LG OLEDs getting cheaper and cheaper

Kappa · 20 Aug 2014 at 12:45

So is there a downside to a TV such as this, is it an early one which has problems as stated? It got 10/10 on AVForums, how much better will they actually be if we wait?

LG 55EA980W Curved OLED Full HD 3D Smart TV, £2,999 at JL

ubern00b · 20 Aug 2014 at 13:11

Kappa said:
So is there a downside to a TV such as this, is it an early one which has problems as stated? It got 10/10 on AVForums, how much better will they actually be if we wait?

LG 55EA980W Curved OLED Full HD 3D Smart TV, £2,999 at JL

Bit of a loaded question in this forum as its not a £19.99 bargain

Anyway, have a read and decide for yourself is the only real answer:

http://www.avforums.com/threads/lg-ea980-55ea980-curved-1080p-oled-tv-review.1859244/

Kappa · 20 Aug 2014 at 13:27

ubern00b said:
Bit of a loaded question in this forum as its not a £19.99 bargain

Amp34 · 20 Aug 2014 at 19:12

Psycho Sonny said:
Because they are usually half price when they go EOL. They go EOL within 12 months of launch as new models are released every year.

Buying a newly launched brand new tv is usually throwing money away IMO as within 12 months it will be substantially cheaper, unless no new models are made (like Kuro when production completely stopped and ZT65/VT65 also when they shut down their factories).

Put it this way I could sell my GT50 now for £100-£200 less than what I paid for it. Had I bought it 6 months earlier I would be selling it for £800 less than what I paid for it.

The best time to buy a tv is when it goes EOL as the savings are huge and the differences between that tv and the newer versions are minimal but the newer version launching within 4 months will be twice the price.

Point being I bought 2 flagship top of the range 50/51" panels for less than £800 brand new with 2 sets of 3D glasses, 5 year warranty, etc.

So I would not exactly call paying £2-3K for a 60" cheap, technology gets cheaper with time, so by the time I upgrade I would want a 60" or bigger for pretty much under £1000 or around what I paid for the current sets.

Yep, my £3k EOL panny plasma display as a bargain as well... It really was, it was about 1-2k cheaper than it was a few months before. Why did it cost that much? Because w ebought it about 10 years ago, when large panel consumer plasma screens were just becoming mainstream. As usual you don't appear to understand that electronics go in cycles. New products are expensive, each year products come out at cheaper and cheaper price points... We could wait another 10 years for OLEDs to fall to less than £1k, or we could b willing to spend a bit more and buy at close to the beginning of the curve...

That is in no way saying plasma is bad, in fact I agree that plasma is fast better than LCD, just that you ccant really compare a nature product to something at the beginning of its life cycle.

james.miller · 20 Aug 2014 at 19:17

ubern00b said:
Is it inherent with OLED or is it something that is likely to "evolve" over time to be a none issue? Or, as much as plasma managed to evolve in its time.

I'm sure they'll all but solve it eventually like plasma

Amp34 · 26 Aug 2014 at 15:56

So LG are releasing a 4k 65" (curved) OLED in the near future, costing around $7,000 in the US.

Prices are dropping rapidly! Although the 77" version looks horrendous...
http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/24/lg-4k-oled/

Richeh · 26 Aug 2014 at 18:17

Amp34 said:
So LG are releasing a 4k 65" (curved) OLED in the near future, costing around $7,000 in the US.

Prices are dropping rapidly! Although the 77" version looks horrendous...
http://www.engadget.com/2014/08/24/lg-4k-oled/

I do love OLED fan's optimism

£7k ($=£ in England regardless of the conversion rate!) is no-where near the price it needs to be to steal any kind of market share to make other companies press on with their own sets. I think Samsung have still said 3-4 years before they are possible to produce at the price people would pay.

EOL 1080p OLED sets which have quite significant issues aren't going to be available to many people despite how cheap they get.

Amp34 · 26 Aug 2014 at 21:30

I'm not really bothered about market penetration, rather the price I am willing to pay in the time frame i'm interested in.

A 4k OLED screen at $/£7k will probably be £3.5k at end of life next year and hopefully means £3k for a quality big screen is a year or two away.

LCD just doesn't cut it, even if people try and big it up by calling it LED...

I've also been waiting for OLED for about 10 years now and it's finally arriving at an affordable price!

rikky · 27 Aug 2014 at 18:22

Richeh said:
I do love OLED fan's optimism

£7k ($=£ in England regardless of the conversion rate!) is no-where near the price it needs to be to steal any kind of market share to make other companies press on with their own sets. I think Samsung have still said 3-4 years before they are possible to produce at the price people would pay.

EOL 1080p OLED sets which have quite significant issues aren't going to be available to many people despite how cheap they get.

Samsung are under massive strain at the moment - they don't have an OLED to actually release to the general public simply because their chosen route can't get the yields to make it economically viable.

In the meantime LG are investing hundreds of millions into OLED tech and vast worldwide facilities to mass produce them so the price will fall far quicker than anybody anticipated - they may even be cheaper to produce and transport than LED in the near future.

LG will also supply these panels to Sony, Panasonic and it's chinese counterparts but Samsung won't get a sniff ... they haven't got 3 or 4 years.

james.miller · 27 Aug 2014 at 21:49

rikky said:
In the meantime LG are investing hundreds of millions into OLED tech and vast worldwide facilities to mass produce them so the price will fall far quicker than anybody anticipated

Lets hope prices fall off a cliff in the near future as they havent really moved in the last 10 years...

