LG sells first 4K OLED TVs in Australia

A potent cocktail of OLED, 4K, and a curved screen have come together in two new LG TV’s going on sale in Australia.

LG 4K OLED TV

A potent cocktail of OLED, 4K, and a curved screen have come together in two new LG TV’s that are going on sale in Australia.

At an event held at the harbourside mansion of architect the late Harry Seidler, LG announced two new OLED TVs, a 55-inch model costing $5999, and a 65 -inch one costing $9999.

Both EG960T models have screen resolutions of 3840x2160 pixels, roughly 4 times that of a full HD display.

It is the first time 4K TVs also with OLED displays have been sold on the Australian market, LG said.

At this stage, LG doesn’t plan to bring larger OLED 4K screens to market, which might disappoint some consumers.

Early samples of 4K OLED TV’s have been around for some time. They were on display at the Consumer Electronic Show at Las Vegas in 2014. But a large failure rate when manufacturing the OLED displays made them uneconomical to produce commercially for some time.

Marketing manager for LG home electronics, Grant Vandenberg, said LG began working on OLED six years ago and the production yield rate was now 80 to 85 per cent.

He also sought to dispel concern about the longevity of OLED panels. Mr Vandenberg said in tests LG conducted, the screen life was more than 30,000 hours, the equivalent of watching a TV for eight hours per day for 10 years.

He said LG already had sold 6000 OLED TVs in Australia with lower screen resolutions than 4K.

Where conventional LCD and LED screens required backlighting, OLED, or organic light-emitting diode displays contain a layer of carbon that lights up as electricity passes across it. Deep blacks are possible as the pixels turn on and off individually. When off you got a “perfect black”, and when on, a large palette of colours.

In the display models shown to journalists, the blacks on the OLED screens were indeed pitch black and colours looked natural and striking without appearing over-saturated as they do on many display sets.

LG said Both TV models have a six-step upscale to boost content closer to ultrahigh definition, and feature LG’s web OS 2.0 Smart TV platform, Harman/Kardon sound, and LG’s popular magic remote control.

Mr Vandenberg said the OLED screens can display more than 1 billion colours.

The two new models initially will roll out at a select number of Harvey Norman retail stores, before becoming more widely available towards year’s end.

Mr Vandenberg said Australia was the fourth market after the US, UK and South Korea to get the new models. He said LG’s share of the Australian TV market had risen from 19.8 per cent last year to 22.9 per cent this year.

And its share of the 4K market had risen from 27.2 per cent last year to 30.5 per cent.

He said the 4K ultrahigh definition segment is estimated to grow to 50 per cent of the market by year’s end.

The advent of 4K OLED TVs gives consumers wanting high-quality displays a large choice. Earlier this year LG released a 65-inch 4K TV that featured what it called ColourPrime technology with extra colours added to the TV’s colour palette.

That TV, the UF950T, also featured an “ultra luminance technology” which also was designed to accentuate blacks and whites.