The LG 98UH9800 is the first 8K TV in the world today that's also capable of supporting current high dynamic range (HDR) standards. Having teased us with the existence of its 98-inch 8K monster TV before CES even started LG has now taken the wraps off its brand new behemoth.
The 8K resolution on offer in this new display is specced at 7680 x 4320 which, as the name might suggest, is eight times the resolution of Full HD. But it's not just about the resolution on offer (thankfully, as there's not much 8K content to watch right now) as the IPS panel LG is using for the UH9800 is capable of displaying not just HDR content but also a brave new world of colour too.
The use of LG's ColorPrime Plus technology - a chunkier colour filter, with additional colour phosphors - allows it to hit 125% of the old Rec 709 colour standard and over 90% of the Digital Cinema Initiative (DCI) colours. The current OLED screens from LG by comparison are rated around 88% of the DCI standard.
The UH9800's panel is also capable of displaying the next generation Rec 2020 (or BT.2020) wide colour standard too.
No OLED
Despite the fact the new super-sized LG 8K TV isn't sporting an OLED screen, using instead an IPS panel, LG is promising to be able to deliver truer blacks than standard LCD TVs thanks to 240 discrete blocks of LED backlighting. This should allow the UH9800 to dynamically adjust the luminance of more precise areas of the screen to deliver improved contrast.
It's never going to be able to match the per-pixel luminance of one of its OLED TVs, like the LG 65EF950V, but it should still deliver an impressive HDR experience. If only in terms of its sheer scale…
The LG 98UH9800 is also one of its first TVs to sport the new webOS 3.0 iteration of its smart TV software. We're big fans of the previous versions of webOS, and the advances LG is promising can only cement that opinion further.
Making connections
And, while we're talking about firsts, the LG 98UH9800 is also the first TV to incorporate the new Super MHL connection. Which is lucky because it's the advanced interface which allows you to fire 8K content over a wired connection to the vast 98-inch screen.
Super MHL was first announced a year ago at CES 2015 and, while the MHL interconnect has so far mainly been used to connect smartphones to TVs and monitors via a compatible HDMI port, this Super variant supports pretty much every new video tech there is.
Obviously it's able to deliver video at an 8K native resolution, but it's also able to do that at speeds of up to 120fps. Slick, no?
With support for HDR streams, Deep Color at up to 48-bits, and wide colour gamut, it's not just the super high resolution stuff which it's perfectly suited for either.
So when are we going to be able to dwarf our living rooms with this monstrously big 8K TV? Well, LG is still remaining tightlipped on timings, and on price too.
But when you're getting up into this sort of screen real estate territory for your TV all bets are off. We wouldn't be surprised at all to see a six figure price tag...
"Although 8K is touted as the next big thing, it's not something we see taking off until at least 2017," said Peter McEleney, Head of Category for Vision at Currys PC World. "Based on what we've seen in CES so far, HDR has the greatest potential to be adopted by today's consumer, ensuring TVs now don't just have more pixels, but better ones."
