85" or bigger, OLED or not, sub £2K
Discussion
I think my question is will these be coming any time soon? I.e. an 85" or bigger, OLED screen under £2000?
OR are there alternative screen tech QLED or ?? that are close enough. We already have a 75" in the TV/Cinema room and it can easily take a much bigger screen but if we're going to change it really only want to change for a step change in size and quality.
This is the current screen: Samsung UE75NU7100 75-Inch 4K Ultra HD Certified HDR Smart TV - Charcoal Black (2018 Model)
OR are there alternative screen tech QLED or ?? that are close enough. We already have a 75" in the TV/Cinema room and it can easily take a much bigger screen but if we're going to change it really only want to change for a step change in size and quality.
This is the current screen: Samsung UE75NU7100 75-Inch 4K Ultra HD Certified HDR Smart TV - Charcoal Black (2018 Model)
There are already 85" TVs under your £2K budget. The larger version of what you have is priced at £1300. There's the entry-level QE85Q60A at around £1700 and the step-up QE85Q70A at £1999. These aren't high-end sets though, or even midrange really. Personally I think it's a bit of a con to include the Q60 in the QLED range. Aside from having the QLED micro-lenses the rest of the spec is too limited by comparison with the other models.
OLED is in a different performance league though, and so you won't find either the 83" or the 86" tipping in at under £2000 for some time to come. The 77" A-series uses a more basic 50Hz panel rather than the 100Hz in the rest of the range. That's how they've been able to get the price down to a shade over £2K. The size isn't different-enough from your current 75", but the picture performance will leave an LED (LCD) for dead in most cases.
I think you're going to have to wait some years before you'll see a combination of size and better performance in LED, QLED/NanoCell LED, or micro-LED tip in under £2k. It will happen though. The last time I bought a TV for the family it was a 50" Panasonic GX800. They'd just come out. I gave about £750 for it. At the time OLEDs were a minimum of £1200, and I just couldn't justify that for a TV that was only going to be used by my wife for watching endless re-runs of Law & Order and NCIS. Within 18 months there was a much better Sony 55" for around £900. Then earlier this year 55" 100Hz LG OLEDs hit £900 on the outgoing range. My next TV will be an OLED.
OLED is in a different performance league though, and so you won't find either the 83" or the 86" tipping in at under £2000 for some time to come. The 77" A-series uses a more basic 50Hz panel rather than the 100Hz in the rest of the range. That's how they've been able to get the price down to a shade over £2K. The size isn't different-enough from your current 75", but the picture performance will leave an LED (LCD) for dead in most cases.
I think you're going to have to wait some years before you'll see a combination of size and better performance in LED, QLED/NanoCell LED, or micro-LED tip in under £2k. It will happen though. The last time I bought a TV for the family it was a 50" Panasonic GX800. They'd just come out. I gave about £750 for it. At the time OLEDs were a minimum of £1200, and I just couldn't justify that for a TV that was only going to be used by my wife for watching endless re-runs of Law & Order and NCIS. Within 18 months there was a much better Sony 55" for around £900. Then earlier this year 55" 100Hz LG OLEDs hit £900 on the outgoing range. My next TV will be an OLED.
If I try and summarise - no chance of an OLED 85"+ sub £2K in the next couple of years?
Like for like spec but 85" is £1300
Is there any point spending more than that - will I get better picture quality between that one and something at £2K
Note - its all about the picture/screen just need one HDMI input, don't even need a stand. It will be wall mounted and all audio and switching done by the AV amp.
Thank you for the advice
Like for like spec but 85" is £1300
Is there any point spending more than that - will I get better picture quality between that one and something at £2K
Note - its all about the picture/screen just need one HDMI input, don't even need a stand. It will be wall mounted and all audio and switching done by the AV amp.
Thank you for the advice
The points that you don't need more than one HDMI input and you don't need a stand have no impact at all on TV prices. Manufacturers won't bespoke their products to make them cheaper. Doing that, customising for a niche market, makes things more expensive.
Pistonheads is a car-based forum, so think about the times say Porsche has made stripped out and lightened versions of its standard road cars. Did they consistently come out cheaper, or were they more expensive?
To get a handle on what makes better TVs more expensive then you should start reading TV reviews at rtings.com You come to realise that certain features are key to getting better picture.
