IFA, as a consumer electronics show, has always been an odd place for Vestel to exhibit, as the only products on display are OEM items, which may not even come to market. The company owns the Finlux CE brand, but does not bring anything from it to IFA. It is notoriously difficult to get anyone willing or able to talk to the press, although we finally managed it this year (thanks to our guide from the Vestel UK team).
We had already seen a few of Vestel’s demonstrations before: the dual-view 3D LCD TV on the consumer side and Deluxe Hotel TV, Android Signage Monitor and 65″ and 80″ interactive flat panels in the B2B sector. However, there were other items of note on show, including a high-resolution set-top box and cloud-based hospitality TV. Most products are due to be released in Q1 or Q2’15.
Like other companies, Vestel had curved UltraHD TVs on show. Vestel’s were in 55″, 65″ and 105″ sizes. While the panel source could not be officially confirmed, we intuited – backed up by a source close to the company – that they came from Samsung. The 2015 flat UltraHD models will be offered in 40″, 43″, 48″, 49″, 55″, 75″, 84″ and 85″ sizes; all of these will have edge-LED backlights. In terms of 1920 x 1080 TVs, we could only spot two sizes: 40″ and 42″.
Vestel was also showing some proofs of concept. The first was a curved 55″ OLED set with UltraHD resolution (almost certainly using an LG panel – TA). The second was a ‘Single Wire TV’, which transferred both power and TV signals over a single wire. We asked whether this was based on HDBaseT, but the guide did not know.
Remaining on the consumer side, the IP252 is an HEVC IP set-top box, with support for UltraHD resolutions (at 60fps via HDMI). It will feature a 500GB or 1TB HDD, HbbTV and the Opera web browser, as well as DLNA, Bluetooth, USB and RJ45 connectivity. A similar model (unnamed, with media player functionality, is designed for DVB-S2 services, and has a CI+ slot.
4.5″, 5″ and 5.5″ are the sizes of Vestel’s new smartphones, all running Android 4.4. The 5″ (‘Smartphone Mid’) is in production now; it has 960 x 540 resolution, 350 cd/m
