LG 2018 TVs hit town with smarts built-in plus stunning OLED.

As the 2017 stock is cleared in discount sales across almost all retailers, the battle for your buck hots up with retailers keen to get your business.  And the TV brands are hitting the start line together with Samsung earlier in the week, now LG announcing their range and pricing for Australia.

If you take a simple look at LG’s approach there’s two stand out features in their range.  OLED, and ThinQ Artificial Intelligence.

OLED is LG’s thing – and while Sony, Panasonic and soon Hisense will be in market with OLED this year there’s only one company making OLED TV panels – that’s LG’s sister company LG Display.  Pair that with the image processing power and design at LG Electronics and you’ve got a market leading best in class OLED – and almost without question best in class TV.

LG C Series OLED

This year the OLED range is split into three, with the C class TV’s featuring a sweeping metal-look base, the E class a stunning glass mount which sets the OLED panel up to float in your lounge-room and is a real highlight of the range.  That is of course assuming you can’t afford the “Wallpaper” series W which can literally be placed on a glass wall, or at the very least any wall and it sticks out a massive 3-4mm once mounted.

The LG E Series OLED

Their OLED TVs this year also feature a new Alpha 9 processor which will reduce noise in the picture, give a more vibrant colour and upscale content beyond that of previous models.

Bread and Butter for the TV companies though are the entry level and mid-range 4K TVs they sell, and while they might not be OLED, don’t be fooled by all the marketing guff around – these TVs feature great picture quality and even the “Nanocell” technology some others brands are capitalising on at their premium range – to offer a stunning picture and importantly viewing angle.

LG’s Artificial intelligence engine is their big feature for 2018 though – and while I think it will be difficult to market to the masses, it is a standout in the market.

While some may describe it simply as a “voice assistant” there’s more to it than that.  Sure with many TVs today you can press a button and say “Turn to Channel 9”, but you’re also saying “Volume Up” or “Volume Down” where as LG’s ThinQ technology claims to use natural language processing to allow you to say “The TV is too quiet” and while that seems crazy given its more words than “Volume Up” it’s about the power of it more importantly.

Searching for content, switching inputs, perhaps learning how you use these devices and hopefully linking up to your other smart home devices in the future.  Plus, Google Assistant integration is also coming soon.

Angus Jones from LG Australia says “At the core of what we deliver at LG is helping make life and living the best it can be and that means passionately improving the day-to-day lives of Australians. 2018 is a massive year of innovation for us as we are integrating LG AI ThinQ technology into our TV range for the first time,”

“This marks a significant and exciting step-change in our journey to help make the TV viewing experience easier and more intelligent for all Australians.

“Globally and locally we work with some of the best in the business such as Netflix, Dolby, Meridian and Google to name a few, to bring their expertise and experience into our products. Based on these partnerships our focus is on continuing to offer Australians premium cinema viewing experiences in the comfort of their own homes.”

Prices are across a wide range, and noticeably the Wallpaper series have come down in price quite extensively in just twelve months.

Here’s LG’s Price List: