Four key pillars in latest range.
Samsung was host to a group of select media for an exclusive Southeast Asian Tech Summit held in Vietnam. The Summit was designed to provide a deeper understanding of the company’s QLED TV line-up, designed in response to consumer demand.
The key focus areas of the TV range have been categorised into four pillars – picture, smart, style and gaming.
Picture
It’s no secret that bigger is better in the TV market with growth skewed toward the 55-inch to 65-inch screen sizes (21 per cent growth over the last 12 months), and 75-inch and above (88 per cent growth over the last 12 months) in the Australian market alone.
But not only does the screen need to big in size, it needs to be high quality in image resolution with almost 70 per cent of consumers demanding UHD 4K technology.
With consumers demanding improved picture quality, Samsung has introduced Full Array Backlight technology to allow for deeper blacks, sharper edges, less blooming or halo effects, exclusive to its Q9F and Q8F series. This is most evident in scenes where most of the picture is dark but there are brighter elements, as the grey scale is adjusted to bring out more contrast in the darker areas.
All Samsung 2018 QLED TV models achieve a 100 per cent colour volume rating to deliver the full colour gamut at very low light levels and at high brightness levels.
Smart
With artificial intelligence (AI) the talk of the town and a major disruptor in the consumer electronics space, Samsung has integrated the SmartThings app to its 2018 QLED TVs. The app works across multiple devices and acts as a voice-activated assistant to control various functions of the devices. The SmartThings app also facilitates the set-up of a new Samsung QLED TV, allowing users to simply follow the steps on their smartphone.
Once the TV is set up, the SmartThings dashboard gives users the ability to see and interact with other IoT devices including the refrigerator, robotic vacuum cleaner, washing machine, and more.
The Samsung One Remote control device, first introduced in 2016, has also been upgraded. It was initially designed to control the TV, cable box, game console, Blu-Ray player and OTT box. Fast forward to 2018 and Samsung has added support for AV products connected with optical cables.
Style
Design continues to be a major factor for consumers shopping for a new TV with internal research showing that 60 per cent of consumers want an aesthetically pleasing design and more than 70 per cent want to do away with messy TV cables.
The latest Samsung One Clear Connection cable combines copper and fibre for power and signal into one cable, from two cables in 2017. Beyond the cable, Samsung has developed a no-gap wall mount for a quicker and easier connection with installation of a Samsung TV taking less than five minutes.
On average, consumers spend only four to five hours per day watching TV and when the screen is off it’s a plain old black rectangle. So Samsung has developed Ambient Mode to allow the TV to blend with home decor when the TV is not in use. There are three categories of ambient content – deco (pre-loaded scenic imagery), info (time or weather) and photo (personal image gallery). Thanks to a sensor that detects brightness and colour temperature, the screen adapts to the room environment, such as bright or dim lighting conditions.
Gaming
Samsung has improved the gaming performance of its 2018 QLED TVs with Auto Game Mode, reduced input lag, Game Motion Plus to remove blur and judder, as well as an improved variable refresh rate. Gaming content is now available in 4K resolution and with High Dynamic Range (HDR) support for richer colours, brighter highlights and more details in the shadows. All Samsung Gaming TVs are LCD based, and guaranteed against image sticking or burn-in.
Appliance Retailer attended the Tech Summit in Vietnam as a guest of Samsung.