* The type of panel: LCD VA or IPS, and the advantages of OLED
* The brightness level that LCD backlighting can generate: crap TVs struggle to hit 300 nits (cd/m2),budget sets tend to max out at 400-500 nits. Good upper-end TVs get to 900 nits. The best in class hit 1100-1200 nits
* Whether or not the LED backlights can be dimmed, and if so, how. The most basic sets lack any dimming at all. Edge-lit TVs often have dimming but it's crude; it's akin to losing a headlight, the illumination gets darker in a vertical band so everything within that band gets dimmer. Then you have sets where the backlight is separated into zones. We call this local dimming. The more zones then the more precisely controlled the dimming to target areas that need to be brighter or darker. The evolution of this is how we arrived at mini-LED. On a 75" with top-end multi-zone dimming in small zones you're looking at dimming an area equivalent to the footprint of a coffee mug. With mini-LED you're looking at reducing that down to the size of a beer bottle cap. The ultimate expression of dimming though is with OLED. This is dimming per pixel. It doesn't get better than that
* The refresh rate of the panel: It affects motion and reduces blur. Basic panels are 50Hz. Better TVs have 100Hz panels (Don't confuse this with motion processing rates. It's not the same thing)
* The bit depth (colour capabilities) of the panel: is it full 10it or does it use the trick of dithering to make an 8bit panel simulate some of the missing colours? This is the 8+2FRC panels
* The quality of the video processing. There are two main areas here. One deals with upscaling and motion. The other deals with how the set processes and maps colour. Better upscaling and motion processing helps reduce blur and makes lower resolution images more watchable. (Cross-reference this with the panel's native refresh rate.) Colour processing is something different. The majority of decent 4K UHD sets have 10bit colour processing eve if the TV panel is only 8+2FRC. Some manufacturers go one step further though. They process colour in 12bit because they put in the additional processing power. The panel in those sets will often be true 10bit, but in processing the colour in 12bit first then there's better mapping and so better picture quality
All this stuff and more is covered in the TV reviews at rtings.com
When you start to scratch below the surface then you'll start to see why that huge telly at a bargain price isn't quite the bargain you expected. It then starts to make sense why something like a Samsung QE75QN90B is 3,700 when the Samsung UE75AU7100 is the same size but costs under 800. It's not brand premium since they're both Samsungs. Some of it is features, certainly. Some of it is down to there being a smaller volume of the QN90 sets being sold, and so the production costs per unit are higher. The bulk of it though is because of what's going on under the bonnet and how that then affects picture and, to a lesser degree, sound too.
Pistonheads is a car-based forum, so think about the times say Porsche has made stripped out and lightened versions of its standard road cars. Did they consistently come out cheaper, or were they more expensive?
To get a handle on what makes better TVs more expensive then you should start reading TV reviews at rtings.com You come to realise that certain features are key to getting better picture.
* The type of panel: LCD VA or IPS, and the advantages of OLED
* The brightness level that LCD backlighting can generate: crap TVs struggle to hit 300 nits (cd/m2),budget sets tend to max out at 400-500 nits. Good upper-end TVs get to 900 nits. The best in class hit 1100-1200 nits
* Whether or not the LED backlights can be dimmed, and if so, how. The most basic sets lack any dimming at all. Edge-lit TVs often have dimming but it's crude; it's akin to losing a headlight, the illumination gets darker in a vertical band so everything within that band gets dimmer. Then you have sets where the backlight is separated into zones. We call this local dimming. The more zones then the more precisely controlled the dimming to target areas that need to be brighter or darker. The evolution of this is how we arrived at mini-LED. On a 75" with top-end multi-zone dimming in small zones you're looking at dimming an area equivalent to the footprint of a coffee mug. With mini-LED you're looking at reducing that down to the size of a beer bottle cap. The ultimate expression of dimming though is with OLED. This is dimming per pixel. It doesn't get better than that
* The refresh rate of the panel: It affects motion and reduces blur. Basic panels are 50Hz. Better TVs have 100Hz panels (Don't confuse this with motion processing rates. It's not the same thing)
* The bit depth (colour capabilities) of the panel: is it full 10it or does it use the trick of dithering to make an 8bit panel simulate some of the missing colours? This is the 8+2FRC panels
* The quality of the video processing. There are two main areas here. One deals with upscaling and motion. The other deals with how the set processes and maps colour. Better upscaling and motion processing helps reduce blur and makes lower resolution images more watchable. (Cross-reference this with the panel's native refresh rate.) Colour processing is something different. The majority of decent 4K UHD sets have 10bit colour processing eve if the TV panel is only 8+2FRC. Some manufacturers go one step further though. They process colour in 12bit because they put in the additional processing power. The panel in those sets will often be true 10bit, but in processing the colour in 12bit first then there's better mapping and so better picture quality
All this stuff and more is covered in the TV reviews at rtings.com
When you start to scratch below the surface then you'll start to see why that huge telly at a bargain price isn't quite the bargain you expected. It then starts to make sense why something like a Samsung QE75QN90B is 3,700 when the Samsung UE75AU7100 is the same size but costs under 800. It's not brand premium since they're both Samsungs. Some of it is features, certainly. Some of it is down to there being a smaller volume of the QN90 sets being sold, and so the production costs per unit are higher. The bulk of it though is because of what's going on under the bonnet and how that then affects picture and, to a lesser degree, sound too.