Amp34 · 27 Aug 2014 at 22:33

They've changed massively in the last couple of years! Two years ago the first commercial one was around $70,000, now we're down to $7,000.

Psycho Sonny · 27 Aug 2014 at 22:33

james.miller said:
Lets hope prices fall off a cliff in the near future as they havent really moved in the last 10 years...

don't you have a really good plasma anyway?

If you do then you should be in no rush to upgrade, enjoy your current tech until it's on it's last legs, by then OLED should be at the right point to buy in terms of pricing and having all the advanced upgrades/features.

I also hope 4K is standard by then in terms of content. Even on a 1080P screen you can see the difference of 4K vs 1080P.

Adrianr · 27 Aug 2014 at 22:57

V F said:
I do hope by the time 3rd and 4th gen OLED hits they'll have sorted the blue phosphor decay and dead pixel problems. It sure will be interesting in the years ahead.

I'll still never get over seeing how small text lights up in an all dark room. It just appears and how immersed you felt.

Trying to imagine owning a perfect black canvas with something between Rec.709 and below 2020 with a contrast ratio of 80,xxx to 90,000:1. As some of the high end Kuro's were in the 82,000:1. Imagine re-watching all your favourite films again on a 10/12bit panel.

I don't suppose you've ever had a chance to use a Sony PVM-A250 before? I use one for grading and it's exceptional, everything I felt promised by OLED tech, but I haven't seen an OLED tv outside of a showroom and in those conditions they frankly didn't even look like the same technology.

The best way to describe the Sony is like looking out of a window (the eerie sensation of which will only get better with 4K), and I was wondering if the TV's were replicating that yet?

Trick · 28 Aug 2014 at 09:28

It will take a massive drop in price or a sea-change in iq for me to upgrade from my GT50.

james.miller · 28 Aug 2014 at 15:55

Amp34 said:
They've changed massively in the last couple of years! Two years ago the first commercial one was around $70,000, now we're down to $7,000.

But you're talking moving from prototype prices to professional prices. We've been waiting a decade for consumer-priced screens to appear!

Psycho Sonny said:
don't you have a really good plasma anyway?

If you do then you should be in no rush to upgrade, enjoy your current tech until it's on it's last legs, by then OLED should be at the right point to buy in terms of pricing and having all the advanced upgrades/features.

I have a 6 year old Panasonic 50pz80. It's still a good screen but it's no match for oled

I also hope 4K is standard by then in terms of content. Even on a 1080P screen you can see the difference of 4K vs 1080P.

It would be interesting to see the actually costs of updgrading the infrastructures to support 4k. I bet its astronomical against the returns they would get , at least in the near future.

Warbie · 28 Aug 2014 at 17:01

Trick said:
It will take a massive drop in price or a sea-change in iq for me to upgrade from my GT50.

I've no doubt the leap in pq will be massive - it's price and quality control that are the issues at the mo.

V F · 28 Aug 2014 at 20:01

Adrianr said:
I don't suppose you've ever had a chance to use a Sony PVM-A250 before? I use one for grading and it's exceptional, everything I felt promised by OLED tech, but I haven't seen an OLED tv outside of a showroom and in those conditions they frankly didn't even look like the same technology.

Sadly no. I see it's a 10-bit panel. It'll be very exciting the years ahead for TV.

Though, for so many that think OLED TV's that will be £800 and lower. I just cannot see it. There's a reason why it's premium and accurate colour and infinite black has a premium price. As well as motion resolution.

The best way to describe the Sony is like looking out of a window (the eerie sensation of which will only get better with 4K), and I was wondering if the TV's were replicating that yet?

Only the high end sets but still… I'm not 100% sure but some AVS members said some of the $9,000+ Kuro's had 10bit panels… It's funny how such a perfect dark canvas causes natural colour to look quite saturated in a weird way compared to sets with lighter blacks.

I loved that feeling viewing some sets with lights out in some peoples homes for a few hours with calibrated OLED and ZT/VT's for comparison for no lit blacks. The clarity of OLED blacks was really something. I've never experienced 10/12-bit panels yet.

http://www.hdtvtest.co.uk/news/lg-hevc-201401033549.htm

TONY · 31 Aug 2014 at 12:06

I don't think the LG oled tv's will Suffer much from image retention because of the way they work, from what I can gather LG have chosen to use oled backlighting with a colour filter (similar to how a LCD TV works) on their displays rather than have the oleds control the colour themselves without a filter (like how a plasma tv works) which makes them easier to manufacture and increases the lifespan of the sets.

Seems like cheating to me though

james.miller · 31 Aug 2014 at 12:14

Yeah LG uses 4 white oleds in a WRGB config (white/red/green/blue) with filters. Still unsure on lifespan etc but it should mean at least the the panel ages more uniformly.

Psycho Sonny · 31 Aug 2014 at 12:23

I would say the PZ80 is still better than what 95% of people have in their homes tbh.

The only reason why I upgraded from the PZ85B is because it was 42" and I wanted a 50" tv.

I wouldn't be so quick to upgrade unless you were looking for 60"+ if I were in your shoes. Like I say it's probably still better than what 95% of people have (obviously not when compared to an enthusiast forum member consensus but the general public as a whole).

The difference in quality between the PZ85B and the GT50 is minimal for instance from my experience, obviously the GT50 is better but most people wouldn't be able to tell because it's not night and day. Obviously OLED is a different ball game but it would be wiser to hold off until a really good deal can be had or your current set is now inadequate for you.

OLED is the future but current plasma owners don't really need to dive in head first as their sets are still very very good when compared to what many others have (LCD's).