Enlarge / A promotional image for the new 83-inch S90C Samsung OLED TV. (credit: Samsung)

Samsung is about to begin selling its first TVs with OLED panels made by rival LG after months of negotiations. Unfortunately, the way the TVs that come out of this deal are branded and marketed could cause confusion for consumers who want the most bang for their buck.

On Tuesday, Samsung published a blog post revealing a new 83-inch TV that lives in the company's existing S90C range of high-end OLEDs. In truth, the set had been leaked weeks earlier, when excellently obsessive and detail-oriented TV expert Vincent Teoh of HDTV Test was quick to observe that Samsung does not currently make 83-inch panels itself—meaning this must be the first TV in Samsung's deal with LG.

The complicated story behind Samsung’s new OLEDs

The Samsung-LG deal was rumored in fits and starts for months. As LG made and shipped OLED TVs and panels and talked up the benefits of OLED compared to good-old LED LCD, Samsung stuck to shipping LCD TVs, introducing new technologies to try to keep the older technology competitive.

Enlarge / A 77-inch QD-OLED was one of the new TVs announced at CES 2023. (credit: Samsung Display)

It's been a rollercoaster ride for Korean tech conglomerates LG and Samsung. In 2021 , it was reported that they were about to reach a major business deal regarding OLED panels, but in 2022 it seemed like the talks fell through . Now, in 2023, the talks may have resumed.

The Elec reports that Samsung Electronics and LG Display have resumed discussions on a deal that would see LG supplying more than 200,000 white OLED (WOLED) panels to Samsung for a new line of Samsung-branded TVs that could launch as soon as 2024. That number would potentially be just the start of a longer partnership.

When news of the negotiations first broke a couple of years ago, it was reported that the conversation was started at the behest of the South Korean government in response to an international situation wherein LCD panel-producing Chinese companies like BOE were driving up the cost of LCD panels, threatening Samsung's TV dominance. At that time, Samsung was all in on LCD technology in its TVs, competing with LG's increasing focus on OLED.