit of kit, thanks to its apparently very high build quality and extremely thin rear - the latter being, of course, a near-universal OLED trait.
The native 4k demo reel being used to show the TV's performance off comprised a mixture of a Cirque de Soleil performance and some of the highly staged 'bright colours against a black backdrop' footage also routinely used by the likes of LG and Samsung to show off their OLED wares. And this all did a fine job of delivering on 4k OLED's three main messages: extraordinary image clarity, remarkably rich colours, and eye-popping black levels.
