Highlights:
LG has announced their 2019 TV line-up and we expect to get some hands-on time with the TVs at CES 2019. The new line-up of TVs will be powered by the company’s second-generation Alpha 9 processor. That’s not all. The LG TVs will be the first to support the HDMI 2.1 standard. Up till now, the supported standard was HDMI 2.0 to give you 4K content at 30 frames per second. With the HDMI 2.1 standard, the 4K TVs will be able to give you 4K content at 120 frames per second.
The model numbers of the LG 2019 OLED TVs are Z9, W9, E9 and C9. Of these, the Z9 is an 88-inch OLED TV with an 8K resolution. With HDMI 2.1, you will be able to play 8K content at 60 frames per second. LG isn’t the first TV maker to launch an 8K TV. That title goes to Samsung. However, the Samsung Q900R 8K TV can deliver content at 30fps. The silver lining here is that Samsung will update the one connect box of its 8K TV to support HDMI 2.1.
Coming back to the LG TVs, the company has also announced its premium LCD TV line-up of which the 75-inch SM99 boasts of an 8K resolution. LG’s 2019 premium LCD TVs line-up namely the SM9X and SM8X series will be rolled out with a new name: NanoCell TV, to highlight the picture enhancement provided by NanoCell technology (NanoColor). How this works will be interesting to see, and we will talk more about it in when we get the TV in for review. According to LG, the “NanoCell TVs also offer AI-enhanced picture and sound, powered by a deep learning algorithm, as well as the streamlined experience offered by ThinQ”.
Speaking of AI capabilities, the new TVs will come with Alexa integrated out of the box in addition to the built-in Google Assistant. Good news for those of you looking for a flagship TV for gaming – thanks to HDMI 2.1, the TVs will support variable refresh rate. This will work in a similar fashion to G-sync and Freesync monitors. With the variable refresh rate, we may be able to eliminate screen tearing when playing a game that can’t maintain a stable frame rate.
One thing to note is that the B9 is missing from this list and the press release shared by LG. That’s it probably because the B series in LG OLED line-up runs on a previous generation processor. It is likely that the B9 will run on the Alpha 9 processor powering the 2018 line-up of flagship LG OLED TVs. We hope to see more details on all the upcoming TVs at CES 2019.
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