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Scharon Harding - Mar 21, 2022 6:06 pm UTC
8K TVs aren't very popular yet. There's limited content to watch on them, and the difference between 4K and 8K can be hard to spot in a home theater setup. But perhaps the most obvious obstacle is cost. And if you throw OLED into the mix, the price tag becomes astronomical. LG's current 8K OLED TV proves that with a starting price of $20,000. The company's 2022 models will be a touch less expensive, though they're still out of reach for most consumers.
After announcing the Z2 series of 8K OLED TVs in January, LG said on Monday that the Z2 TVs will release in April. The 76.7-inch TV will come in at $12,999, while the 87.6-inch model will cost $24,999. That's $7,000 cheaper than 2020's ZX 76.7-inch 8K OLED TV and $5,000 cheaper than the 88-inch class.
LG's upcoming Z2 lineup is pricey, but the sets are among the only options if you want 8K in contrast-rich OLED. B&O's 8K OLED TV starts at $18,125 for 65 inches. Samsung's 8K TVs use a Mini LED backlight, but the 2022 Neo QLED is $6,500 for an 84.5-inch model. The 74.5-inch version, meanwhile, costs $4,700.
The new 8K OLED TVs upgrade the lineup from LG's α9 Gen 3 AI processor to Gen 5, which brings deep-learning-based upscaling. Gen 5 introduces LG's Dynamic Tone-mapping Pro Algorithm, "which individually processes over 5,000 areas on the screen, enhancing each to produce a more vivid and detailed image" in bright and dark areas, LG said. The α9 Gen 5 also powers the TVs' 7.12 virtual surround sound.
Software updates include a more customizable webOS 22. That covers user profiles, too. Like the prior 8K TVs, the 2022 models will run at 120 Hz with a 0.1 ms gray-to-gray response time and HDMI 2.1. The sets will support variable refresh rates for both AMD and Nvidia graphics cards.
LG today also announced pricing for this year's lineup of its more attainable 4K OLEDs. The high-end G2 "Gallery Edition" series with LG's purportedly brighter "OLED Evo" panel will start at $2,199 for 54.6 inches in April, and the flagship C2 series, which also uses OLED Evo, will start at $1,399 for 42.1 inches in May.
The B2 series will start at $1,499 (54.6 inches) in March. We're still waiting for pricing and release dates for the entry-level A2 series.
LG's announcement comes a few days after Samsung announced that its first OLED TV in a decade, the Samsung OLED (S95B), which uses colorful quantum dot tech called QD-OLED, will start at $2,200 for 54.6 inches.
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