While it may not have any new smartphones to show off to consumers, today LG South Africa revealed what it’s got planned for the bigger screen. Its incoming slate of OLED evo and QNED MiniLED TVs looks impressive, featuring a panel for every type of television user.
OLED is far from a new term when it comes to TV tech, but LG denotes that levelled up versions of its base OLEDs by adding the ‘evo’ suffix. OLED generally provides some of the best picture quality possible using its millions of self-lit organic pixels. Let’s see what new things LG has in store.
Meet the LG TVs
As part of the upgrade, LG’s fitted its OLED evo G1 with a new α9 Gen4 AI processor — a bulky processing unit capable of putting out 4K as an afterthought. Working in tandem with the beefy chip, you get a whole lot of artificial intelligence (AI) trickery. According to the official marketing copy, it uses ‘deep-learning algorithms to analyse and optimise content’. And it looks like that’s exactly what it does.
Read More: LG OLED55CX review
On to what we’re here for: LG has partnered with Xbox to bring optimised gaming capabilities to its OLED range of TVs (series Z1, G1, C1, A1). This includes four HDMI 2.1 ports, reduced blue light and Dolby Vision gaming at 4K/120fps. Your gaming experience is upgraded even more by items like a VRR (variable refresh rate), auto low latency mode, Nvidia G-Sync support and a lightning-fast 1ms response time. There may not be a better TV to connect to your gaming console this year.
Then there’s the LG QNED MiniLED TV — which is an LCD panel that caps out at a whopping 8K resolution. It uses thousands of LEDs (that can’t light up themselves) to produce an even brighter picture than any generic LCD can.
Available in both 8K and 4K models, and only in larger than life sizes (65in, 75in and 86in), the company’s QNED units put out vibrant colours and increased contrast compared to conventional LCD televisions. The tech also employs 2,500 dimming blocks for even deeper, darker blacks — minus that light bloom you just don’t see on OLED screens.
According to LG South Africa, the OLED lineup will be available in local stores from the end of May 2021, while the QNED devices will only make their way to our shelves in Q3 of this year. We don’t have official pricing on the QNED range as yet.
Pricing on all LG OLED TV models below
| Z1 8K Self- Lit OLED TV | 88in | R550,000 |
| G1 Gallery Design Self-Lit OLED evo TV | 77in | R115,000 |
| G1 Gallery Design Self-Lit OLED evo TV | 65in | R55,000 |
| C1 Self-Lit OLED TV | 83in | R200,000 |
| C1 Self-Lit OLED TV | 65in | R50,000 |
| C1 Self-Lit OLED TV | 55in | R26,000 |
| C1 Self-Lit OLED TV | 48in | R21,000 |
| A1 Self-Lit OLED TV | 65in | R43,000 |
| A1 Self-Lit OLED TV | 55in | R22,000 |