Samsung brings more to the UHD table in 2014

2014 is looking like a big year for Ultra High Definition, and that’s one area where Samsung will be pushing hard, announcing more models with curves included, too.

Samsung’s line-up for the new year will include more than just the easel-frame models we first saw from the company last year, with more TVs for people to look over and work out if they belong in their home.

While we love the Samsung Series 9 TVs from 2013, we’re pretty sure our home doesn’t match the style of the big 4K tellies, and definitely not the bold and heavy frame they come with, so it’s nice to see a few new models will be on their way out to consumers.

These include the U8550 Series UHD TVs, which will be sized at 50, 55, 60, 65, and 75 inches diagonally, and will offer better picture quality from a small picture quality database held on a chip inside the TVs, resulting in better quality imagery, all the while keeping a thin display.

Above this series are new models of what we saw last year, the S9 or “Series 9” UHD TVs, offering 85 inch and 110 inch TVs inside the huge frames, practically turning the displays into works of art.

And then there were curves.

Yes, the curvature that was applied to the first OLED TVs is also coming to Samsung’s UHD TVs, with the U9000 series offering up 4K displays with a slight curve, aimed at immersing you in the picture more easily.

The U9000 will come in at 55, 65, and 78 inch screen sizes, and can be wall mounted, but there’s also a bigger curved UHD TV if you want an experience that brings cinema-like proportions to the 4K resolution.

For that, Samsung is bringing out the 105 inch Curved UHD TV (above), a display with a 21 to 9 (21:9) aspect ratio and a 4K resolution, boasting around 11 million pixels and Samsung’s Auto Depth Enhancer technology to make the picture pop off the screen.

All of these will come with Samsung’s Smart Experience, the evolution of the Smart TV system that Samsung launched last year.

Just like 2013, voice and motion plays a part of this package with the quad-core processors inside these TVs making it possible to control the experience in different ways like speaking, though a new remote is also included, too.

New on-screen panels are included in the 2014 edition of the Smart Hub, too, with games and multimedia catered for here, as well as a better web browser which on some screens can split up into four quadrants.

There’s also support for future standards with the Evolution Kit, which like previous high-end Samsung Full HD TVs from the past couple of years, is supported on these. Essentially, this means that when the next TVs come out in 2015, Samsung will release an Evolution Kit that can upgrade not just the software, but also some of the hardware on the TVs, bringing the models more in line with what could potentially be offered then.

“Our stunning new range of Ultra High Definition (UHD) TVs have been designed to offer an amazing viewing experience that we know Australians will love,” said Philip Newton, Vice President for Consumer Electronics at Samsung Australia.

“We constantly strive to provide Australians with the most intuitive and immersive entertainment experience Samsung TV technology can offer.”

Pricing for all of these has not been announced yet, and neither has availability, though Newton did say that all of these details will be shared soon.