Samsung Is Forcing High-End TV Buyers to Embrace 8K by Crippling Its 4K QLED Lineup

[Tsing]

Image: Samsung



Samsung finally unveiled its lineup of 4K TVs for 2020 this week, but they’re a bit of a disappointment.



Display enthusiasts are pointing out that they’re actually downgrades from last year’s models, with the Q60T, Q70T, Q80T and Q90T/Q95T missing pivotal features such as HDMI 2.1. The amount of dimming zones have also seen a massive reduction from 500 to 100, which could have a significant impact on image quality.



…is Samsung cheapening its 4K QLED televisions on purpose to force discerning consumers who want the best into upgrading to 8K? That’s what some publications seem to think.



“This year, Samsung 4K TVs...

Continue reading...

 

[Grimlakin]

Wow that's kind of shady... or lack of good Shady. Just tells me if I want a 4k tv to go with LG.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

Wow that's kind of shady... or lack of good Shady. Just tells me if I want a 4k tv to go with LG.

I love my 65" LG C9, G-Sync, Dolby Vision, and HDMI 2.1 for down the road to boot.

 

[Brian_B]

I wouldn’t call it forcing to buy - it’s still a choice. Samsung obviously wants to up sell and steer consumers to higher margin products. I don’t really see this as evil corporation trying to screw consumers, just a realignment of their product offerings versus price points and tiers.

 

[Zarathustra]

Ugh. Why.

8k is completely pointless.

 

[Brian_B]

Ugh. Why.

8k is completely pointless.

I won’t get into the argument of diminishing returns, I would agree that we are already there.

But in the larger scope; I would always prefer to have more pixels than fewer...

 

[Zarathustra]

I won’t get into the argument of diminishing returns, I would agree that we are already there.

But in the larger scope; I would always prefer to have more pixels than fewer...

Sure, if they are free, I don't care. I'll take more, as long as there aren't other sacrifices.

You know like cost, power needed to drive all those pixels, heck we don't even have an interface standard that can drive 8k at 4:4:4 at a decent refresh rate yet...