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Samsung unveils new TV, virtual reality products at CES 2022

Yahoo Finance tech editor Dan Howley speaks with Dan Schinasi, Samsung TV director of product planning, and Lydia Cho, Samsung TV head of product marketing, about Samsung's new TV products revealed at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

Video transcript

AKIKO FUJITA: Let's bring in Yahoo Finance's Dan Howley, who's tracking all of the headlines out of Vegas virtually. Dan, we knew there were going to be some big announcements on EVs at CES. This is one that seems a little surprising.

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, that's right, Akiko. This is one of the kind of second prototypes, or really prototypes-- it's not even a concept yet-- for Sony's electric vehicle aspirations. This is their secondary. It's an SUV kind of platform.

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Originally, they'd announced the Sony Vision One. That was back in 2020. This is going to be the Sony Vision Two. And essentially, what they're asking for here is really just to get these on the road.

Basically, the Sony Vision One already being tested. It had different sensors in it that allow it to do some levels of autonomous driving-- really more along the lines of driver-assisted technologies. This is a step up from that in that it's an SUV. It's supposed to be a seven-passenger vehicle. We don't know anything, though, about range, what kind of eventual driver assistance systems that will actually have.

And I say it's a prototype because it's not even in the concept stage yet. These are one-offs. But it does point to Sony's future as an automaker, because they've said that this spring 2022, they're starting a new business called Sony Mobility. And that's what they're going to use to really explore whether or not they fully enter into the EV market.

And look, you know, this idea of tech companies getting into EV is not unheard of. As we know, we've talked about this in the past, where Apple is working on its own vehicles. So seeing Sony get in and, frankly, be ahead of Apple as far as showing off at least some kind of hardware is really interesting.

And then, outside of their auto aspirations-- which, obviously, the bigger story there-- but Sony also showed off its second-generation VR headset for the PlayStation 5. They're saying this will have upgraded visuals, OLED displays, new controllers. And you know, I had the original PlayStation VR. Kind of a letdown as far as visual fidelity goes. Most VR headsets are at this point, where you go from a 4K TV to something that's a little pixelated when you look too close.

But really interesting to see that they're launching a second generation. Obviously, they have faith in the technology. I mean, if you can get a PlayStation 5, good luck. And then, you can eventually hook up that VR headset. But a lot of really interesting stuff coming out of Sony at CES 2022.

- Yeah, and Howley, you know, call me old-fashioned here, but I also like to focus in on the TVs at CES. I know you caught up with Samsung, because they're rolling out their own new TV products there too.

DAN HOWLEY: That's right. We talked to two of Samsung's TV executives for CES 2022, discussing everything from the new software that they launched-- which is a big upgrade for Samsung-- to the new technologies that they're rolling out in some of their televisions. Take a look.

LYDIA CHO: So we will be launching and revamping our whole new Neo QLED 4K and 8K lineup. We're really excited to launch some of the new changing-- you know, over the past few years, you know, we know consumers have had to deal with very flexible lifestyles, transform their homes, and et cetera. So you know, really making the TV something that's really personalized for them.

So what we've really focused on this year is how to fit our TVs in. And we did that with-- we'll be coming out with a new home screen UI, which will have a completely new look and feel to it. Anywhere from having a gaming hub, we'll have a media screen, ambient modes. So you can really outplay any situation you want.

We're also really excited about a spin-off from our media and, actually, from last year. We are announcing our Watch Together, which really gives you a new technology where you can connect with people from all over the world from your friends and your family, and you can really speak to them from wherever you are.

So this is a spin-off of our multi-view. Multi-view used to be we had a two-screen where you can watch-- whether it be OTT, and you can be playing games. Now, you can have four different screens and watch 'em, pause 'em, play 'em, rewind as much as you want. But you can also have this new Watch Together feature that we're really excited about.

Another aspect of our products that we're really-- we're trying to be very good global corporate citizens, and we're really focused on sustainability. One new cool aspect and feature that we're going to have is an upgrade to our new Eco Remote, where we will have battery list remotes. And how this works is that the remote will charge itself with solar from the lighting inside and out of your home, but also through our harvesting, which, you know, again, will save tremendously on just being battery-free. And Dan, I don't know if there's anything else you wanted to add?

DAN SCHINASI: Yeah, I'll add just two extras. [LAUGHS] Bonus! One is a new size micro-LED. It's an 89. It's just announced. And also, a new product called Freestyle. This is a portable personal projector. You can carry it around with you. This can be operated on AC power or battery power. You can project on the ceiling, on the wall. Very innovative product, which will debut at CES.

DAN HOWLEY: You know, one of the big things that I read about and, obviously, I think a lot of consumers are interested in is they see the new phrase coming out for TVs each year. And so last year, we, obviously, had mini-LED, micro-LED. I kind of want to go over what they can expect as far as differences with mini-LED and micro-LED.

And when you look at that as a consumer, right, you're going to buy a TV, I want the best image. What am I going to get as far as image quality? And what's going to give me the best bang for my buck?

DAN SCHINASI: Yeah, so first, our best TV would be micro-LED. And micro-LED is a self-emissive device. Again, that's offered in our new 89-inch and larger screens as well. It's a pricey technology, but it's the best technology.

The mini-LED is referring to the backlight, and in the Samsung product line, we refer to that as Neo. We have our own mini-LEDs, and they're superior to other others on the market. So if you look for a Neo QLED, that's referring to the backlight technology, which is mini-LED.

DAN HOWLEY: I guess if I'm going to be shopping in the store or-- let's face it-- online, probably, when can I expect to get one of these TVs? When can I have them shipped to my door, so I don't have to schlep it from Best Buy, or Walmart, or whatever?

LYDIA CHO: We'll have more exact dates coming up in the next couple of weeks. We are targeting a Q1, so you know, more to come. More final dates to come. But next couple of weeks is when we'll have, like, more close to exact dates of ship dates and whatnot.

DAN HOWLEY: OK. And then, just as a final, you know, you guys did revamp the software, as you kind of said, with the new offerings. As far as that Game Hub goes, you're working with two different companies, Nvidia and Google. How does that work?

And then, is it essentially a means for me to say, hey, I want to play games, but I don't want to have you know a bunch of consoles underneath my entertainment center, or I don't want to have to set it up next to my PC. I can just do it right here from my TV with just a controller.

DAN SCHINASI: Yeah, maybe I'll take that one. So there's a couple innovations that are occurring. So one is the Game Bar, which is sort of that hub. Inside the Smart Hub is that one place to go where you could do lots of things. You can see the variable refresh rate. You can change your aspect ratio. You can zoom in.

But we're adding some other enhancements to it as well. And one you just touched on was, now, cloud gaming. So we're introducing cloud gaming as well. So we work with cloud gaming, we work with consoles, and we work with, also, PC gaming as well.

So we're agnostic. So we have different features for-- there's different capabilities depending on which platform you want to game on. We support them all.

DAN HOWLEY: So obviously, Samsung coming out with a number of different innovations this year at CES 2022. And I just want to point out when Dan was saying there that the micro-LED TV was a little expensive, last year they, had launched one that was more than 100 inches wide for $156,000. So right now, they have an 89-inch. It's probably going to be a pretty penny, too.