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YOUR NEXT TV

What to look for in your next TV

BY ALEX COX

here’s no getting away from the fact

that tech moves on apace. In the same

way as Apple presents us with shiny

new iPhones or ever more desirable

Macs every 18 months (and seems to love a

complete platform switch, like the jump from

68000 to PowerPC, PowerPC to Intel x86, and

the forthcoming leap from x86 to ARM chips) the

TV market is based on the refresh cycle. Sony,

Samsung et al need to make “buying a new TV”

something that’s on every tech–lover’s list, and

to do that they need to innovate.

You can draw an interesting timeline: starting

at the end of the CRT days, we went from 720p to

1080p, from the short–lived obsession with 3D to

4K and HDR, from LCD and Plasma to LED and

OLED — all while the smarts of our TVs increased

exponentially. We’re now at a point that, barring

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as another. While one might presume 8K is the next

battleground, that’s not the next stage in the TV’s

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advanced picture processing and more connectivity.

SMOOTH UPSCALING

Cynically, it would be easy to suggest that fear of

missing out is as powerful a driver as the

technology itself. Most of us have a TV that works

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argument that new is better? It’s not a case of

extreme resolution; with 4K we’ve already pretty

much reached the limit of the human eye. Indeed,

many (including Steve Jobs) argued that the dot

pitch of the iPhone 4’s Retina display outclassed

the resolution of the eye way back in 2010. Yes,

a 55–inch 4K TV carries around 80 pixels per inch

(8K doubles that to 160ppi), which is far less than

the 216ppi of even a 27–inch iMac 5K, but you’re

very unlikely to watch TV at the same distance

you’d face up to a 5K desktop panel or a Retina

phone screen. From across the room, even 1080p

screens can, for most, seem smooth as silk.

With newer screens, you’ll more frequently be

running lower resolution content through a panel

that can handle much more, and that’s the pivot

point. Picture processing units of high–end TVs,

hefty as they are given all the heavy lifting required

T

Even LG’s crazy yet stunning rollable Signature TV R is a 4K panel,

suggesting there’s no need for everyone to jump to 8K just yet.

Image rights: LG.

8K

THE WAY?

70 FEB 2020 maclife.com