LG has started taking orders for its groundbreaking 8K OLED TV, heralding in the age of consumer 8K television on an OLED panel.
While the enormous 88-inch model is currently only available in South Korea, it’s set to go on sale in North America and Europe from “the third quarter of this year”
How much will one of these colossal TVs set you back? Well, LG revealed to The Verge that the TV’s recommended retail price is 50 million South Korean won, which works out at around $42,200 / £33,400 / AU$60,800 – prohibitively expensive for the majority of consumers.
Customers who pre-order the LG 8K OLED TV in June do get a sizeable discount however; early birds will can pay a reduced price of 40 million won (around $34,000 / £26,700 / AU$48,700, and apparently get a free air purifier thrown in.
Advancing consumer TVs
LG’s 8K OLED represents a huge step forward for consumer televisions; while there are already 8K TVs on the market, like the Samsung Q900R 8K TV for example, this is the first time an OLED 8K TV has been available to buy.
It’s also the largest OLED panel LG has ever shipped, coming in at a mind-boggling 88 inches.
We saw the impressive model at CES 2019, and we were blown away by the level of detail that enormous screen provides, as well as the extra level of clarity and lack of visible image structure enabled by 8K, the use of an OLED panel makes for an extremely wide viewing angle, deep blacks, rich colors, and exquisite contrast.
So, if you want to be an early adopter of 8K and you have a lot of money to spare, LG’s 8K OLED TV could be a good way to get ahead of the curve.
Be warned though: there’s hardly any 8K content out there yet, so you’ll have to rely on upscaled 4K content to begin with.
According to The Verge, LG is addressing this by “leaning on its second-generation Alpha 9 8K processor that uses deep learning algorithms to help upscale images to a higher resolution”.
Those deep learning algorithms also have an audio application as the TV will also use them to “generate virtual 5.1 surround sound with support for Dolby Atmos”.
Therefore, the LG 8K OLED TV should look as good as it sounds; whether you think that’s worth spending over $40,000 on largely depends on how much you care about 8K (and the depth of your pockets).
- 8K TV: everything you need to know about the futuristic resolution
