Joan Verdon

Staff Writer, @JoanVerdon

The LG Signature OLED TV W screen is 2.57 millimeters thick.

The Best Buy at the Fashion Center is one of seven stores nationwide to have the TV.

The pricetag for the 65-inch TV is $7999

The TV won numerous best of show awards at the Consumer Electronics show last week.

Thin is in when it comes to TVs. And Paramus is one of only seven places in the country where consumers can see the newest and thinnest television set on the market.

The Best Buy store at the Fashion Center on Route 17 in Paramus is one of seven Best Buy stores around the nation, and the only store in the Northeast, displaying the television set that was the hit of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last week.

The TV, unveiled at the show by Korean electronics giant LG Electronics, which has its U.S. headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, is so thin – about one-tenth of an inch – that it has been dubbed the “wallpaper” TV. It made headlines at the show, and drew raves from analysts and tech critics. It also won more than 20 awards at the event, including several prestigious “best of show” honors.

At CES 2017, Alexa, paper-thin TVs were early stars

Television manufacturers are constantly in a race to come up with the newest, and the coolest, to drive sales of new TVs. Prices of regular flat-panel televisions have dropped in recent years and sales have declined. IHS Markit, the global information analytics firm, reported last year that shipments of LCD panel TVs were expected to be down 5 percent by the end of 2016, and would decline slightly this year, but that sales of more premium televisions, such as 4K, ultra-high-definition and OLED – organic light emitting diode – sets would increase dramatically.

Usually techies and fans of the latest innovations in electronics have to travel to the show, held annually in Las Vegas, to see the new releases. But this year, LG made its newest television – the LG Signature OLED TV W – available for display at selected Best Buys stores, beginning immediately after the CES unveiling on Jan. 4.

Coup for Paramus

Getting the LG hit product to display was a coup for the Fashion Center store, the only Best Buy location in the New York metropolitan area chosen by the Minneapolis-based retailer. The other stores showing the TV are in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth and Boca Raton, Fla.

“We selected locations where we know customers are especially interested in seeing the latest in technology,” said Kevin Flanagan, a Best Buy spokesman.

Paramus may also have had an edge because of its proximity to LG’s headquarters in Englewood Cliffs.

The 65-inch TV is on display in the Magnolia home theater section of the Fashion Center store and hangs flat on a wall. The electronics that usually add several inches to the back of a flat-screen TV are contained in a sound bar that connects to the TV with a thin, ribbon-like cable, and that also can connect other devices to the TV.

The TV screen is thin enough, and light enough, that it can be attached with magnets to a flat metal plate mounted on the wall.

"Like a coat of paint"

David Katzmaier, senior editor and television expert at the consumer electronics website CNET, in a review called the LG thin TV the most impressive television he saw at CES this year, and said it “hugs your wall like another coat of paint.”

Katzmaier, in a phone interview, said he was skeptical at first about the need for a thinner TV. “They are already really thin,” he said. But he added, “When it’s just part of the wall, it kind of changes the game design-wise.”

He said the LG version could point the way toward what all TVs will look like within five to 10 years. He doesn’t expect the TV to break any sales records, though, because the $7,999 price tag makes it about twice the cost of similar, less thin, OLED televisions.

“I feel like this is a glimpse of the future, and that’s why I liked it,” Katzmaier said, “not because I think it will be taking over sales anytime soon.”

Spring delivery

Customers can pre-order the televisions at Best Buy. The sets are expected to be ready for delivery in the spring, said Alvaro Goncalves, Magnolia specialty sales manager at the Fashion Center store.

Goncalves said the ultra-thin television has been attracting a lot of attention from customers. “We’re excited to have it, and to be able to give everyone a sneak peek at this innovative TV,” he said.