Edited by Lucid_AV on Wednesday 18th May 13:29
I was more meaning that paying another £500 for better sound is of no importance to me, paying £500 more for a significantly better screen is. Honestly it’s a minefield to know what the real difference from one Samsung to another is for a layman yet their prices can be significantly different.
OLED has a very high manufacturing failure rate, so as they get bigger, the cost shoot up in a non linear fashion. Hence there are not loads of affordable 100" OLEDs out there (and hence OLED of any size costs a considerable premium). Imagine in the factory, lots and lots of panels with dead pixels going straight in the bin before they even get to the PCB/case stage. That's why they cost more.
Once you've gone OLED you don't go back . No amount fo "quantuming" can replace self illuminated pixels.
Once you've gone OLED you don't go back . No amount fo "quantuming" can replace self illuminated pixels.
Edited by Griffith4ever on Wednesday 18th May 12:46
David A said:
I was more meaning that paying another 500 for better sound is of no importance to me, paying 500 more for a significantly better screen is. Honestly it’s a minefield to know what the real difference from one Samsung to another is for a layman yet their prices can be significantly different.
That's why you read the reviews and start to educate yourself about the differences. If you're a car nut then you've done this already to understand the differences between inline 4 cylinder an inline 6, and why V12 is smoother than V8. You understand the relative pros and cons of turbos vs compressors. You understand why independent rear suspension is better than a solid rear axel. You understand why we use disc brakes rather than drums. etc etc etc If you want to make an educated purchase on a TV rather than simply leaping at the first bit of gear that hits a price point then you do the research and look at what compromises have been made in a TV. I've already listed several of the major features and benefits. If you've bothered to read that post then you're already halfway there. It's up to you to read the TV specs and reviews to what is- and is not- included. The rtings site gives league tables with relative performance levels for movies, TV, games performance.
If you're not willing to put in a little effort then you're wasting my time and yours. Just buy in price. Be a fish hooked on the first worm. Sorry to be blunt about it but there's no point beating around the bush. All the information is there for you, online and from forum discussions, but no one can make up your mind for you.
If it was me in your shoes I'd hang on to my money and invest it somewhere until the market moves enough to make this a worthwhile change. In the meantime I'd start to bone up. Maybe even look at used TV options as a way to get more bang for a limited budget.
Err ok. Sorry if you think I’m wasting your time. Ignoring and not responding is also an option that takes no time.
Someone may have recent experience and direct knowledge to answer the question without feeling inconvenienced. I’m asking as I don’t want to trawl through and learn as this is an irregular activity ie only every couple of years and things change.
Someone may have recent experience and direct knowledge to answer the question without feeling inconvenienced. I’m asking as I don’t want to trawl through and learn as this is an irregular activity ie only every couple of years and things change.
I think it's worth a bit of research.
A year ago a failed TV led me to replace it, bigger (of course) a Panasonic, cause that's what I've had for yrs, and surprisingly cheap.
Never fully convinced although seemed okay ish. Visiting some friends the other day he had an LG OLED, Gobsmackingly good, for me a game changer. So willing to open my wallet realised they weren't all that expensive, then realised the cheaper ones whilst being good didn't offer everything.
So budget creep, no point in a hop when a leap is a bit more but more appropriate.
A year ago a failed TV led me to replace it, bigger (of course) a Panasonic, cause that's what I've had for yrs, and surprisingly cheap.
Never fully convinced although seemed okay ish. Visiting some friends the other day he had an LG OLED, Gobsmackingly good, for me a game changer. So willing to open my wallet realised they weren't all that expensive, then realised the cheaper ones whilst being good didn't offer everything.
So budget creep, no point in a hop when a leap is a bit more but more appropriate.
Err ok. Sorry if you think I’m wasting your time. Ignoring and not responding is also an option that takes no time.
Someone may have recent experience and direct knowledge to answer the question without feeling inconvenienced. I’m asking as I don’t want to trawl through and learn as this is an irregular activity ie only every couple of years and things change.
Someone may have recent experience and direct knowledge to answer the question without feeling inconvenienced. I’m asking as I don’t want to trawl through and learn as this is an irregular activity ie only every couple of years and things change.
In short, the only 85” TV’s under £2K aren’t particularly good.
If you want a large OLED then you’ll have to dig a bit deeper into your wallet.
I’ve had a LG C9 OLED for 2-3 years and unless the tech moves on, when it comes to replacing it I will buy another. It’s miles better than the LCD TV it replaced.
If you want a large OLED then you’ll have to dig a bit deeper into your wallet.
I’ve had a LG C9 OLED for 2-3 years and unless the tech moves on, when it comes to replacing it I will buy another. It’s miles better than the LCD TV it replaced.
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