HORIZON

The best new tech heading your way

1 C SEED M1

Around £290,000, cseed.tv

MicroLED is here, and it’s completely out-of its-gourd crazy. The C Seed M1 takes advantage of every one of the new screen tech’s core features to create a TV the likes of which we’ve never seen before and will (unless something very strange happens) never see in our own homes: this folding, expanding hideaway TV is a feat of engineering as much as it is a leap in innovation. It’s the sort of TV you build a room around – quite literally, given that it’s supposed to emerge from a mechanised hole in your floor and unfurl its 165-inch panel automatically, then tuck itself back into the floor when it’s done.

The M1 pulls off that feat by using MicroLED’s unique ability to form completely edge-to-edge screens, aligning them by way of a machined metal structural frame and ensuring the joins aren’t visible using what C Seed calls Adaptive Gap Calibration, essentially detecting any offsets and brightening the pixels on either side to compensate. Very clever.

MicroLED’s big issue is pixel density. It uses discrete LEDs to make up each pixel rather than OLED substrates or LCD panels, and while they’re pretty small, they’re not quite as micro as they could be: the resolution of the M1 tops out at 4K. That said, the huge advantages of MicroLED are all there. The blacks are fully black, there’s some serious 16 bit HDR on offer, and a claimed 1,920Hz refresh rate.

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C Seed’s M1 isn’t its first foldable TV offering. In fact, the M1 looks like a veritable bargain compared to the 301 from which it inherits its tech, a carbon fiber and titanium folding screen which is 25 feet corner-to-corner. A TV so large C Seed had to picture it with a giraffe in order to emphasise its sheer extravagance. At $1.5 million, it’s safe to say it’s not for everyone.

SOUND GOOD?

The M1 integrates its soundbar into the folding mechanism of the screen, but it’s a rather disappointing 2.1 speaker system. Thankfully you’ll be able to boost its audio capabilities because it supports up to 11.2 audio natively. But presumably you’ll need to plug your audio in manually once it’s emerged from the floor – ditto the single HDMI input – which does defeat the object somewhat.

DEVIALET PHANTOM I

From £1,890, devialet.com

Devialet’s Phantom speakers make a real impact on anyone who hears them. The company’s latest, the Phantom I, can hit between 103dB and 108dB depending on how much you spend. Both models make the most of Devialet’s fondness for acronym-based technology: they carry the company’s patented ADH (Analog/Digital Hybrid) amplification; SAM (Speaker Active Matching) tech accurately balances the amplifier to the output of the drivers; ACE (Active Cospherical Engine) doctors sound output to emit it evenly in all directions; and HBI, which stands for Heart Bass Implosion, aptly smashes you around with sound. There’s better connectivity, too, with the ability to now plug in analogue sources – but the price puts this north of most budgets.

T3 SAYS: An unforgettable audio experience at (probably) an unattainable price.

NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3060

Around £250, nvidia.com