A number of companies showed 8K TVs at CES 2018 including Samsung, which brought an 85-inch, 8K version of its QLED TV to the event. Bringing a TV to a trade show and actually launching it for the public are two very different things; plenty of things hit events like CES that never make it to market. That doesn’t appear to be the case with Samsung’s 8K TV: Samsung Display announced in July that the company plans to launch two new ranges of 8K TVs that may debut at IFA in Berlin.
A banner Samsung is displaying in Berlin says “prepare to be amazed at IFA,” under a logo reading “8K QLED.” This could simply be the TV the company showed at CES, but given the reports in July, it certainly seems that the company is planning to unveil at least one of its new TVs.
One range will launch in 2019, while the other could launch within the next few months. The new TVs might feature 120 Hz panels and could come in sizes reaching up to 82 inches at first, with a massive 96-inch model possibly coming in 2019. Samsung Display isn’t being specific about panel sizes for the time being, and says that screen sizes and refresh rates could change before the TVs actually launch. It’s also worth mentioning that this is Samsung Display, not Samsung Electronics or Samsung Electronics America, so while these TVs may launch this year, they won’t necessarily launch in the U.S.
Samsung also talked about what the future holds for its TV technology at the L.A. event. In addition to 8K resolution and 120 Hz panels, Samsung is working on what it is calling a “next-gen” high dynamic range (HDR) technology that could feature peak brightness levels of up to 4,000 nits and 12-bit color depth, which is currently only supported by Dolby Vision, a technology that Samsung has not used in its TVs to date.
The company said it is working on technology that will help counter the issues that 8K displays have with brightness, a must in this era of HDR. It is also working on Spatial Division Pixel technology, which uses a new type of subpixel design to improve viewing angles, something that remains an issue with LCDs. Samsung hasn’t said whether any of these technologies will make it into the first 8K TVs it launches, but considering the way the company spoke about them, it doesn’t seem likely that we’ll see them on the 2018 models.
IFA kicks off in Berlin on August 29, at which point we may learn more about these TVs. In the meantime, for more information on 8K, take a look at our guide to everything you need to know about 8K TVs.
