Samsung just announced that its 8K QLED TV, the Samsung Q900, will be available for pre-order today and will be available to purchase outright on October 28.
Samsung first unveiled this monstrous 85-inch screen at IFA 2018, but left us in the dark on its release date and price ... which, as it turns out, is quite a bit heftier than we expected: $14,999 for the Samsung QN85Q900RAFXZA.
That is quite a lot of money – even for a product category where it’s not uncommon to see five-digit numbers. Thankfully, that’s just for the 85-inch version.
If Samsung decides to bring the smaller 65- and 75-inch versions of the TV to the US, it’ll be a lot less expensive – the Samsung QE65Q900RATXXU and QE75Q900RATXXU are available to pre-order in the UK for £4,999 (about $6,490, AU$9110 ) and £6,999 (about $9,080, AU$12,760), respectively, and will be available from retailers on October 17.
For reference, the 85-inch Q900 is around four times as much as the 65-inch Samsung Q9FN QLED TV – the screen that we called the best 4K TV in 2018. At $3,300 (£2,900) the Q9FN isn't cheap by any means ... but, compared to the new Q900, that price feels like a bargain.
8K for $15K
So why does Samsung's 8K TV cost so darn much? A few reasons, actually.
The first is that the TV uses Samsung's Quantum Processor that helps the TV upscale content from any resolution up to 8K – making it one of the first publicly available screens to do so.
The second is that the panel itself is able to output up to 4,000 nits of peak brightness and, obviously, it measures in at a monstrous 85-inches. There's also Bixby and Samsung SmartThings integration to consider, Ambient Mode and Samsung's Eden Smart TV system – all of which add to the bottom line.
There's no doubt this is one of the most expensive TVs on the market, but being on the bleeding edge of technology – especially display technology – isn't cheap.
- That said, do we really need 8K TVs yet?
