Sony’s gargantuan 8K TV will cost $70,000 – time to remortgage

Thinking about picking up Sony’s latest gargantuan 8K TV? Then you better start saving as the top end 98-inch Sony MASTER Series Z9G 8K HDR TV will set you back a staggering $70,000.

Sony revealed the US pricing for the 85-inch and 95-inch variants of the TV on Monday. Both will be available to US buyers in June. The smaller 85-inch model will retail for a still prohibitive £13,000.

The Sony MASTER Series was unveiled at the CES trade show in Las Vegas in January. The line is Sony’s answer to Samsung’s Q900 series of TVs, which made headlines over the last two years for being some of the first 8K TVs available to the general public.

Related: Sony 8K TVs 2019

The 98-inch’s upfront cost may sound scary but, believe it or not, it actually makes the Sony set cheaper than its arch-rival, the 98-inch Samsung Q900, which will sell for $100,000.

As far as specs go both are top of the line. The Sony will be the first consumer TV powered by the company’s X1 Ultimate processor. This’ll apparently let it upscale non-8K content using clever AI tech.

Unlike Samsung’s smaller 2018 8K set, the Samsung Q950, the Sony will also feature an OLED, not LCD panel – which will hopefully let it render wonderfully deep blacks. For Apple users both Sony 8K TVs will also be upgraded to support AirPlay 2 and HomeKit3 at an unspecified point later this year.

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While the TVs look awesome we here at Trusted Reviews aren’t completely convinced there is much need for regular buyers to invest in an 8K telly. The 4K and HDR content libraries on many streaming services, including Netflix, are still pretty lacking. It feels a little early to be talking about 8K as a result.

There are arguments for upscaling – reviewer Jon Archer was particularly impressed how well the Samsung Q950 upscaled content to 8K during testing – but the fact is it’s still a compromise.

We’re more excited about Samsung microLED tech. MicroLED is a next generation screen technology Samsung’s been touting as the future of TVs for the last few years. The company unveiled an unnamed concept Samsung microLED TV at CES that outright blew us away when it came to picture quality.

The tech aims to improve image quality by combining the LCD and backlighting LED layers seen on tradition LCDs into one. This will let them generate blacks the same way OLED’s do, by turning off specific pixels, while simultaneously offering the higher max brightness levels seen on regular LCDs. You can learn more about the tech in our in-depth ‘what is microLED?’ explainer.

Excited about Sony’s 98-inch, 8K beast? Let us know on Twitter @TrustedReviews