If you follow TVs for more than a year or two, you’ll notice patterns in the model numbers. For LG and its series of exceptional OLED TVs, the W-, G- and E-Series is about the best money can buy. There’s the C-Series which offers some mercy on our wallets while still providing pristine picture quality and finally the B-Series which, until today, had been strangely absent from LG’s 2018 line-up.
But, now that the entry-level B8 OLED is finally here, the family is complete.
The most important aspect of the B8 OLED isn’t its OLED panel - which, admittedly, is quite nice - but rather its low price tag: In the US, you’ll pay $200 less for both the 55-inch LG OLED55B8 and 65-inch LG OLED65B8 compared to an equivalent C8 model.
If you’re in the UK, you’ll save about £300 for picking an OLED B8 while Australian AV enthusiasts ... will have to wait until later this year to get their hands on one.
So what did LG cut out from C8 OLED to shave $200 off the price? It all comes down to the processor. The B8 uses last year’s alpha7 image processor while the C8, E8, G8 and W8 all use the new alpha9 chip.
In practice we haven't noticed a major difference between last year's OLEDs that use the alpha7 and this year's range, with the small exception of High Frame Rate (HFR) content which decidedly looks better on the alpha9 TVs.
Until we get one in for testing we can't make any definitive remarks on the matter, but if you ask us, saving money is never a bad idea.
