Last year might have been the year that 8K TVs arrived in Australia, but there’s more this year, and Samsung’s batch is next.
It’s no longer enough to have just a big TV. These days, you want a big TV that offers a fantastic resolution, able to show more detail than ever before.
These days, that’s not a very difficult task, and thanks to the release of 4K TVs, we have more clarity and pristine picture than the Full HD screens that came before them. The jump between 1080p and 4K is four times, meaning that if you have a 4K Ultra HD source quality fed to a 4K screen, you should see a serious improvement to quality overall.
But there’s yet another layer beyond this, and it’s gradually making its way to more living rooms, and subsequently more eyeballs as a result.
Last year, Australia got its first glimpse of that new layer, the next level being 8K, a screen resolution that multiples the quality of 4K again by four, increasing the detail and clarity another layer again.
Granted, there’s not a lot of 8K content out at the moment — practically none, really — though 8K streaming should be on the way soon enough. But even if there’s not much in native 8K to watch, that doesn’t have to stop you, because if you want an 8K TV in Australia, you have choices.
LG chimed in only recently with its 2020 8K TV options in Australia, and while Samsung had 8K TVs in 2019, the company is looking to deliver more in 2020, offering two ranges, with screens starting from $6,399 and pushing all the way to $21,999.
The new screens start in the Q800T (above), a TV that will feature a slim bezel and support for Samsung’s 8K AI upscaling system, which uses deep learning to turn lower resolution content into something made to work more clearly on the higher resolution that is 8K. Like the other models in Samsung’s 2020 TV lineup, you can expect a fairly clear picture with metal-coated quantum dots, essentially boosting the colour to be vibrant and punchy, except showing the 8K resolution, distinct from the Q80T released this year.
There are three of the Samsung Q800T models, with the 65 inch fetching $6,399, the 75 inch costing $8,699, and the 82 inch hitting over $10K at a price of $11,649.
However there’s also one step above in Samsung’s 8K range for 2020, arriving in the practically bezel-free Q950T (above).
This model does away with pretty much all of the bezel and frame, and is basically Samsung’s most premium TV for the year, providing the 8K resolution with the most minimal design the company can think of, and support for all the other audio and video features found across the range, including the QLED display, synchronisation with Samsung’s soundbars in Q-Symphony, and a sleek design.
We saw this one at CES 2020 earlier in the year, and found it to be one of those lovely sets where the image just seemed to appear out of nowhere, helped along by those gloriously thin and near invisible bezels surrounding the display.
“The Q950T QLED 8K is the marquee television in Samsung’s 2020 range and is the ultimate in our big-screen innovation and design,” said Hass Mahdi, Director of AV at Samsung in Australia.
“Our latest QLED 8K range is designed with an Infinity Screen which provides a fresh, new take on TV form factor that is sure to impress those seeking the very best that Samsung has to offer,” he said.
Of course, the flagship 8K Samsung TV isn’t something that will be cheap, and locally, you can expect to pay a pretty penny. So much that it starts at just under the $10K mark, costing $9,999 for the 65 inch Q950T 8K QLED, before hitting $13,499 for the 75 inch Q950T and a pretty hefty $21,999 for the 85 inch variant of the same. Granted, these prices don’t hold a candle to LG’s massive OLED that tops $70K, but they’re still pretty high up in price, at least as far as TVs go.
That said, while Samsung’s Q8 and Q9 range typically signals the high end, part of what you’re paying for in these models is the 8K, which itself comes at a bit of a premium right now. If you can handle that, you’ll find the Samsung 8K QLED range in retailers across Australia.
