The Best OLED and 4K Televisions Launched At IFA 2013: Samsung, LG, Philips And More

| Updated: Saturday, September 7, 2013, 16:35 [IST]

While smartphones, smartwatches, and computers were stealing all the limelight at IFA 2013, very little attention was paid to the many TVs that were launched at the event. Gizbot has made a list of the most important models that made a debut.

The Best OLED and 4K Televisions Launched At IFA 2013

Be prepared to read a lot about 4K( picture quality that's four times better than HD), since that's the direction that all the biggest tech giants are moving towards when it comes to picture quality and more importantly, TVs. While there's isn't any 4K content out there yet, we're surprised to see that the industry is trying to push the technology in a big, big way.

But then, we can't blame them. With flat panels and large screen sizes failing to impress consumers, stunning picture quality is the possible only selling point when it comes to a TV these days. Since OLED's are difficult to manufacture, most TV brand shave decided to go with ultra high-definition (UHD) panels instead.

Go through the sliders below for details on each unit from Pabasonic, Philips, Sony, LG, Samsung and even XIaomi.

Panasonic

Moving onto Panasonic, the company brought out a 65WT600, which is the first TV compliant with the brand new HDMI 2.0 standard. Owing to this feature, the television set can deliver 4K Ultra HD at rates up to 60 frames per second (fps). Is that a big deal? Well, given that the current standard is limited to 30 fps, it is. The company has started taking pre-orders and will ship in October.

Philips

A first form the company, Philips has two UHD displays from its 9000 series which are available in 65- and 84-inch screen sizes. The displays comes equipped with a six-core processor.

Samsung

Samsung went on to unveil a mammoth 98-inch S9 model on Thursday. UHD or Ultra HD is one of the options when it comes to TV makers who're trying to make 4K displays. Owing to its high contrast technology, it delivers much deeper blacks than today's LCDs, allowing for some of the best picture quality in the market. However, putting OLED on a huge screen is a very big deal. And that is the significance behind Samsung's 98-incher here. This is just a concept model and isn't in production yet.

Samsung also revealed the world's first curved TV with UHD resolution. It comes in 55- and 65-inch sizes, the TV uses standard LED LCD panel technology, not OLED. Samsung didn't offer any on availability for its curved UHD TV. There was also a 98-inch UHD screen which comes in its non-OLED 4K flat-panel category. Expect it to carry a price tag of over Rs. 25,00,000.

"We introduced the world's first 'Curved UHD TV' at IFA 2013 to meet various consumer expectations waiting for next new generation TV technology," said Samsung's head of visual displays Hyun-suk Kim. "This will be a milestone opening a new era of next generation TV by invigorating UHD TV Realising curved UHD TV is more difficult to produce than curved OLED TV due to the panel characteristics."

Sony

Despite having launched a plethora of devices at IFA, it look like Sony had the time to work on a nice little television set as well. It launched the X850 series TV's which are similar yet cheaper than the higher-end X900 counterparts. The displays offer a one-touch mirroring function which allows users share content easily. But by putting in some standard parts as opposed to the high-end ones seen in the X900, Sony has managed to make these displays affordable.

Xiaomi

Xiaomi launched a 47-inch 3D-capable TV that will have six color choices for the aluminium faceplate. Like the Xiaomi Box, the TV also runs the company's MIUI flavor of Android. For processing power, there's a quad-core Snapdragon 600 with 2GB of RAM. For internal storage, there's 8GB, along with dual-band WiFi and Bluetooth 4.0. Keeping with its low-cost trend, the TV will cost just US$490 (Rs.31967.60) when it starts to ship in mid-October.

LG

LG's 77-inch UHD OLED TV is as good as it gets if you're looking for the best picture quality in a home theatre. It happens to be the largest model available for purchase at the moment and also features a curved screen, which according to LG, makes the screen seem larger than it really is. This new display comes following a launch of a 55-inch curved OLED TV eight months ago at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.