The next big thin

As televisions such as Sony’s Bravia KDL-40ZX1 reach a thinness of 9.9mm and protrude from the wall less than my last drywall patch job, I can’t help getting a little nostalgic for the huge 19", full-color set my parents brought home in the early ’70s. It wasn’t just a piece of furniture—it was just about our most prized piece of furniture, its fine wood grain taking center stage in a recreation room cloaked in dark wood paneling and adorned with a brass replica of the Spanish Armada, framed against a red velvet background.

Stay tuned for even flatter television monitors as the race for the thinnest model picks up speed. Sony's Bravia KDL-40ZX1 LCD television monitor is just 9.9mm from front to back. At the Consumer Electronics Show in January, LG unveiled an LED television monitor that's just 6.9mm thick. Photos courtesy Sony.

Funny thing about flat-panel television sets: Technically, they made their debut in the late 1950s with a cathode ray tube model invented by William Ross Aiken (shown pictured in a January 1958 Popular Mechanics article).

While it took up as much floor space as a small sofa, it felt like part of the home, albeit the home of an Irish-German conquistador. Now, with a flat-panel screen that sticks out from my living room wall a good 6", I sometimes get the feeling I’m in a hospital room. Or a sports bar. Either way, the monitor hanging above the fireplace just doesn’t feel like it belongs in any home.

Apparently, home designers agree because they’re eager to put the likes of the Sony Bravia KDL-40ZX1 in homes thanks to its wall-hugging nature. In July 2009, Associated Press reporter Barbara Ortutay noted that clients of high-end home theater systems “are perking up when they hear about ultra-slim TV sets, which only come off the wall about an inch.” She was talking about clients willing to shell out $170,000 for a home theater system. So the thousands of dollars a paper-thin television might cost is nothing in a case like that.

For the rest of us, a less-expensive flat-panel monitor protruding from the wall 4" to 6" is worth salvaging a marriage. Still, the reality is clear: The race to make all flat-panel TVs as thin as possible has begun. Just check out this comment from Sony Corp.’s Creative Center Chief Art Director Fumiya Matsuoka: “In LCD TVs today, thin is certainly in. Manufacturers are racing to introduce slimmer models, but I think KDL-40ZX1 owners will be satisfied with the appearance of this set even if next year’s models are a few millimeters thinner.”

Clearly, Sony is a little worried about the next best “thin.” And it should be. LG unveiled a 6.9mm-thin LED flat-panel monitor at the 2010 Consumer Electronics Show held in Las Vegas in January.

If history is a guide, someone will roll out even thinner models, and the next thing you know, we’ll be wallpapering our walls with television screens.

Then again, maybe history can’t be our guide. Flat-panel televisions first debuted back in 1958. In the January 1958 issue of Popular Mechanics, inventor William Ross Aiken was photographed with his 21" flat-panel black and white television set. The headline of the story: “Thin tube foretells wall TV ...”

Unfortunately for Aiken, his cathode ray tube version of a flat-panel television was relegated to military duty and pretty much forgotten thanks to big television manufacturers investing huge amounts of money in alternate technologies. The general public didn’t see a flat-panel television for sale until 1997, when several television companies introduced sets based on plasma technology.

Finally, there is organic light emitting diode technology, which is emerging as the next big thing in thin—as in wallpaper thin. While there are some experimental forms of this technology, it hasn’t been perfected yet. When it does arrive, I’m curious to know whether it will be OK to have anything protruding from the walls of our homes? What are we supposed to do with the Spanish Armada artwork—or the black velvet painting of dogs playing poker? µ