Billed as being “thinner than last month’s Wired magazine” and similarly thinner than an iPhone, Pioneer unveiled their Kuro HDTV concept model at their press conference today. The 50-inch plasma weighs in at a relatively paltry 41 lbs and just 9 mm thick. They also claim they’ve “made contrast ratios irrelevant” by eliminating ALL idling luminance, producing completely true blacks. We’ll see how it looks later this week, as they’ll have their concept on the show floor but the early photos they have are impressive to say the least.

Since these are merely concepts, they won’t be available for another year or so but it clearly shows the direction Pioneer is going with their form factors and by “obsoleting” contrast ratios.

Look forward to some video coverage on the floor unit once the show opens up.