LG will launch four 4K OLED TVs at IFA 2015 – and three are HDR compatible
OLED’s far from dead, at least if LG has anything to say about it
Cast your mind back a few years and everyone in the television world was going gaga over OLED technology, which produces gloriously rich colours from very, very thin screens.
Sadly, in spite of the initial excitement, OLED has never really taken hold in the big screen world. Early pioneers Sony and Samsung have jettisoned OLED tech in favour of remaining with LED, leaving LG as the sole banner bearer among the major TV manufacturers.
But rather than retreat back to the safety of cheaper, easier to produce LED, LG looks to be doubling down on OLED. The South Korean company has just announced that it’ll be launching four big-screen OLED TVs at IFA 2015 next week. Not only that, but three of the four new models will support HDR video. LG claims that OLED and HDR are a perfect match, because of all current display technologies used in TVs, only OLED panels can produce the “absolute black” to make HDR’s brighter colours really pop.
LG says the TVs will support HDR from both external sources and streaming content partners, by which we think they mean Amazon Prime Instant Video (which launched its HDR service yesterday) and Netflix, which has promised to start streaming HDR content in the near future. The OLED TVs launching at IFA 2015 are: the 65EF9500 and 55EF9500, which will be the first flat 4K OLED TVs on the market (these also support HDR); the HDR-compatible 55EG9200, which is curved and just 4.8mm thick at its thinnest point; and the 55EG9100, which is similar to the 9200 but without HDR support.
All four new models will run on the webOS 2.0 smart TV platform and feature Harmon/Kardon speakers that LG claims will support the 4K pictures with audio quality that is “second to none”.
The TVs will be on sale from the end of August in the UK, Germany, Korea and the US. Pricing details have yet to be confirmed.
Sam Kieldsen
Contributor 
