LG’s 2019 TV lineup includes Alexa, HDMI 2.1, and an 88-inch 8K OLED - The Verge

In advance of the start of the big CES tech show this weekend, LG has announced its flagship TV lineup for 2019.

Leading LG’s range this year are its first 8K TVs, the 88-inch Z9 OLED and 75-inch SM99 LCD, which boast four times the resolution of current 4K displays, or sixteen times that of full HD. The entire flagship lineup also natively supports Alexa at launch in addition to Google Assistant, and they’re the first TVs announced with support for the latest HDMI standard, version 2.1, and high frame rate (HFR) for better rendering of sports, documentaries, and action films.

Whereas last year you could only control LG’s TVs with Alexa using an external smart speaker, this year’s models will allow you to access the voice assistant using an Amazon Prime Video button located directly on the TV’s remote. So whether you’ve got a smart home that’s based around Alexa or Google Assistant, your LG TV should be able to act as a hub to control it.

In total, LG has announced six different TV ranges. Four of them, the Z9, W9, E9 and C9, are OLEDs, while the SM9X and SM8X are LCDs. All of the OLED models and the single 8K LCD will be powered by the second generation of LG’s Alpha 9 processing chip, which is equipped with AI that LG promises will adjust the set’s brightness and audio based on the TV’s content and environment.

LG’s 8K TVs aren’t the first to market (that award goes to Samsung’s 85-inch Q900R), but they are the first that support HDMI 2.1 out of the box. That’s important, because using the old HDMI 2.0 standard limits 8K signals to just 30fps while version 2.1 increases this to a maximum of 60. Samsung’s 85-inch 8K Q900R TV is expected to eventually be upgraded to support the standard, but it wasn’t available at the TV’s launch.

However, even LG’s 4K sets will benefit from HDMI 2.1. 4K content will benefit from support for high frame rates of up to 120fps, which results in smoother motion, less blur, and more detail overall. This will be particularly useful when watching fast-moving sports and other content where tracking motion is more important than cinematic quality. Meanwhile eARC means more audio data can be transmitted, and auto low latency mode should reduce input lag and make games feel more responsive. Finally, variable refresh rate will offer similar functionality to what we’ve seen with G-sync and Freesync on the PC, eliminating screen tearing when a game can’t maintain a stable framerate.

You might have to wait a little while to make use of some of this functionality though. Outside of tests in Japan, the availability of 8K content is still very limited, and it’s a similar story for high frame rate 120fps videos. Most content nowadays is still 30fps or under, with even 60fps content being the exception rather than the rule. 8K and 120fps video is likely to become more widely available now that hardware that can play it is launching, but it’s likely that it will suffer from this chicken-and-egg problem for a little longer.

Not mentioned today is any update on the rollable OLED TV concept that LG showed off last year. The TV, which will reportedly become an actual product in 2019, was first shown at CES 2018 alongside an early prototype of its 8K TV. With the 8K TV now set to come to market, its rollable sibling surely can’t be too far behind.

LG is yet to detail how much its flagship lineup of TVs will cost or when they’ll be available, but we don’t expect them to come cheap. For context, the 77-inch model of the company’s flagship W7 OLED cost $14,999.99 when it was first released last year, while Samsung’s own 8K started at the same price.

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