Part of the fun aspect about visiting Samsung’s offices in Suwon, South Korea (aside from seeing South Korea, that is); is that you get an early look at products Samsung has planned for the coming year or get to see products that haven’t reached places such as the UK yet.
The MovingStyle is one such product. A TV that comes with a detachable handle and stand, allowing you to move it around the room.
Samsung is the type of company that’s constantly thinking about ways of transforming the TV experience. It is, after all, the company that kicked off the trend of ‘lifestyle’ TVs with the Frame and Serif.
It has sold the most TVs each for almost twenty years, and innovation like the MovingStyle is what a number of TV brands are looking at to appeal to a wider audience.
But much like the Sero, it all comes down to the price and I’m not sure Samsung has nailed it enough to be an appealing TV for people to buy.
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You like to move it?
When I saw the MovingStyle in Korea, I thought it was a clever concept but the obvious red flag that came to mind was – who’s going to buy this TV?
I’ve seen similar concepts from TCL back in 2023 during an event at Milan Fashion Week, so the MovingStyle is not a concept that’s new. Along with transparent screens, the idea of a screen you can take with you seems to be a constant preoccupation of TV brands.
The problem is, you have a screen you can take with you. It’s called a smartphone.
Someone who used to work in the TV industry (but no longer does), told me that Koreans are fascinated by new technology, early adopters who will buy the latest thing – potentially even if they might not need it.
Granted, we in the West are probably quite similar, but I’ve always found it a little odd that TVs such as the MovingStyle are almost market-tested in Asia before coming to the West. More often than there’s a disconnect. Something that strikes a chord in Asia won’t necessarily travel well to Europe and the Americas.
Take Samsung’s Sero. An interesting concept, a TV on a stand that could work both in portrait and landscape view (like the MovingStyle); it’d have been perfect for the Insta and TikTok generation – except the cost was exorbitant (over £1000) and they could the same thing with a smartphone.
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A TV lacks the intimacy and connection of a phone. You wouldn’t use a TV to send messages, you wouldn’t use it to call people. While we’re all glued to a smartphones in some way, a TV is whole different proposition, and trying to act as pathway between those two worlds is a tricky road to world.
I’d love the MovingStyle to work, and maybe it could, but I can guess what the reaction will be.
It’s too expensive
Break it down, and £1199 for a 27-inch screen screams super-expensive. I remember seeing a Loewe HD (HD!) TV for around the same price and wondering who would buy it?
A bit like a footballer making a tough tackle on an opposition player, you’re giving the referee a choice to make, and a similar thing is happening with the MovingStyle with the price. The cost of it will instantly make people say yes or no – I think the latter is more likely – and you often wonder why TV brands price their products so high rather than aim towards a more affordable middle-ground.
Wouldn’t £599 be more attractive? Wouldn’t it make more sense for a product to build an audience first instead of scaring them off? The Sero was something of a hit in Asia before coming elsewhere before it eventually ran out of steam and was forgotten. I don’t see Samsung ever considering a Sero 2 – although that could be what the MovingStyle is in a different form.
As I’ve written before, the TV market does need a shake-up. It needs innovation, it needs different ideas, and it needs to appeal to the audience that’s there in different ways than before.
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But it also needs to do so at a price that entices people. If it were me, take a hit in the short run and hope it builds goodwill for the future. Then again I don’t work in Samsung’s marketing department so what do I know.
