LG Teases 2024 QNED TV Lineup With Up To 98 Inches Of Mini LED Splendor And Smarter AI
For those of us who predate the big screen TV movement into the mainstream market, it's absolutely mind-blowing just how big and cost-friendly today's giant-sized televisions have become. Remember when a 65-inch TV was considered massive? That's still a sizable display, but it's also dwarfed by LG's upcoming 98-inch QNED TV with mini LED lighting for 2024.
Getting a leg up on the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) and the barrage of announcements that will accompany the event, LG offered up some early details about it's 2024 QNED and QNED mini LED TVs. One of the big (literally) takeaways is the addition of an "ultra-large 98-inch blockbuster, a truly massive screen that will fully immerse viewers with its magnitude."
According to LG, adding a 98-inch SKU to the mix "addresses the growing demand for larger TVs." I'm not one to argue—I picked up an 85-inch Samsung TV a couple of years ago and have zero regrets about going that big. It seems TV makers are figuring out where the cutoff point lies, and they haven't found it yet.
The catch is that the value proposition starts to drop off when venturing into enormous territory. This can be exacerbated by cutting-edge features like mini LED lighting and higher quality panels in general (though not always—Hisense's 100-inch U8 series TV sold for as low as $2,998 recently). No worries, though, if the 98-inch model ends up costing an arm and a leg, or you don't have the space for it, LG will also make its 2024 lineup available in 86-inch, 75-inch, 65-inch, 55-inch, 50-inch, and 43-inch sizes.
LG isn't sharing full specifications for its 2024 QNED and QNED mini LED TVs, though it is promising "significantly more intelligence" by way of its next-gen α8 AI processor. According to LG, the chip delivers a 1.3x increase in AI performance versus its predecessor, along with a 2.3x jump in graphics performance and 1.6x faster processing speed.
Those metrics don't mean a whole lot on their own, but they do suggest a faster and smoother smart TV experience, as well as better imagery all around.
"Leveraging cutting-edge technology for a more refined visual representation, AI Picture Pro offers the ultimate picture quality based on deep learning. This versatile feature adeptly distinguishes faces, objects and backgrounds within a scene, enriching the texture and fine details to present images with unparalleled realism," LG explains.
"Dynamic Tone Mapping Pro splits the picture into blocks and analyzes each in real-time to detect the darkest and brightest areas, elevating the details with precise HDR optimization to deliver three-dimensional image quality. With Personalized Picture Wizard, users can effortlessly customize the image quality by simply selecting a few preferred images from a given selection that are intelligently set up through deep learning," LG adds.
These are some of the tasks that fall on the processor. As TVs become more advanced and aim for better picture quality, the hardware inside will be of increased importance.
It's also interesting that LG is paying more attention to mini LED technology. LG has dabbled in mini LED, though it's fair to say it's primary focus has been on its excellent OLED TV lineup (which, we're sure there will be more OLED models too).
We'll have to wait until CES to see how LG's 2024 QNED lineup shakes out, along with pricing. Stay tuned.
