South Korean tech giant Samsung on Tuesday launched its new range of QLED 8K TVs in India starting at Rs 10,99,900.
Samsung said the new TV range will be available in four sizes - 98-inch, 82-inch, 75-inch and 65-inch.
They are priced at Rs 10,99,900 and Rs 16,99,900 for 75-inch and 82-inch variants respectively. The 98-inch variant is priced at Rs 59,99,900. That’s a lot of money to pay for a technology which isn’t offering a lot to the consumers as of now.
After all, we’re still waiting for the moment when 4K content is readily available for everyone, which is unlikely to happen in the next 2 to 3 years at least.
Either ways, by launching its 8K series, Samsung is showing the world and India that it stands at the echelon of the television industry, setting the benchmark for years to come.
And with 8K resolution content being served to the end-consumer, years is probably the best way to summarise this week’s announcement from the South Korean giant.
Speaking about the technicalities of these 8K TVs, Samsung claims its QLED 8K TVs come with 33 million pixels, four times the resolution of 4K Ultra High Definition (UHD) TVs and 16 times that of a Full HD TV.
Samsung’s 8K TV is claimed to offer 7680x4320 pixels resolution and a host of smart TV features, including support for Google Assistant.
For the prices mentioned above, the company definitely needs to justify the direction taken and we’d like to give them the vote of confidence to make such an early start with 8K in India.
Cost of economics, eventually, will ensure that 8K TVs cost at reasonable measure, something what we’re seeing with affordable Full-HD (1080 pixels) and 4K (2160 pixels) TV from many brands these days.
Interestingly, Samsung points that its quantum 8K processors, using Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology are capable of re-creating and upgrading the image content to 8K standard.
Generally, it means your current content can upscale to 8K resolution but we’re finding it hard to believe, unless they’ve got something that no one else has to offer in the segment.
Adding the aesthetics quotient, you’ve got the "Ambient Mode" in the TV which enables users to apply an interactive background to the TV frame, letting them blend into wall, but still displaying some content, even when it’s not being used.
Samsung caters to large number of users in the country, and claims to be the market leader in various TV segments. But as far as 8K TVs are concerned, at least for now, any kind of sales estimation will be hard to ascertain, even though the company is confident of finding takers for its latest in the market.
More than anything else, the person needs to ask himself, how future-ready am I going for 8K TV that too when 4K is yet to hit the mainstream in the country.
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