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LG has released the first details for its new 2018 OLED TV lineup. There will be four series announced at CES 2018 including B8, C8, E8, and W8. So we are not talking about 88″ 8K TV that will be present at the event, which as of now almost in prototype form.
2018 LG OLED TV Lineup
B8
- 55″
- 65″
C8
- 55″
- 65″
- 77″
E8
- 55″
- 65″
W8
- 65″
- 77″
The W8 series will propose the ultra-thin “wallpaper” design that’s similar to last year’s W7 series. The photo shows the new TV with very similar lines and the external soundbar with subwoofer integrated. The E8 series will use the “Picture on Glass” design, which combines seamless glass elements between the front and the back, while C8 and B8 series will show off the “Blade-slim” design.
The smart features include ThinQ AI with Google Assistant. There is also talk of processor and GPU, 35% more powerful than last year and 50% faster DDR memories. The C8, E8, and W8 series are also equipped with the new Alpha 9 video processor, equipped with LUT (Look-Up Table) that operate on a number of chromatic coordinates about 7 times higher than the 2017 OLED TV.
The B8 series instead mount the Alpha 7 processor, a less performing version. So that brings us back to 2016: two years ago the B6 series used a different processor than the other models, while the B7 TV series are exactly identical to the products of the upper range.
All 2018 LG OLED TV models feature Ultra HD panels and support HDR10, Dolby Vision, HLG and Advanced HDR by Technicolor formats. Therefore, it does not seem to be present HDR10+ which would also constitute the only lack. LG talks about 4K HDR and emphasizes that all the metadata and information needed to manage HDR are dynamically processed by the TV frame by frame, thus applying a conceptually similar system to Dolby Vision and HDR10+.
New 2018 LG OLED TV will be able to display images up to 120 frames per second with HFR (High Frame Rate), even if not from external sources. However, no HFR content is available today, should support via USB, streaming apps and eventually integrated tuners in the future. The difference between the Alpha 9 processor and the less powerful Alpha 7 is the management of images at 120 fps. Alpha 9 will be able to process them in Ultra HD with HDR, while Alpha 7 will show either HFR or HDR or both but in Full HD.
Dolby Atmos support confirmed, present on the entire 2018 LG OLED TV range, just like for 2017 OLED TVs. The new OLEDs should add the ability to use HDMI ARC (the audio return channel) to convey a stream Dolby Atmos into bitstream to audio systems or external soundbar. In this way, you could appreciate a streaming from Netflix in Dolby Atmos with a much higher quality than the integrated speakers. As of now, no indications have been provided on the prices. More information will come from the CES 2018 in coming days.
