Samsung Unveils a Massive, 98-Inch 8K TV You Can't Afford
Samsung's new extra-big, extra-high-resolution TV is its largest 8K TV and one of its biggest consumer-available screens in general, only available in a massive 98 inches.
Announced today at the Custom Electronic Design & Installation Association (CEDIA) 2023 trade show, the QN990C appears to be a scaled-up version of the QN900C we reviewed last year, which was previously Samsung's flagship 8K TV. Both models are Neo QLED screens with mini-LED backlight systems and Samsung's Neural Quantum Processor 8K for upconverting lower-resolution content to the TV's full resolution.
The larger QN990C differs from the smaller QN900C (which has a maximum screen size of "only" 85 inches) by swapping a physical Slim One Connect box—which manages all of the TV's connections through a single wire to the screen—in favor of on-screen ports.
As an 8K screen equipped with HDMI 2.1 ports and an ATSC 3.0 tuner, the QN990C is about as future-proof as a current TV can get. However, 8K resolution matters the least here. There is still no 8K consumer content currently available, either through streaming services or on physical media, so everything displayed on the QN990C must be upconverted from 4K or lower resolution. Image processors and upconversion systems have made great strides since the blotchy upscaling of 480p video on HDTVs, but it still can't replace native resolution video.
The future of 8K itself is up in the air despite Samsung's new TV. We noted at IFA 2023 in Berlin that Samsung appeared to be the only TV manufacturer making an effort to show off 8K screens, and both LG and TCL have stopped offering 8K models after their respective releases of the 6-Series 8K Roku TV and Z2 8K OLED.
The CEDIA expo primarily focuses on very
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