LG Electronics has finally announced the price tag of its upcoming Micro RGB evo television, which is the company’s first take on the new RGB LED backlight trend that emerged last year.
The LG Micro RGB evo TV is available to preorder in the U.K., U.S. and in Europe now, with prices starting at £6,299 for the smallest 75-inch model.
It’s the first effort by LG to crack the market for a new class of LCD-based display technology that’s said to represent the next evolution of Mini-LED. The Micro RGB evo features LG Display’s first RGB LED panel and is powered by the company’s flagship Alpha A11 AI processor. It also features a “Micro RGB Engine” that controls the TV’s individual LEDs.
According to LG, the Micro RGB evo provides 100% coverage of the BT.2020, DCI-P3 and Adobe RGB colour gamuts, ensuring almost unprecedented colour performance while cranking up the brightness too. LG did not mention the specific brightness level of the Micro RGB evo, but it’s likely to hit at least 5,000 nits, putting it on a par with rival RGB LED TVs from the likes of Samsung, Hisense and TCL. The company also promises “enhanced contrast and refined detail” enabled by the more than 1,000 local dimming zones.
RGB LED technology first appeared last year in Samsung’s Micro RGB TV and Hisense’s 116UX RGB-Mini LED TV, and it’s quite the novelty, combining aspects of both Mini-LED and MicroLED. Essentially, with RGB LED TVs, the backlights on Mini-LED TVs are swapped out for an RGB MicroLED backlight. This gives the TV a much wider colour gamut, with more local dimming zones that can be controlled independently, while also improving energy efficiency by around 20%. This allows the TV to control lighting and colour much more precisely than traditional backlit Mini-LED TVs, meaning the colour reproduction is more accurate and true-to-life.
The LG Micro RGB evo TV should have much better colour representation that the company’s flagship OLED TVs, but it’s not clear if the overall picture quality is going to surpass the likes of the LG G6 and C6 TVs. OLED is still believed to be superior in terms of contrast, thanks to its ability to deliver true, deep blacks.
Besides the 75-inch model, LG is also offering an 86-inch version of the Micro RGB evo that’s priced at £6,999, and a 100-inch model that will set you back a cool £7,999.
Samsung Electronics has not yet announced U.K. pricing for its alternative Micro RGB TVs, but it did reveal its U.S. prices last week. The new Samsung R95H comes in three sizes – 65-inches, 75-inches and 85-inches, with prices of $3,199, $4,499 and $6,499, respectively. At the current exchange rate, that works out at around £2,367, £3,329 and £4,810, respectively, making them much more affordable than LG’s version.
Hisense, TCL, Sony and Philips will also launch new and hopefully more affordable RGB LED TVs later this year, too.
